I met Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Woolf about five years ago when I took a course that he gave at the Manhattan Jewish Community Center. Since then I’ve become a devout reader of his blog, which he calls his “ruminations on Life, Orthodoxy, Israel, and Academia”. Although Dr. Woolf lectures extensively in his native United States, he lives in Efrat, a small city on the Etzion bloc on the part of the West Bank that Israel still controls. That makes him one of those “Jewish settlers” who are so much maligned by journalists, academics, and left-wing politicians.
But Woolf doesn’t fit the profile of a settler as it is widely presented. While he is strictly Orthodox, he is no religious fanatic. On the blog, he has frequently crusaded against religious extremism. He has impeccable academic credentials. He is an American-trained historian and a senior lecturer in the Talmud Department at Bar Ilan University.
In a posting this week, Rabbi Woolf describes his reaction to and how he is affected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to cave into Barack Obama’s demand to place a freeze on the growth of Israeli settlements.
We moved to Gush Etzion thirteen years ago. For years we had hoped to renovate [his house]. The trouble was that the zoning laws allowed for limited expansion, certainly not enough for a family of seven, very tall people. Finally the laws were changed and we got the legal OK to add on to the back, so that we have room for the family. Now come Obama and Bibi and inform us that we can’t fix our home, which is fully paid for, sits on land that was never owned by Arabs, and lies in the heart of a settlement that everyone knows will always be part of Israel (even Jimmy Carter has said as much). In addition, the Arab and Jewish craftsmen, suppliers and builders will be out of work, this, in a bad economy to boot.
My outrage at this move, more than any personal inconvenience, is my native outrage (bred in me as a Bostonian) at anyone telling me what I can or can’t do with my house (as long as I comply from building ordinances). How come Jews have no right to build legally, while Arabs build illegally on both sides of the 1949 border? What right does a foreign potentate have to interfere with the internal affairs of a sovereign state and ally?
An American president wouldn’t dream of dictating building regulations to a municipality in his own country. But here is the same Barack Obama who as a presidential candidate charged that America was arrogant; that America too often imposed its will on other countries; and, that America didn’t listen enough to its allies telling the Israeli government that it must restrict where its Jewish residents must live.
Supporters of expelling the settlers say that their position is driven by morality and principle, and that the expulsion of Jews from the settlements would have the added virtue of increasing the opportunity for Arab-Israeli peace. It is frequently said, for instance, that the settlements are illegal. But an article by David M. Philips, a law professor at Northwestern University, in this month’s Commentary magazine carefully demonstrates that the case for their illegality is not anywhere as clear-cut as many would suggest.
It is hard to make an argument for the restriction of Jewish settlements even on those lands on which a Palestinian state is likely to come into being. Remember that in May 1948, Jordan and four other Arab states invaded Israel for the purposes of preventing the Jewish state from coming into being. Jordan expelled Jews from all of the territories that it captured. Preventing Jews from returning would effectively put an international stamp of approval on those Jordanian progroms. Shamefully, even after the Holocaust, there are people, many of them Jewish, who champion the demand of another state to create a state that is cleansed of Jews. Moreover, in response to the creation of Israel, almost every Arab government attacked the Jewish communities in their own countries. If Arab regimes had the right to throw Jews out of the West Bank, the very birthplace of Jewish civilization, how can governments be condemned from throwing Jews out of Baghdad, Algiers, or Cairo?
Ironically, many of the same people who condemn Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman as a racist for suggesting that some restrictions be placed on Arabs living in Israel also endorse the Palestinian demand that Jews be excluded from their state. This is blatant hypocrisy. Either states are or are not obligated to extend basic civil rights to people of all ethnicities. A few weeks ago former CIA director James Woolsey wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Even if every settlement [in the West Bank] and its residents were transferred to Palestinian sovereignty, Jews would still compromise under the 10% of the population of the new Palestinian state. Arabs, overwhelmingly Muslim would continue to comprise nearly 20% of Israel’s population. Why should such a minority be forbidden in … Palestine?” If Avigdor Lieberman is a racist, how much so are those who call for the removal of all Jews from the West Bank?
In the lexicon of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the concept of a “two-state solution”, that is the creation of a Palestinian Arab state, has become linked with the dismantling of Jewish settlements on the territory of that state. Used in this context the term “two-state solution” has implications that are far less benign than the simple meaning of its words suggest. Unqualified support for a “two-state solution” tells the leaders and the inhabitants of a new Palestinian state that they will be freed from any obligation of being tolerant toward Jews; and, by extension, from any of the norms that govern the behavior of states.
