Religious and Ideological Dimensions of the Israeli Settlements Issue: Reframing the Narrative? Open Access

The segments that follow describe important differences among the settlers. For example, there are generational differences between the original settlers and their children and grandchildren. These differences include their attitudes toward and trust in the government. They certainly translate into differing attitudes toward the use of violent resistance versus more passive forms of protest. There are many settlers whose primary interest is in the well‐being of the state of Israel as a whole, while others are focused on personal or group ideology that may run counter to what the first group would see as the interests of the entire nation. There are also differences between those whose fundamental identity is wrapped up in preserving and expanding the settlements and those who might be convinced that their identity does not depend on the preservation of the settlements. How many settlers are in each category, who can influence the thinking of each group, and how open each is to the search for agreement remains to be seen.

The panelists offer multiple perspectives, based both on their research and their first‐hand experiences, about the changing religious and ideological makeup of the settlers and the settlement movement. To the extent that the future of the settlements hinges on the way the settlers construct their identity, as well as on the narratives they use to explain and justify their actions, there may be little or no room for negotiation. On the other hand, most people hold multiple identities at the same time. For instance, is it possible to reframe the settlement question in a way that appeals to other identities that the settlers share with other Israelis as members of the Jewish state?

Panelists also discuss the impact that a national referendum might have on the thinking of the settlers. To the extent a referendum can generate a clear statement of majority support for an evacuation plan, it might enhance the legitimacy of such a policy. While a referendum would not address the concerns of those who are driven exclusively by their personal interpretations of sacred obligations, it could address the concerns of those who question the government's right or ability to act on behalf of the nation as a whole. As one panelist pointed out, such a referendum may offer a chance to formulate a new social contract in Israel, one that redefines what is fundamentally Jewish about Israel and what will be the future of its Zionist identity.

What is and is not negotiable are a function of the way issues are framed, the options on the table, the selection and credibility of the negotiators, the pressures created by the world at large, and many other factors. The religious and ideological dimensions of the settlement question are crucial, but they are probably open to reframing in ways that most people have not imagined.

How does the familiar (what we know from day‐to‐day life) as much as the ideal (transmitted by religion and ideology) shape perceptions of the real? How are Israeli settlers, like medieval painters of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, expressing their idealized history of a remote past through the most mundane images of environments that they know best? At a more optimistic time, it was a common quip of the pre‐1967 War settlers to say, “First, we will build the homeland, then we will go home.” It would seem that notions of one's home and the homes of one's neighbors, hostile or otherwise, strongly endure in memory, even in the memory of survivors of cataclysms like the Holocaust, who have little reason to cherish lost homes. The homes of the imagination, and the social environment attached to those homes, seem to be very deeply rooted and some may well dot the landscape of the land of Israel, and in particular, the land of the West Bank.

It has become fashionable to use the term “narrative.” A recent New Yorker cartoon depicts a man entering a room and discovering his wife in a compromising position with another man. The wife says, “I know what you’re thinking, but let me offer a competing narrative.”

My use of the word narrative does not express truth claims about any one particular narrative. But there is one truth that, at the outset, we must fully acknowledge: the settlement movement, in its inception and in its earlier years, was an expression of the views of most of Israel's leaders, right and left, Labor and Herut parties. There was a broad consensus that promoted it as a national goal.

The “them and us” is one of the social costs of this period. “De‐demonization” of the settlers is absolutely essential if there is to be any dialogue about new national goals that include peace with neighbors, regional security, the reduction of anti‐Semitism, and the recognition of Zionism as a legitimate national movement for the liberation of the Jewish people.

Narratives are more than myths. They present compacted sequential thinking often including notions of causality. Often in the very packaging of that sequential thinking, we find important clues about what is going on.

Including narratives in any mediation often seems to harden and complicate positions. Our models for mediation are often influenced by lawyers who focus on the “deal” and, therefore, try to exclude messy issues, such as feelings and memories, which are difficult to deal with. Psychologists who emphasize trauma reify memory as a clinical concept and thereby remove from the mediation content that often initially adds to the acrimony. But, at the same time, allowing disputants to introduce their narratives can open new channels of communication between the opponents, increase empathy and mutual identification, and bridge the gaps between conflicting interests and how they are perceived. Encouraging parties to reframe their narratives could provide each side with this empathy.

