civil disobedience

Civil Disobedience? Part of the problem is that they are so unlike us. They are completely removed from nearly all elements of pop culture, yet are part of the technological dissemination applied in a totally different manner, one indifferent to the entertainment, the merchandising celebrity of consumer messianism, the culture constituted from appearances and the general psychosis and absurdity where in this society of the spectacle, publicity is the only ideology…

Bu what happens beyond this ideology of appearances, where there is no embedded advertising, product placement or demographic worth doing a targeted commercial assassination on?  In israel, the disengagement from Gaza , Gush Katif in effect an expulsion,  and the subsequent displacement of over 10,000 ( DP’s in israel like refugees)  was based on a logic that the displaced considered devoid of Jewish law and the Torah, in contradiction to State law, which made it expedient, by executive order to uproot these communities.  The Settlers feel that had the Israelis factored in a logic given at Sinai in jewish law, they would have been able to deflect the moral suasion and arm twisting of the EU as well as what they regarded, with justification in hindsight, as an equally devoid of integrity promise of peace from threatening neighbors. Funny the irony of of the settler movement, – Hilltop People, Land of Israel etc. and a secular liberal like Gunter Grass can each claim hostility to Zionism, for reasons based on oppositional contexts: a socially inclusive democratic state of Hebrew speaking Bavarians and Berliners, a somewhat depersonalized and de-realized vision of nationality, a pseudo state but malleable, and a resolute vision of conviction based on the Torah. To the secularists, the original Zionist dimension which heels closely to Grass’s politics of liberal democracy, the settlers defiance of State ordinance is beyond absurdity with no pretense in engaging with reality. Who is right?

Perhaps long term, Gaza will be peaceful, but a present it can be interpreted as a moving of the goal posts, a closer launching pad for indiscriminate aiming of  kassams and  other types of rocket bombs from the zones  of what were once the successful communities of Gush Katif. The point of all this, according to the settlers and their supporters,  is to convey that the propensity, the folly intentional or not,  of individuals  to make the unacceptable and illogical as being logical and acceptable. Their line of reasoning falls under the general thought that the beauty and  truth of the Torah is that even the sensible and the logical will never become just that; these are constructs of the human mind alone without foundational basis and thus subject to all the caprices that ephemerality can dish out.

Agree or not with them, they incarnate the pioneer spirit and an energy based on profound conviction they are fulfilling a mission to be a light onto the world; and its also the sign of a healthy people willing to stand up to the power of the state, what they consider to be an authentic confrontation of speaking truth to power.

( see link at end) : …Rabbi Wolpo, who was hauled in by Israeli police for questioning last Thursday.

Many feel that Wolpo was summoned in response to events that took place over a year ago, just as preparations for this month’s Gush Katif Museum Dinner in New York happened to be nearing completion. Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo, a leading figure in the struggle for preserving the integrity of the land of Israel, who is presently in the midst of last-minute preparations for the Gush Katif Museum dinner in New York on February 22, was summoned by the Israeli police for questioning last Thursday.

His interrogator showed him a video clip of a ceremony in Jerusalem over a year ago, with prominent Rabbis and Knesset members present. It showed Rabbi Wolpo presenting a “Hero of Israel” certificate, together with 26,000 New Shekels, to a soldier’s parents.

The soldier, at a previous initiation ceremony held at the Western Wall to swear in new IDF recruits, had led a group of soldiers recruits in raising a banner proclaiming that they swore to protect the Jewish state and its people,

not to evict Jews from their homes. For this courageous act he was sentenced to 26 days in military jail.

When any soldier is jailed for such acts, the Museum awards his parents 1000 New Shekels for every day of his jail sentence – “as a sign of esteem for their merit of having raised such children who are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the people and land of Israel,” as Rabbi Wolpo says.

The interrogator informed Rabbi Wolpo that he is under suspicion of encouraging soldiers to disobey orders, a crime liable to heavy punishment.

Rabbi Wolpo declared that he intends to continue on this path, because it is inconceivable that a young person initiated into the IDF at the Western Wall with an oath to protect his people and homeland, should later be compelled by his commanders to transgress that oath by aiding the enemy’s battle against Jews faithful to their homeland.

“I’m not encouraging disobedience to orders,” declared Rabbi Wolpo to the police investigator.

“I’m encouraging soldiers to follow the order of G-d, who gave the entire land of Israel to the Jewish people and commanded us to settle every part of it. Disobeying orders are those trying to please the enemy by advocating establishment of a terror state in the heart of the Holy Land. We already see the results of that policy, following the expulsion of thousands of Jews from Gush Katif and northern Samaria – a senseless act that has already brought loss of life and limb to hundreds of Jews from missiles fired from the territory of Gush Katif, and that has only distanced us ever further away from peace!”

“Do you have anything to add?” asked the interrogator as he concluded his questioning. “Yes,” replied Rabbi Wolpo. “From this interrogation chamber, I want to call on all our dear brethren who are soldiers to refuse any such order that is so clearly illegal!” Bearing in mind that this summons was issued over a year since the original award ceremony, some have raised suspicions that its odd timing was intended to intimidate the organizers of the Gush Katif Museum’s dinner in New York, warning them not to use the dinner to speak out against the government’s policies of concessions and evictions from settler outposts. … Read More:http://www.chabad4israel.org/oldevnt/oldevnt.shtml

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