Civil war, or a war between brothers

Monday, September 13, 2004

he anti-disengagement settler demonstration last night in Kikar Zion in Jerusalem (the intersectin of Jaffa Road and the Ben Yehuda promenade) was almost 100 percent religious-nationalist, with the majority teenagers bused in from the territories and was obviously compared to the notorious Kikar Zion demonstration of October 1995, where images of Yitzhak Rabin in a SS uniform were displayed. This time, the closest placard that came to that image, was one of Sharon, with the word ‘dictator’ beneath it. It’s become the byword for those against the disengagement, calling Sharon a dictator, which presumably means that not only is he anti-democratic but does not deserve to head the government.

Civil war – or to use the euphemism preferred by many in Israel, ‘war of brothers’ – is the issue of the day. But that would imply some numerical equality between the government and its opponents, or at least a substantial portion of society ready to pick up arms to defend its position or challenge the government’s position. The truth is that the vast majority of settlers had no ideological position at stake when they moved beyond the Green Line – indeed, the original settlers of Gaza were not motivated by Biblically mandated ideology. And with the compensation being offered the settlers now in the $200,000 per household range – at a time when tens of thousands of Israelis who work for local authorities haven’t been paid salaries for months – it is most likely that while there will be a few thousand demonstrators who will try to prevent a settlement evacuation, most of the actual settlers will likely take the money voluntarily and soon.

Woman Crucified # 13 by Silvia Rosenberg, mixed media on recycled paper, 20x30 cm.

The demonstration last night was actually aimed at the National Religious Party, which until the mid-1970s was a symbol of moderation and from the rise of the Likud in 1977 became a symbol of growing religious-nationalist extremism. The party is convening its central committee tonight to decide whether to quit the government when it approves the compensation package for evacuated settlers (this week) or to quit only when the Knesset approves the plan, presumably some time in November. It’s a tactical question, being posed as fateful, a struggle for the soul of the party. But it is obvious that the NRP will leave the government, if not now then later, paving the way, perhaps, for the Labor Party, under Shimon Peres, to join Sharon in pushing the disengagement through.

And today was the 11th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo accord, on the White House lawn.

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