As a case study, let us analyze Era Rapaport through his letters from prison. Rapaport emerged as a leader of the settlement movement, yet he is not your typical settler. He is a modern Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn and was a leader of the terrorist underground during the 1980s. But we see in him the influence of the home before the homeland. Let us analyze a letter he wrote to a school friend, a Conservative rabbi on Long Island, in 1987 after he had already been caught and convicted of an attack on an Arab mayor.

Rapaport brought to his experiences as a settler in the West Bank memories of the Holocaust conveyed to him by his parents, as well as his own experience of being beaten up by young African‐American men in Brooklyn. At the same time, he was proud of his activity in the civil rights movement and of his graduate training in social work, which he hoped to use to help children. From the American home that he rejected, he insisted on trying to teach Arabs about “Western civilization” (Rapaport 1996).

Rapaport became a cultural relativist and decided to negotiate with the Muhktar (elder) from a neighboring town who had complained that the settlers were expanding their settlements into the land of his Arab community. Rapaport discoursed on the legal status of Ottoman and Jordanian lands and lands of Shilo, his own settlement. While defending the settlers’ claims, particularly in regard to the land that the Muhktar was claiming had been encroached upon, he pointed out to his rabbi friend that his Long Island synagogue's parking lot was probably bigger than the contested land. He reassessed his efforts to teach Western civilization to the Muhktar after the violence persisted and decided instead that he had to demonstrate “compassionate revenge” (Rapaport 1996).

There is a narrative quality to this post hoc explanation of the “slippery slope” that Rapaport followed into violence. Could Palestinians not tell similar stories about how they became terrorists, against the background of their collective narratives, real and imagined, of being displaced from their homes? Might the two sides find common elements in their backgrounds and experiences and not only in their aspirations, which seem to be mutually exclusive? Could that shared narrative encourage more of a sense of the tragic, rather than the heroic? Could this lead them to begin to sense that through a modicum of cooperation, they might be able to help each other overcome their personal and collective tragedies? Perhaps they could realize that by tempering their aspirations for sovereignty over territory, in the end they might be able to fulfill a new set of aspirations that would be a considerable improvement over the current reality of a painful present — even if it compromised fidelity with ideals of the past and visions of the future.

We cannot overlook the effort of parties to a conflict, in general, and the settlers, in particular, to impose old familiars, even if they are not coded in memory as ideals, as a way of charting a course through uncertainty. Historical determinism is part of this blurring of the contemporary. You can deal with the past and the future; imposing the familiar in the uncharted territory of the present is extremely important. Jews carry memories of governments being harsh, unjust, and corrupt — this can create a disregard for the law.

Homeland is played out in a new way by the Jews of Yesha and those of the biblical areas of Yehuda and Shomron. (Yesha is the Hebrew acronym for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Yehuda and Shomron are Judea and Samaria in Hebrew.) Concepts of home meld Zionism with nostalgia and religious fervor. There is a narrative of enlightened humanistic colonialism. Rapaport sees the problems of relating to his neighbors in Shilo through his positive and negative memories of participating and observing the American civil rights movement and its impact on his African‐American neighbors in Brooklyn. Era Rapaport does not want to kill the Palestinian mayors whom he holds responsible for murdering settlers in the West Bank town of Hebron and for other Palestinian violence; he just maims them (Rapaport 1996).

Religions (including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) provide notions that could be conciliatory even as they stoke religious passions that lead to violence. The concept that “the earth is the Lord’s” could bolster real estate arrangements that distinguish between ownership and use. It could provide the legitimacy for this practical distinction, which is not provided by the sovereign nation state.

In summary, as in most conflicts, nobody comes out of this entirely blameless. All parties are ultimately responsible and must participate in some process of resolution, conciliation, and prevention of future conflict.

I do not necessarily suggest the construction of entirely new narratives. Rather, I advocate the collective reframing of old ones. The minimal and necessary goal is the acknowledgement by each disputant to all others that “you’ve got a point there.” Cognitive acknowledgement encourages increased identification between those who heretofore experienced themselves only at odds. It helps lead to an acknowledgement that all suffer from a tragic situation. The unraveling of tightly woven narratives, the poking of holes in the ultimate plausibility of cherished memories, the new accommodation of the perspectives of others, and the reframing of the past encourage an important move toward consensus about what must be done to reduce present suffering and to build a less painful and more hopeful future.

