When the Self-righteousness of the Zionist Left Goes on Full Display
The self-evident, inevitable, legal and just opinion of the International Court of Justice regarding the atrocity that is the occupation triggered the predictable, ludicrous repertoire of reactions in Israel this weekend.
There is no point engaging with those of the right, which holds that there is no international law that applies to the state of the Chosen People, which stands above all law. The painfully similar reactions of the Zionist left and center, and above all of Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, prove for the millionth time that on the core questions, the only difference between them and the right is their lip service and their costumes.
The opinion that was issued Friday would have been rendered long ago by Israel's High Court of Justice, were it worthy of its name. This court, in its cowardice, has abused and betrayed its duty all these years while benefiting from false prestige.
Opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid in the Knesset last year.Credit: Noam Moskowitz/Knesset
But the response of the most magnificent fighting extra-parliamentary opposition in Israeli history, the protest movement of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, the "Kaplanists" and their ilk, which initially fought against the judicial coup and Benjamin Netanyahu and that now fights for the release of the hostages and against Netanyahu, surpassed them all.
This protest has a face, which recently returned after an absence. And so Shikma Bressler wrote on X: "In the test of results, nothing hurt settlement in Judea and Samaria more than the ultranationalist racists. The ruling from The Hague does not come in a vacuum." Bingo. There is an enlightened, just camp in Israel. Bressler is its divine voice.
How easy it is for the Zionist left and center to blame everything on the "ultranationalist racists." We had nothing to do with it, it's them. Only them. The wild hilltop youth, who don't eat with a knife and fork like we do, who are not beautiful like we are or just like we are, the Smotriches and the Ben-Gvirs – they are to blame for everything. It wouldn't have happened on our watch. If we were in power there would be no occupation, no settlements, no apartheid and of course no opinion from The Hague.
Clashes between settlers and Palestinians near Bnei Naim, in the West Bank, last year.Credit: Guy Butbiah
This is how the leader of Israel's protest movement speaks, this is the alternative to lay out. She is of course not sorry for the existence of the "hityashvut" (Hebrew for settlement in general, as opposed to "hitnahalut," used by the left for settlement in the territories), as she calls the crime. She alone knows who is harming it and she regrets it deeply. The Hague opinion didn't land in a vacuum, she knows. Were it not for the Hawara pogroms and the Evyatar rioters, the population transfer in Masafer Yatta and the ethnic cleansings in the Jordan Valley, the "hityashvut" – and the state – would be in good condition. It's the violent settlers, stupid.
Oh lord. The beautiful, righteous Bressler expresses her camp's position perfectly. If only the settlers behaved well, like the Zionist left – occupying softly, dispossessing kindly, harassing gently, shooting and crying – the state wouldn't be going kaput, and we could continue with our nostalgic singalongs undisturbed.
Bressler, Bressler. The settlement enterprise was approved, funded, armed and encouraged by the Zionist left, long before the right, and the riots and pogroms are chaperoned by the Israeli army, which all of you in the protest movement worship. The ultranationalists and the racists are also you, the Zionist left and center, which let these weeds flourish. The racists and ultranationalists are all the Israelis who never truly opposed the settlements. All the Zionist parties that voted unanimously in the Knesset last week against a Palestinian state.
And the violence? The IDF is to blame. If the army didn't want pogroms, there would be no pogroms. Have you ever seen such a pogrom, which occurs nearly every day? Behind every pogrom stands a squad of soldiers who don't lift a finger and sometimes even take part. From the Western Wall in Jerusalem to the Esh Kodesh outpost, it's all occupied territory in which settlement is prohibited by international law.
The International Court of Justice, the most authoritative body in the world – even more than the Yesha Council of settlements – reconfirmed this Friday. Bressler and her colleagues should have rejoiced and fought against the crime. But don't be ridiculous: To her, too, The Hague is antisemitic.