The Arabs of the West Bank have had a large measure of self-government since the implementation of the first Oslo Accords in the early 1990’s. In large part their government used their newly granted political power to further spread hostility toward Israel and hatred of Jews through their population; acquired weapons in much larger quantities than allowed for in agreements with Israel; and, eventually, used all of this to launch a murderous terrorist uprising against Israelis. But President Obama is apparently less concerned by the fact that, as the veteran scholar Barry Rubin puts it in Tuesday’s Jerusalem Post, “The Palestinian leadership wants total victory and Israel’s elimination,” than he is about Jeffrey Woolf adding a new room to his house.
10 responses so far
1 RioRancho // Dec 8, 2009 at 11:57 am
What an absurd premise. Seriously. If you want to talk about the settlements, fine – talk about the settlements. But what purpose does this “housing inspector” nonsense serve?
Leaving aside the premise – everything else you write is absurd as well. Like Mike Huckabee, you’ve staked out a position far to the right of the hawkish Israeli government. I’m guessing that like that hambone, you are also consulting the bible, not reality, to inform your position.
I’m sure you love the Holy Land – because you are hoping for an eventual violent apocalypse in Israel.
2 LFC // Dec 8, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I agree w/ Rio on this one. The writing is just silly.
It’s really pretty simple. If you want a two state solution, stop expanding the settlements. If you don’t want a two state solution, then go for it.
3 mlindroo // Dec 8, 2009 at 1:46 pm
> An American president wouldn’t dream of dictating
> building regulations to a municipality in his own country.
Those settlements are considered deeply controversial even within Israel, and will make it harder to negotiate a permanent solution to the Israel-Palestine problem.
All this matters very much to the American government…if you resist American meddling in your internal affairs, perhaps it is time to end the vast economic aid ($3 billion+ per year or $500 per Israeli) to Israel?
Like it or not, Israel pretty much owes its existence to the U.S. as no other country has received as much economic aid. Why not show some respect and gratitude?
MARCU$
4 lowerwolf // Dec 8, 2009 at 6:17 pm
This is beyond ridiculous. Even if we assume, for the sake of the argument, that the settlers are really, really, only concerned about “natural growth, no Israeli government, even when led by “Greater Land of Israel” types like Begin or Shamir, has ever considered annexing the territories, partly due to demographic fears, partly knowing that no one, US most definitely included, would ever recognize the annexation. For this reason, Obama is in no sense telling the Israelis what to do “in their own country”.
Moreover, it has been always American policy that settlements are illegal and nonconstructive. Bush Jr. and Clinton might have winked about it but Bush sr. basically overthrew the Shamir government over its refusal to freeze settlements. The only thing that Obama is guilty of is actually trying to implement American official policy for the first time in 17 years, and even that mostly on the declarative level.
5 jakester // Dec 9, 2009 at 1:46 am
In a better world the Israelis would have a compact, semi defensible border without enclaves of her enemies within her. But let us deal with reality, she is outnumbered and politically isolated as her tormentors turned themselves into victims with their antics. Even the Bush admin signed on to a two state plan. Not even the most accomodating, pro Israel Arab going to tolerate a network of exclusive Jewish Israeli settlements in the new Palestinian state.
6 handworn // Dec 9, 2009 at 10:30 am
Never owned by Arabs? Read history. They owned the entire territory for over a thousand years, including Jerusalem, which was the point of the crusades. This is an example of Israelis taking U.S. support so for granted that they’re getting aggressive with Palestine. Anyone who does that is no longer the underdog. A plague on both their houses.
7 Rob from Karnei // Dec 10, 2009 at 2:58 am
Mr. Krossel,
Its hard to believe that your blog attracted so many garbage responses. My father used to say that when you are arguing with an idiot, please make sure he is not doing the same. Thus I will not even begin to defend against their idiocy.
Your points are well made. Obama who’s claim that American arrogance led to many of the problems of the world, if not all of them, becomes hypocrite #1 by telling Israel what it can and cannot do. Truth is we don’t need his money nearly as much as he needs to give it. Actually looking at the US accounts its not his to give..he has to clear it with the Chinese and 3 generations fown the line who will be paying for it forever.