My scholarly capital of interest to this conference rests upon three elements in my academic career. First, I have long been an observer of radical religion, religious violence, and militancy in general; and I have written on fundamentalism, Jewish and Middle Eastern fundamentalism in particular. Let me make just one point out of many taken from my comparative studies: when talking about the Jewish settlers’ potential for lethal aggression, we should take into account the possibility of violence directed toward themselves, that incidents of mass suicide may occur. In many intriguing ways the tragic scenarios of the mass suicide of cult leader David Koresh's followers in Waco, Texas, or of Jim Jones’ followers in Jonestown, Guyana, are not entirely far‐fetched analogies.

Second, I have authored a book‐length research report on the evacuation of the Yamit Region of Eastern Sinai in 1981 to 1982 that followed the Israeli–Egyptian peace accord. Is that evacuation a valid precedent? How applicable are the extensively studied lessons, especially those concerning the “doom‐and‐gloom” forecasts about the possible outbreak of civil war? Again, I would like to mention just a single conclusion, the one regarding the settlers’ ability to absorb extreme frustration. It was a classic “when prophecy fails” case, well‐known from the history of religions and associated with dissonance theory. The settlers’ efforts to stop the withdrawal from the occupied territories was based on a considerable investment and commitment on the part of the true believers. And yet, on April 28, 1982, evacuation became a fait accompli without a single casualty, although not without an enthusiastic and well‐organized violent protest.

With respect to Sinai, there were two opposing authoritative prognoses. First, according to several social scientists, paradoxically enough the frustration was expected to lead to an increase in religious fervor, to a revivalist surge, one that might also involve violence. Second, according to (somewhat cynical) followers of the widely admired Israeli culture critic, Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz, once withdrawal was forcefully imposed upon the settlers and “the messianic balloon punctured,” the frustrated true believers would surely relinquish their Zionist as well as their Jewish loyalties. Needless to say, neither of these extreme options materialized. Jewish (supposedly) radical religiosity proved to be surprisingly pragmatic and adaptive. These observations should also inform our future perspective.

Now to the third relevant element in my previous work. Almost twenty years ago, I submitted a Ph.D. dissertation based on three years of intensive participant observation of the original settlers’ spiritual and political leadership and of ultra‐activists. These were the formative, charismatic, critical years, the mid‐1970s to early 1980s, the Bloc of the Faithful (Gush Emunim) golden age. The movement soon usurped the national agenda and changed the map of the region. I did not know at the time that I was actually studying one of the two most important movements in the recent history of the Middle East, the extreme Jewish national‐religious movement. (Obviously the other one is the Palestinian liberation movement with its radical religious offshoots.) In preparation for this conference, I reread some sections of my more than one thousand pages of field notes. I randomly sampled from these preprocessed materials a few anthropological historical notes that might hold implications for our topic.

Let me emphatically remind you that I am referring only to the hard‐core members of the Jewish settlers’ body, the radical “true believers.” Of the 220,000 settlers, only 60,000 to 70,000 are threatened with evacuation. I focus my attention on just 2,000 to 5,000 of them, just one‐tenth of one percent of the Israeli‐Jewish population. I would like to submit that this element, while tiny, is nonetheless distinct and significant — critical actually. This nucleus, although by no means sufficient, is yet a necessary condition for the settlement project. Arguably, this particular hard core is by far the most decisive and problematic factor that we should focus on when dealing with the issue of dismantling the settlements.

Let me share with you selectively some tentative insights that emerged when reading my two‐decade‐old notes‐findings or contentions that should be considered in the context of the possibility of future evacuation. During my real‐time research, the central settling cadres’ ages ranged from about twenty to thirty. Right now these imposing and experienced personalities are in their sixties. Some difference: youth versus middle age, trail blazers and revolutionaries versus members of the establishment, adventurous daredevils versus members of the bourgeoisie with vested interests.

To be sure, the vast majority of the contemporary settlers are young people born in the territories (note their astonishingly high fertility rate), natives, who take present geopolitical reality as a given. In fact, it is hard for them to conceive of a reality essentially different from the present. How does this biographic or demographic fact influence their reaction to the threat of evacuation? Should they present a stronger opposition or a weaker one compared to their parents and grandparents, whose settlement was not taken for granted, but rather a conscious ideological act of free choice with vision and sacrifice?

