Dear Brothers

By Moshe Feiglin

1 Kislev, 5770
Nov. 18, '09

(Translated from the Makor Rishon newspaper)

A fresh campaign to deligitimize the Hesder yeshivas home to the soldiers who refused to evict Jews from their homes is rapidly gaining momentum. But it is specifically these two yeshivas, (Elon Moreh and Har Bracha) that have educated soldiers and commanders who think for themselves and are loyal to their conscience - that deserve our faith and the faith of potential students who are interested in true spiritual growth.

"Fine," say the well-meaning but confused people. "If a soldier is actually ordered to carry out an eviction, he should refuse. But why wave signs of refusal in the middle of an army ceremony? Nobody had given an order - illegal or otherwise. Why make a scene when nothing has happened yet?

As false and demagogic as this claim is, it is gaining momentum - as if the thought police have planted it in the minds of the naive faith-based public that yearns to feel "accepted." It is the same phenomenon that we saw in the expulsion from Gush Katif; national camp soldiers convinced that they must obey orders to evict their brothers, or national camp protestors duped into pointlessly encircling the fence of Kfar Maimon, or sobbing in the synagogues in Gush Katif. Now, it is the same national camp that is being goaded to loudly condemn the soldiers who shouldered responsibility and announced that they would refuse to evict their fellow Jews.

The Golani brigade did not take part in the expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif, its soldiers proudly proclaim. They didn't actually refuse orders - they just made it clear that they would not be willing to do the dirty work. I saw the Golani soldiers there. They, and all those who took their example, were very nice. But they were the holes in the net that the army had cast over the Jews of Gush Katif. They were proud of their (in)action, but they forgot that a net is also made up of holes. Who remembers this gray resistance? Very few. Why? Because it didn't tear the net. It was simply part of it.

There was one righteous soldier in the Sodom-like reality in Gush Katif. His name is Avi Biber. He put his gun down in front of the cameras and explained that he did not enlist in the army to evict Jews from their homes. His actions were a real threat to the net and that is why we all remember him.

The Shimshon recruits who held up a sign at their swearing-in ceremony declaring that they do not evict Jews from their home chose their venue with care. At the moment that they pledged their allegiance to the IDF, they delineated the exact parameters of that pledge. It was not a mockery of the ceremony. On the contrary, it shows how seriously they related to it.

But the self-appointed national camp spokesmen, quaking to feel accepted by Israel's mainstream media, are determined to show how loyal they are. They feel like an adopted child, like a guest who must be on his best behavior. And they get very angry with those faith-based people who feel like this country belongs to them just as much as it belongs to the most leftist media personality. They get very angry with the boy who insists on declaring that the emperor has no clothes.

That is how you behave?
And in the middle of the ceremony?
Why couldn't you have waited until after the ceremony and quietly sent a letter expressing your feelings?

The Left has always praised and encouraged leftist conscientious objection - from the State's Attorney who "understands" the conscientious objectors, to authors and billboards calling to refuse orders - with the authorization of Israel's Supreme Court. They all supported the phenomenon and in so doing, demarcated the left border of legitimate public discourse in Israel. Eli Geva, the brigade commander who abandoned his soldiers in the middle of the fighting in the First Lebanon War was not ostracized. On the contrary. Just like the Israeli, Udi Adiv, who spied for Syria, and is now a lecturer in Israel's Open University, the leftist conscientious objectors have been accepted into the heart of Israel's consensus. Because of the conscientious objection of the Left, nobody in Israel dares to talk about expelling the Arabs or collective punishment for the terror-supporting civilian population.

The Right, though, is incapable of activating its own conscientious weapon. As a result, the right border of the political discourse in Israel is wide open. It is fine to talk about sending tanks to crush Ofra (Sternhal), giving up Jerusalem (Barak), civil war (Negbi) and blowing up bridges (Oz).

The faith-based public does not understand how central it is to Israeli society. We are not the "little orange brothers" of the Left. We are the big brothers of all the Israelis who have proven time and again that they cannot be trusted - good intentions notwithstanding - because they do not have the faith-based tools to understand reality and to deal with it. If we do not act responsibly and take the steering wheel away from our little brothers, they will once again sink the entire ship.

Instead, though, we prefer to leave the steering wheel in their hands, to bask in the crumbs of media "understanding" after the last blow that we have suffered, to submissively prepare for the next disaster and to condemn those from our own camp who have taken responsibility for the fate of our state and of the IDF - and dare to define true limits.