MicroP:
No, it is in fact you who needs to learn some Torah, which is not limited to three Charedi Rabbonim from the 1900s. Without getting into yet another tired discussion of the Three Oaths and all the related topics, there is an opposing view, one held by giants of Halakha and Machshava, that you and your compadres refuse to acknowledge in the slightest because of politics. We’re not going there, but the fact that you’ve reduced the vast, multi-faceted corpus of Jewish tradition to a single, 20th-century anti-statist polemic proves your “education” is sorely lacking. To act as if the entirety of the Torah’s relationship with EY begins and ends with Satmar-aligned ideology is ignorant and a theological embarrassment.
You’re trying to lecture me on “learning history” while simultaneously huddling inside a fantasy world built entirely out of revisionist nostalgia. You claim I’m “projecting my imagination”, yet your entire premise relies on a romanticized, fictional version of the pre-1948 Middle East.
Your insistence that Jews lived in “peace” before the “Zionist invasion” is a textbook Cherry-Picking Fallacy. You’ve conveniently scrubbed the 1834 Safed plunder, the 1517 Hebron attacks, and some 1300 years of humiliating Dhimmi status from your memory. “Peace” is a bold word for a system where Jews were forbidden from building houses higher than Muslims, forbidden from riding horses, and required to pay a “protection” tax (more like mafia-esque extortion on a massive scale) just to keep their heads. In some cases, Jews literally had to wear yellow clothing (doesthat ring a bell?). If your definition of “peace” is “quietly accepting institutionalized degradation”, then your dictionary is as broken as your logic.
You argue that because the region became a “nightmare” after Zionism, Zionism is the sole cause. This is the Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy at its finest. It ignores the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Pan-Arab nationalism, and global geopolitical shifts that had nothing to do with Jews. To blame the “nightmare” entirely on Jews wanting self-determination rather than on the violent rejection of that presence by others is victim-blaming yet again.
Again the Mufti. You have no shame. “Cordial” didn’t save the lives of those in Chevron or in the Arab Riots; it just gave the Mufti a polite way to scope out the targets. The “lay low” strategy is easy to preach when you’re alive to talk about it. It’s a strategy that failed in the Crusades, failed in the Inquisition, and failed in the Pogroms. Using the temporary, fragile quiet of one specific era as a universal rule for Jewish survival is not “Torah wisdom”; it’s a dangerous gamble with other people’s lives.
Finally, let’s address your absurd claim that Zionism is the “opposite of Jew”. This is a No True Scotsman fallacy. You don’t get to move the goalposts of an entire identity just because you’ve decided your specific brand of anti-statist theology is the only one that counts. Unless you’ve recently been promoted to the Almighty Himself, you don’t get to dictate who is “Jewish” and who is a “sinner”. You don’t get to arrogantly try to gatekeeping a 3,000-year-old identity to fit your narrow, 19th-century anti-Zionist polemic.
Re Nazism and Nazis. You deliberately avoided my point, again.
Spend less time telling others to “learn history” and more time reading the parts of history that don’t fit your echo chamber.
@AAQ: I would love for all of these threads to die off. I wish the @mods would kill them all off. I only respond to the three anti-Zionists because someone needs to present the other side and directly challenge them.
I’m far more interested in issues surrounding Halachic authority, what Halachic authorities actually address (and what has not been addressed), and the major theological problems with Chassidus. Whether Zionism is heresy or not or attitudes toward the State and IDF – as far as I’m concerned, it’s very simple: Secularist Zionism is, Religious Zionism isn’t. The State exists, deal with it – ideally recognizing what HKB”H has given us (by saying the prayers for the State and IDF per halacha). Serve in the army or civil service. That’s it.
To directly respond to the original post one final time: No, “Settlers” are not Rodfim, and the RZ establishment has always been quick about distancing itself from bad behavior, calling out bad behavior (we actually throw our own Rabbonim in jail when they commit crimes deserving such). RZ has also always admitted that the “hilltop youth” – and those who act like them – have always been a problem and that they are extremely difficult to reel in – especially since many went through the Gaza expulsion (that’s exactly what it was). The incident in question is far more complicated and involved some Arab praying on the side of the road – a bad location to pray in, especially on a rug (the driver literally didn’t see him), as well as a driver/soldier driving through a hostile situation – one that could have ended with yet another lynch mob, and an area that has strategic importance to protecting Yerushalayim from Arabs.