One additional comment regarding the comparison between the two generations, to make things even more complicated: the original settlers were a very selective, homogenous, and voluntary elite group that created a virtuous society, a saintly community. This is no longer the case. How will this affect opposition, especially when it comes to the question of potential violence? Take the Hilltop Youth (right‐wing dissident youth groups who seek to protect and encourage the settlements), for instance, or some other enclaves of ruffians and somewhat eccentric religious activists, like the ones settling in the Palestinian city of Hebron, groups that function as a refuge for many who have problems adjusting to their social environment. Past confrontations have already highlighted the gray areas in which ideological delinquency partially overlaps with criminal delinquency or sheer hooliganism.

During the heyday of the Jewish settlement project in the disputed territories, it was suffused with religious messianic spirit. While emerging and then taking root and expanding, the key word among Gush Emunim's hard core was redemption. The ardent settlers’ Jewish maximalist Holy Trinity was redemption of the Whole Land of Israel for the Entire People of Israel, according to the True Torah. The name of the settlement game was redeeming the universe, preceded and preconditioned by the redemption of the local Jews. (Eventually, the Palestinians were promised redemption too, ipso facto, therefore settling amidst their population centers was for their own sake.) Religious thought and practice were messianic; politics, ritual, and, of course, rhetoric were charged with imminent redemption. Enthusiastic and high‐voltage messianic urgency was in the air. The realization of the dream was just around the corner. May I remind you of the close association between deterministic messianic urgency and militant hyperactivism?

In fact, the great success of the settlement project was fundamentally instrumental in changing the face of Jewish religiosity in general, making it essentially messianic. As it was for a couple of generations in the first and second centuries and for two years in the mid‐seventeenth century, in the final three decades of the last century, Israeli religiosity has been dominated by acute messianism. One way or another, with minor exceptions, right now the hard core of Gush Emunim settlers is no longer possessed by its previous messianic fever. The settlers exposed to the evacuation threat seem to be once again true believers of the old type, rabbinic Jews, regular orthodox or ultraorthodox. Should we speak here of the resumption of “normal” religiosity or rather about religious crisis?

The settlements’ beginnings and achievements involved religious originality, thriving religiosity, the exhilarating experience of religious innovation and success. This great revival infused the settlers with self‐assurance. They were certainly afflicted with hubris, not infrequent in the history of extreme religious movements. Recently, however, Gush Emunim has lost a lot of its political and religious confidence. Does it make the movement a more or a less agreeable partner in a dialogue? Arrogant settlers or desperate settlers — whose potential for violence is higher? With whom would you prefer to negotiate a settlement?

On the “Hilltops” of Judea and Samaria there are new outposts that are branches of old settlements. Young people who did not adhere to the formal state‐established procedures for creating new settlements have founded these new Hilltop outposts. Most are second‐generation settlers of the region. Their movement had its beginnings in the years following the Oslo Accords. These Hilltop Settlers are difficult to study systematically. Because there are a very large number of these Hilltop outposts, from the map you might think that the whole of Samaria and Judea are full of settlers. But much of the West Bank consists of empty space, uninhabited, empty mountains, and hillsides. A typical Hilltop outpost may consist of ten or fewer young families and several nonmarried young people.

I have conducted a pilot study of these Hilltop Settlers. My main purpose was to compare these Hilltop Settlers with the original settlers in the Gush Emunim movement. Are the Hilltop Settlers creating a new movement, or simply continuing the older one?

The study was conducted in 2002. I investigated two groups: fifty‐six Hilltop Settlers from thirty Hilltops who answered a long questionnaire on different topics (quantitative data), and ten leaders of the settler movement (e.g., rabbis, heads of regional councils) were interviewed on the same topics (qualitative data).

The average age of Hilltop Settlers was 27.3; 49 percent were women, and 51 percent were men. The average family had two children. Eighty percent were married. Fifty percent had lived on the hilltop for two years or less. Fifty percent worked in agriculture. Sixty‐three percent had finished high school and 44 percent had earned a bachelor's degree. Ninety‐nine percent were from various streams of religious Judaism. Most of the Hilltop Settlers live under poor housing conditions, inferior in comparison to their previous housing. Most of them report that their parents are happy with their decision to live in the Hilltop (Kaniel 2003).

