Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Politics, and Culture: Books on Israel, Volume II

4. Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and Political Action

Stewart Reiser Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and Political Action David Biale. Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History. New York. Schocken Books. 1986. Ian S. Lustick. For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. New York. Council on Foreign Relations. 1988. Haggai Segal. Dear Brothers: The West Bank Jewish Underground. Woodmere. New York. Beit-Shamai Publications. Inc.. 1988. Ehud Sprinzak. Fundamentalism. Terrorism, and Democracy: The Case oj Gush Emunim Underground. Occasional Paper. Washington. D.C.. Smithsonian Institute. The Wilson Center. 1986. The place that Jewish law. or halacha. occupied for the Jews of Palestine shifted after the establishment of the state ofIsrael. Citizens ofIsrael. be they Jewish. Muslim or Christian. had several vehicles for the creation ofstate laws which could. but need not have reflected halachic values. These were political parties. national elections and the Knesset. Neither these modem instruments of national power. nor the Declaration of Independence that notes Israel as both a "Jewish" state and a "democratic" state. has yet resolved the possibly unresolvable contradiction between state law and religious law in Israel. One major focus of the 1988 post-election negotiating period was an amendment to "The Law of Return." or what popularlybecame known as the "Who is a Jew" amendment. This demand by Agudat Yisrael. with substantial support from some of the other religious parties. placed Yitzhak Shamirin a difficult political position. Likud's acquiescence seemed necessary in order for Shamir to construct a center right/extreme right/religious party coalition. However. this 64 Critical Essays on Israeli Society. Politics. and Culture acquiescence, as well as concessions to the extreme right parties, would have alienated United States Jewry just when its support was becoming increasinglyvital due to the intifada, the Palestinian diplomatic initiative, and the American government's response to each. The renewal of the National Unity government achieved several negative objectives; that is, it prevented and obstructed the confluence of certain forces within Israel's political society that had assertive agendas to pursue. In short, it "clipped the wings" of the extreme left and right on the one hand, and neutralized the demands of the expanded religious parties on the other. However, it should be born in mind that the leaders of the religious parties involved in this latest skirmish of the Israeli Kulturkampf contained this most recent confrontation within the established organs of the state and utilized the groundrules of the system. There is a clear concensus among them in their recognition of the sovereignty of the state, and its parliament, for the purpose of converting Israeli law to halacha. There was no such consensus among those messianic militantswho comprisedwhat became known as the "Jewish Underground" earlier this decade, nor among the wider Gush Emunim movement from which it evolved. The range of disagreement within the Jewish fundamentalist movement in Israel is the subject of several recently published books. These books approach the subject from different directions and examine the phenomena at different levels. These are Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, by David Biale (ASSOCiate Professor of Jewish History and Director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California); For The Land and The Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, by Ian S. Lustick (Professor of Government at Dartmouth College); Dear Brothers: The West Bank Jewish Underground, by HaggaiSegal (Israelijournalist and convicted former member of the Jewish Underground); and a succinct monograph by Sovereignty. Legitimacy. and Political Action 65 Ehud Sprinzak (Professor of Political Science, Hebrew University, Jerusalem) entitled Fundamentalism, Terrorism and Democracy: The Case of Gush Emunin Underground. While it is not the central focus of all of these works, this chapter will examine concerns that each treats: the relationship and tension between messianic objectives versus the constraining function of the sovereign state in the formulating foreign policy: and the function of several members of the rabbinate as legitimizing agents for extralegal violent activity with foreign policy as well as domestic implications. Lustick's exceptional For the Land and the Lord is quick to point out that the perceptual and ideological categories shared within the fundamentalist movement do not limit themselves to some ethereal, symbolic purpose, but actually guide interpretation ofdaily events. The major strength of the book is the author's broad and deep analysis of the critical pOints of agreement and disagreement within the movement.l Among the more substantial pOints ofdisagreement are the source of"transcendental authority" since the death of Rav Tzvi...