Israel, Beware: In War, Apocalyptic Jewish Ultra-nationalists Are in a State of Ecstasy - Opinion - Haaretz.com
Even if Israel wins the existential war that has been imposed on it, it will still face an internal threat that must not be taken lightly: nationalist ultra-Orthodox Zionism. Those who have spoken with followers of this movement since the calamity and destruction of October 7 encounter a strange phenomenon.
Their eyes sparkle. They are ecstatic. From their perspective, these are the days of the Messiah. The grand opportunity. It is an integral part of fundamentalist understandings, in all religions. The belief in an apocalypse, Armageddon, Gog and Magog, as the sole means of redemption.
In the case of the Haredi Zionists, this is a double fantasy: full Jewish rule over the entire area from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, in concert with the erasure of Arab existence and the emergence of a halakhic state from the ashes of today’s liberal-democratic Israel.
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This explains the talk of a “second Nakba” and the resettlement of Gush Katif, in the southern Gaza Strip, as well as the speed with which settlement groups were organized that set their sights on the ruins of the Gaza-border kibbutzim, and the attempts to take control of the volunteer initiatives to aid area farmers.
But the main focus, of course, is the current war. There is a broad consensus on the need to strike Hamas and end its rule of the Gaza Strip. The debate is over nuances. For example, the question of the ground invasion, its necessity and timing. The issue of the abductees and their priority. The attitude toward civilian casualties, the laws of war and humanitarian aid. To Haredi Zionists, such debates are a detrimental waste of time. Gaza is Amalek, which must be wiped off the face of the earth.
This also filters down to the Israel Defense Forces, because there is a well-established Haredi Zionist stream within the army. The commander of the 36th Armored Division, Brig. Gen. David Bar Khalifa, this week issued a moving, handwritten battle directive to his troops, on letterhead with a quote from Psalms at the top (“As arrows in the hand of a mighty man”): “What has been will be no more! We shall go out to it in war, we shall pulverize every accursed plot of land from which it came, we shall destroy it and the memory of it … and we shall not return until it is annihilated, and [God] doth render vengeance to his adversaries, and doth make expiation for the land of His people… The Lord will give strength to his people, and He shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and forever. This is our war, today is our turn. Here we are!”
This is an ecstatic religious text, suitable for a student at Or Etzion Yeshiva, where he studied, not for a sane, rational division commander in a modern army.
Past commanders of the 36th Armored Division include Zvi Zamir, Uzi Narkiss, Rafael Eitan, Uri Sagi, Amram Mitzna, Avigdor Kahalani, Matan Vilnai, Amiram Levin and Yitzhak Brik. It is hard to imagine any of them issuing something like this military document.
Many Haredi Zionists, some of them civil servants, see the terrible crisis as an opportunity and even a divine plan. The mayor of Harish, Yizhak Keshet, explained the turn of events at a “security conference” he convened this week (Tali Heruti-Sover, TheMarker Hebrew, Oct. 30). “There is a divine move here. It’s perfectly clear. It doesn’t just happen,” he declared while wearing a ceramic bulletproof vest.
“You must look at things, that the people of Israel, in the wake of this difficult and terrible event, survived. There was a much, much bigger and more malicious plan to destroy the State of Israel... from four different fronts, of which Hamas is the smallest. And God’s mercy on us caused them to disrupt their plans. The trigger that caused this is the same party, they saw such a temptation, of 3,000, near the fence, and they could not resist the temptation and entered. This thing saved us.”
It goes without saying that the martyrs of the Nova trance music festival and the victims of the massacres in the border communities are only pawns in the divine plan to complete the mission – in the West Bank.
That is why Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich continues even now to channel government funds to them in a frenzy. That is why settlers and sometimes also Haredi Zionist soldiers riot there unhindered, killing and rampaging and expelling Palestinians. The Jewish jihad is determined to set the entire Holy Land on fire. Israelis who want to live must not take their eyes off it or turn their backs on it.