The responses of the Hilltop Settlers suggest their motive for living on the Hilltops is to fulfill two of God's commandments: settling and working the land of Israel. Redeeming or unifying the Jewish people as a whole does not appear to be an important value. Seventy percent rejected working with Arabs because Arabs are seen as enemies and it was important that Israeli Jews build their own country with an intense connection to the land. Twenty percent rejected the idea of any non‐Jews (including Arabs) working in Israel. Only 10 percent expressed willingness to compromise and let Arabs build their own settlements or communities.

When asked about the conflict between Jews and Arabs, most Hilltop Settlers perceived their reality as a continuous war, which would either be won or lost, with the losers facing expulsion and revenge. Without changing this perception and restoring some trust between the groups, it would appear that there would be little willingness on the part of the Hilltop Settlers to favor either negotiations with Palestinians or compromise.

Trust in Israeli government institutions was very low. When asked how they would respond to an attempted transfer or evacuation, 26 percent responded that they did not believe it would ever happen. Thirty‐nine percent said they would engage in passive resistance, while 22 percent said they would engage in active resistance. (I did not question them specifically about how they might resist. This was the most delicate and problematic area for questioning; the subjects were very suspicious. I did not want to do more than ask whether they would participate in “active” or “passive” resistance.)

In my study, these results are discussed using three different identity elements: ego identity, ideological identity, and group identity. I suggest that three different psychological processes are at work at the same time in an integrative way. Many Hilltop Settlers:

• resolve dissonance by not acknowledging the sovereignty of the Israeli government;

• rebel out of an expressed need for meaningfulness and a “hunger” for deep spirituality; and

• negate the identities of others in order to build and strengthen their own identity.

My comparison between the Gush Emunim and Hilltop movements is based mostly on qualitative data. The Gush Emunim believed that the Torah, the land, and the people of Israel were of equal importance. They saw the creation of the state of Israel as a nation as representing the beginning of a messianic redemption. Even with a nonreligious government, the state incorporated holiness. The Hilltop Settlers believe that the unity of Jewish people is less important than the Torah and the land. There is no redemption yet and no holiness in the state. There is a need to fight against immoral decisions.

The Gush Emunim generation believed that settling the land is a high public value. There is a need to attract all the Jews. The Hilltop Settlers believe that settling the land is a high private value. There is no need to attract all the Jews. The Gush Emunim practiced religion in communities and medium to large congregations, while the Hilltop Settlers practice in small groups with more freedom from religious authorities. The Gush Emunim prioritized the Torah over work, while the Hilltop Settlers think the opposite. The Gush Emunim hoped to achieve goals of Zionism in a religious way, aiming to become the locomotive of the Zionist train. They wanted to integrate democracy and religion. The Hilltop Settlers believe Zionism is ended and there is a need for new goals. They are searching for a new train. They define democracy as a religion, which is contrary to the Jewish religion.

The Gush Emunim generation accepted non‐religious Zionist leaders, as well as the authority of both the Israeli government and of the chief rabbis. The Hilltop Settlers accept neither, deferring to local rabbis who are highly heterogeneous in their ideology. While the Gush Emunim viewed their reality as involving low‐intensity conflict, the Hilltop Settlers see it as war. The need to win over the hearts of all of the people is common to both groups. But while the Gush Emunim thought Arabs could help work and build the country, the Hilltop Settlers see no place for Arabs in Israel.

In sum, the Hilltop Settlers are trying to go back in history, trying to build their identity based on Biblical sources and time, thus, the title of my talk. Their identity has the following characteristics:

1. The main biblical metaphor: The Holocaust survivors are the slave generation in Egypt, the Gush Emunim generation is the desert generation, and Hilltop Settlers are the generation that conquers the land.

2. The centrality of the land: Hilltop Settlers are intensely passionate about the need to settle and work the land of Israel that was promised to the Jews by God.

3. Scale of community: Hilltop Settlers wish to live in small, tribe‐like groups that permit a degree of individuality.

4. Non‐materialistic lifestyle: Hilltop Settlers believe in living simply and modestly, in tune with nature.

5. View of conflict: The Hilltop Settlers believe war should be declared and waged against anyone who threatens Jews and that revenge against those who harm Jews is appropriate.

Originally I planned to discuss ideological compensation, but recently I decided to change my theme because the most up‐to‐date and meaningful subject is the significant extremism of the behavior of people whom we used to describe as moderate leaders of settlers.

