Wanted: Homeland "Stolen" by the State

Yitzhar's rabbi: The state stole Israel from the JewsBy Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

Rabbi David Dudkevitch, the rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, was not present last Shabbat when dozens of Yitzhar residents avenged the stabbing of a boy from the settlement by going on a rampage of shooting and destruction in the neighboring village of Asira al-Kabiliya. He was there in spirit, however. Dudkevitch, who is highly respected in Yitzhar, is generally media-shy, but this time, he made an exception.

"The proper and healthy thing, and this applies to the events of Shabbat as well as in general, is for the Israel Defense Forces to be involved not only in apprehending terror suspects, but also in collective punishment, up to the level of reprisals, of the environment that supports terror," Dudkevitch told Haaretz Monday. "In the past, the State of Israel did this. But [today], just as it did in Gaza, with one hand it acts against terrorists and Katyusha launchers and with the other it feeds them and their families and cultivates the soil from which terror grows."

"Most of the Arab population - in the Galilee, the Triangle and in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] - desires the destruction of the state," Dudkevitch continued. "Some of them say this in Western-democratic disguise, others say it without masks."
According to the rabbi, 80 to 85 percent of local Arabs "hope and scheme to destroy the sovereignty of the Jewish people in our land," and therefore, "their emigration should be encouraged."

How?

"There will be many opportunities, both by encouraging and by deporting, but we must start with encouragement, with a general statement. That's the minimum."

Dudkevitch, 44, has been dubbed the rabbi of the "hilltop youth," and as such he expresses surprise when asked why Yitzhar is not surrounded by fences, which might have prevented the infiltration of the knife-wielding terrorist on Saturday.

"I am amazed to be asked that," he said. "The Bible says that when people 'sit in [fenced] camps' it radiates fear and unnaturalness, while when they are in open towns, it is a sign of strength, confidence and heroism. Let the Arabs, not the Jews, live within fortresses, fenced in. There are settlements that have agreed to be fenced in. I don't judge anyone. In Yitzhar we chose otherwise. There is so much land surrounding the settlements that the Arabs never thought of approaching them, and those that fence themselves in lose a huge amount of land."

In recent years, Dudkevitch has become identified with a strain of religious Zionism that distances itself from the symbols and institutions of the state. He does not reject this image.

"Unfortunately, the State of Israel, and especially its judicial system and its constitution, has in recent years chosen to place nearly every Jewish element into a universal, rather than Jewish, definition. It still glories in the title of a Jewish-democratic state, or democratic-Jewish, but in nearly every respect, particularly that of sovereignty, there's nothing to back that up. The state stole the state from the Jews, and sovereignty is attributed to all its citizens and not to the Jewish people throughout the generations."

"Against this background," he continued, "it's obvious that a great many people who are secure in their Judaism feel emotionally distant from the state, which is in another place altogether. This has a very high price, because citizens who find it hard to identify with their state - that is very damaging. When traitors to their state are allowed to serve in the Knesset and become part of the decision-making process, how can anyone, first of all on the emotional level, identify with that state?"

In light of the possibility that additional territory and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria will be evacuated, some of your colleagues are talking about establishing a 'state of Judea' alongside the State of Israel. Do you believe in this?

"The State of Israel is not the be-all and end-all. If it decides it does not want to be in the hereditary lands of our forefathers, then other Jews have the right to organize themselves in order to live there, even without a link to the state. Is it practical? I doubt it. That's why I'm not signing up for it. But when there's talk about another expulsion, then on the ideological level, the 'State of Judea' is no worse than expulsion."


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