That we happen to have similar value systems in respect for human life, the dignity of man and the force of law, are reasons to be friends with us and work together to stop the rush of evil that is already destrying the world.
Settlements are not the obsrtacles to peace and not the big problem ignorant observers and historical revisionists believe them to be. The Muslim world is not outraged by settlements thus blowing each other up in Iraq, Pakistan, Chechnia, Africa, the entire Middle-East and elsewhere because 300,000 Jews live on their territorial ancestral homeland. You want the real truth? They are doing it because America is arrogant in its belief that supplying Coc-cola and McDonalds makes for a better world. They believe only fundamentalist Islam makes for a tollerable world and they will kill everyone, including their brothers to make it so….they say it outright, why don’t you believe them?
Idiots who ran, and continue to run the USA such as ex-President Carter, who single handedly mismanaged the entire Iran crisis in the 70’s, and Filandered Clinton who mis-managed the shut-dowm of Osama Bin Ladin when he had his chance are the direct cause. As wise as these men were supposed to be, they did not understand the basics. Give a terrorist any space at all and he will destroy your society, and especially naive and arrogant ones.
And they did…look at all the dead marines in Lebanon…look at the Twin Towers…look at the 444 day hostages….look at the rockets from Gaza…Madrid, London, Van Gogh…..tens of thousands of incidents you know and many more that you havent even heard of…..how easily you forget what these people did to you and will continue to do to you…..sheer arrogance.
And now you think that the Palestinians – read Hamas, Hizbollah, Al Fatah are going to give up their terror, suicide bombings, murder, mayhem and more if you give up a small plot of land in the West Bank? Israel has already given up 90%+ land captured in the 6 day war….has it made 1 iota of a difference? Nothing. Zilch, Nada. ….arrogance that you can’t believe what your eyes see.
We have some friends in America who know that we are merely a stopover on the Islamic terror train to total global Jihad domination. Don’t believe me…go to the internet and see the hundreds of clips espousing murdering infidels, American….go to Dearborn Michigan….go to every campus that has an Islamic club…go to any US Military base where Muslims serve and who are prepared to murder American soldiers off to fight their brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan…they say it openly because they dont fear America. They feel America is stupid, fat , lazy, prime for the pickin, and most of all ARROGANT. America argues that after all, how can these backwards-thinking people who climb out of spider holes, caves and sand dunes possibly stop America from continuing to be the worlds superpower?
Radical Islam knows it can be done easily by their backward nihilistic society.
Israel is an enormously powerful country. We have had madmen almost destry our people before, but its not going to happen again. You think for one second we don’t have the power to back it up. You think for one second someone is going to nuke Israel and the entire world is not finished? Think again.
So go ahead. Pontificate on how you are going to deny a Jew his right to build a house in Jerusalem. You worry about that and don’t concern yourself with the madman in Teheran. The bomb in Iran is already ticking and you don’t even care.
Ahmadinijad and Bin ladin are just around the corner ready to drop the bomb on Israel, incidentally murdering all the Palestinians they have been claiming to be tryiing to save for all these years. They did nothing between 1948 and 1967 for the Palestinians then and the sooner they kill them along with the Israelis, the sooner they can come get America, their real target
8 RioRancho // Dec 10, 2009 at 9:41 am
Rob, what is the Hebrew word for “strawman”? Because no one was talking about terrorism until you showed up with your tissue-paper-thin reasoning
9 LauraNo // Dec 10, 2009 at 10:02 am
The President speaks for me. I don’t always agree with what this, or any President says on my behalf but he certainly has that right. When you are a beggar, you can’t complain about the terms. Either Israel stops the settlements in an effort at peace, or we stop supporting them financially. If they don’t like it, tough. If YOU don’t like it, tougher.
10 advocatusdiaboli // Dec 10, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Mr Frum, I favor free speech exercised by intelligent writers conveying their message in well-considered prose and well-formed argument based on fact, giving voice to baseless ramblings justifying illegal annexation of land that is even considered wrong by the majority in Israel degrades the reputation of your blog and is certainly not an example of conservatism that can win again. It is in fact, an example of a party that is wandering off into the weeds of delusional extremism not unlike the Taliban and Jihadists. The author makes Sarah Palin seem a Rhodes Scholar in contrast–a feat I heretofore thought impossible.
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