Let me describe my concern. In a recent interview, Uri Elitzur, one of the editors of Nekuda, the settlers’ monthly magazine, who also formerly worked in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, suggested that it is legitimate to injure soldiers who are trying to evacuate settlers — you just cannot kill them. Of course, this is a very troubling statement by a senior person within the settler establishment. But to be honest, in my eyes it is not the most worrying development because after all, Elitzur — important as he is — is only one person. From my perspective, what is far more worrying is the behavior of the heads of the Yesha Council (also known as the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza).

This council is made up of the heads of the Israeli municipalities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza strip (what we call “the territories”). These people are the formal leaders of the settlers. Until a few months ago, I would have reported that the current membership of the Yesha Council was the most moderate leadership of the council since its founding. Until recently, they not only condemned every extreme expression that might provoke violence, but they also accepted the principle that the national interest of Israel as a state should be above settler ideology.

Today, the leaders of the Yesha council sing many of the same words, but the music and emphasis are very worrisome. They no longer explicitly condemn extreme statements. Instead, their message is that, if the current process continues, we, the leaders, cannot control aggression. Rather than trying to restrain their followers, they are instead trying to frighten the politicians who might support relocating settlers. There is some truth in their claim that they cannot control aggression, but it is not the whole truth.

When I prepared a report about the implications of the evacuation of settlements, I interviewed a father and son, Israel and Itai Harel. The son is a young social worker, and the father is the first chairperson of the Yesha Council and the founding editor of Nekuda. The father said, “We will not do anything to jeopardize Israel.” The son said his only “red line” is physically injuring soldiers — anything less is legitimate. Anything less includes disobeying military orders, damaging equipment of evacuating officers, and so on. I am concerned. In this example, I am not describing the extremism of the most extreme leaders, but an extremism exhibited by people who used to be moderate settlers.

We do not have to agree with the new consciousness of the previously moderate settlers, but we have to acknowledge and understand it. Several factors combine to create a change in consciousness. In general, no one would respond well to being evacuated from his home. However, there are a few factors more specific to their circumstances.

The expectation that settlers will accept the edict of evacuation is based upon the idea that they have loyalty to the state and the nation. But settlers feel that, in Israeli society generally, the sense of state loyalty has weakened. In the Israeli media we can hear leftists voice contempt toward the idea that loyalty to the state is a fascist principle. In that situation, many settlers are saying to themselves, why should we pay with our homes and dreams on behalf of a principle that is no longer valid?

It is important to understand the settlers’ conception of their place in Israeli society. They do not see the budgets and political support they receive as a unique political achievement, but as simply what is due them by reason of the fact that they are the ones in Israel who are still actively implementing Zionism. They also see themselves as political underdogs. They feel that they took insults for many years and behaved responsibly. Now, a hostile elite threatens to take their homes and destroy their communities. The settlers are saying “enough.”

Withdrawal is not seen as a national decision but as a finite victory of the leftist elite. Two factors strengthen this feeling. First, we are arriving at this place after many years during which much hatred has been directed toward settlers. Second, and more important, the evacuation is unilateral. Everyone understands that terrorism will continue even after settlers are evacuated. So settlers ask themselves: for what are we being asked to make this sacrifice? Settlers feel that leftists hate them so much that they want to evacuate them even if Israel receives nothing in return.

This is the source for their call for a referendum. The settlers do not trust the politicians, so they call for a grassroots decision by the people. Again, some people will say this call is only a trick for delaying the process. While this may be a partial motivation, many settlers sincerely believe that the Israeli political system is too corrupt for the government to be trusted to make a moral and legitimate decision that so fundamentally affects the lives of people who would be displaced. The people should be allowed to decide through a referendum instead.

Do not be confused. The settlers will continue to oppose an evacuation even if it is approved through a referendum. But many claim — and there is some truth to these claims — that a referendum might change the motivation for extreme forms of protest, reduce the numbers of people who would participate in such protests, and affect the capacity, moral and political, of moderate leaders to constrain and act against their own extremists. Of course, there are good reasons not to hold such a referendum. The strongest reason is that a referendum undermines the political system, and it might set a dangerous precedent that might be invoked by other groups when other conflicts arise. But I believe that holding a referendum might constructively channel and moderate the internal conflict over evacuation.

The current debate about Prime Minister Sharon's proposal to remove settlers from Gaza and four West Bank Settlements is not typically cast by the settler movement in terms of whether it is right or wrong as a matter of policy or wise politics. Instead, it is cast in terms of jurisdiction: does Israel as a state have the sovereign power to decide it? Is there a legitimate process that can adjudicate the conflict? Sovereignty is at the core of the problem.

