Time to Cut Off the Diseased and Rotten Limbs

7 Tammuz 5786

The message here is that these two groups are in it together whether they recognize it or not and whether they accept it or not. The commitment to Torah is the only thing that really binds one Jew to another. Outside of it, as demonstrated by the Torah-haters, there is no shared "brotherhood".

Gathering these two groups under the same authority has to be the first step of Mashiach's rule.

When secular activist Naor Narkis declared in a recent interview that Religious Zionists are draft dodgers, few were surprised. Narkis has built his entire political brand on contempt for religious Jews, positioning himself as the voice of secular resentment ahead of his Knesset run with the Democrats party. His claim that the hesder yeshiva system should be shut down was pure provocation — the kind of inflammatory rhetoric designed to generate headlines and primary votes.

What should alarm anyone who cares about honest public discourse is that respected mainstream journalists immediately lined up to echo his attack.

Nir Dvori, a veteran Channel 13 correspondent, stated flatly that Religious Zionists "need to do service like everyone else, there needs to be change and full equality on this issue." Ben Caspit, a prominent political analyst, went further, declaring that "the days of this ancient hesder arrangement must end. Full service for everyone."

The statements reveal either profound ignorance or deliberate dishonesty. The Religious Zionist sector has the highest rate of combat enlistment and officer training of any community in Israel.

...When Caspit tweeted his call to end hesder, he lumped Religious Zionists together with the haredi community in a single condemnation — despite the fact that these are two entirely different populations with radically different approaches to military service.

This conflation suggests two possible explanations, neither flattering. Either these journalists harbor a fundamental hostility toward religious observance itself, viewing any accommodation for Torah study as illegitimate regardless of the military contribution involved. Or they have grown so frustrated with the genuine problem of haredi draft evasion that they have decided to target an easier mark — a community that actually serves, but whose religious character makes it a politically convenient scapegoat.

...For Narkis, facts are irrelevant. He exists to provoke, and he has found his ultimate raw material in the fallen soldiers of a community he despises. But when mainstream journalists adopt his framing without scrutiny, they betray their own profession. They allow resentment to masquerade as analysis, and they contribute to a public discourse in which the communities that sacrifice most are vilified for not sacrificing enough.

If this continues, the Religious Zionist sector — which has long viewed the State of Israel as the beginning of redemption — may conclude that the state views them merely as a convenient target. And Israel will have lost not just soldiers, but the community most willing to provide them.  (Source)

The State views them more like a convenient and guaranteed source of cannon fodder, God forbid!!  Religious Zionism is an oxymoron, just like Judeo-Chr*stian and Modern Orthodox!!