Many settlers call for a referendum, and in doing so, they are implicitly and explicitly making a number of claims that are a challenge to state sovereignty:

• that elected government officials lack the jurisdiction to decide these issues because citizens cannot otherwise directly participate in the decision;

• that to be legitimate, an absolute (not relative) Jewish majority should be required; and

• that relocation of settlers poses issues of Jewish law beyond the capacity of the state to decide.

To understand the challenge, it is helpful to identify two constituency elements of the settlers’ claims in the debate: identity and the sacred.

The settlers claim that their very identity is being undermined. This suggests that they are not speaking about miscalculation but about betrayal. Settlers often use language suggesting that they would be made into refugees. They use the language of “transfer.” The transfer of a population usually results not only in the loss of one's home but in the loss of citizenship. It typically entails the creation of refugees. The settlers claim they will be refugees. But that is, of course, nonsense — settlers will retain their citizenship.

The settlers also couch their claims in religious terms, as affecting the sacred. They are not arguing in terms of an erroneous or wrong decision, but about a sinful one. We can compromise on interests, security, and so on, but the sacred is, by definition, indivisible and nonnegotiable. If it is sacred, it is mine. As an aside, I should note that the language of the sacred is not only used by the Israeli side but also by the Arab’s. This is what is horrifying about turning the Israeli–Palestinian conflict into a Jewish– Muslim one.

When couched in terms of identity or the sacred, the conflict is difficult to negotiate. Some settlers fear that this withdrawal means that Israel is stripping itself of its Jewish national identity. The Israeli left helps give this impression when it casts the issue in terms of an identity conflict rather than a political one. This is a mistake, because if you deal with the sacred and identity, you cannot compromise. Politicians make cynical use of the identity issue all of the time.

So, what do we do? Because the process of debate is perceived as encompassing identity, withdrawal must be accompanied by reassurances that this is not about the divestment of Israel of its Jewish national identity. There is a feeling that as part of the withdrawal and the destruction of communities, there must be a new social contract as a whole with reaffirmation of what is Jewish about Israel — its basic Zionist identity. Identities are in flux and acknowledgment is part of addressing them. If those issues are not addressed, you get into a bind.

Paradoxically, the rabbinical elite of the settler movement, its older leaders, assert uncompromising claims about preserving all of Eretz Yisrael (Hebrew term for the land of Israel). But, at the same time, they believe in the holiness of the Jewish state as a whole and not just the holiness of the land. The combination of these beliefs has led them to moderate the steps that they allow the settlers to take in protest. Moreover, not all settlers, even observant settlers, make extreme religious claims.

That is right. I did not describe settlers as a whole. There is diversity. I was dealing with the hard‐core settlers. The issue of divestment of identity is not mitigated by rabbinic expertise; it is a sensibility that is difficult to articulate. Rabbis, like good lawyers, are always careful. I am not suggesting that they are directly inciting violence. Instead, they are legitimizing it in a more subtle way. Speaking the language of betrayal and sin creates legitimacy. It opens the field to violence. They can then try to constrain it, but it opens the door and casts the debate in a certain way that implies nonviolent governmental procedures for resolving conflict are essentially illegitimate.

Several questions come back to identity. Is identity fixed? Does the process of acknowledgement change people's interpretation of their own and the other's identities? If identity shifts, is it malleable even if it is not negotiable?

Acknowledgement pokes a small hole in the barrier to agreement, which can then lead to greater progress. I should also add, by the way, that identity politics can encompass either the left wing or right wing.

Let me point out the possibility of another alternative, one which is neither the hawkish Gush Emunim nor the leftist Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) style. The former sanctify the territories, hence they insist on sticking to them. The latter see the territories as anathema, an abomination to be relinquished as soon as possible and eliminated not just from the geopolitical but from the mental and mythological map as well. I propose to consider the possibility of returning to the old Jewish agenda, namely the pre‐Zionist position, which refrained from annexation initiatives, on the one hand, and from sacrilege of the whole land of Israel, on the other hand. One may love the land, including its parts across the border, and, at the same time, remain within the border. To be sure, this stance involves the capacity to contain a considerable inner tension. Contemporary Israelis might realize that such a (post‐Zionist?) stance may prove creative and possibly gratifying.

How the language of the sacred plays out is something that can be addressed.