"How could otherwise good people participate in such evil against innocent Jews?"
During trials and in other situations, when asked, many people, especially the soldiers, would reply:
"I was just obeying orders."
The fact that these "orders" was totally cruel, evil and immoral didn't make them think and rebel. To me that was always more frightening than what went on in Nazi leadership. It taught me that ordinary people don't think. They can't be relied upon to take risk, even for good, righteousness.
During the time leading up to Disengagement, there were many debates about whether Israeli soldiers would blindly obey orders to destroy homes, lives and communities. I'm sure that I'm not the only one devastated by their cooperation. Since then, the campaign to strengthen the "obey orders" mentality hasn't let up.
When I received the following email from the heroic, idealistic and thank G-d uncompromising Nadia Matar of Women in Green, I knew that I had to post it:
The following is an email I sent to the Efrat email list in reaction to the lecture that is supposed to take place tomorrow in Efrat under the title:
"Refusal of order-where does it lead us" with the participation of Oded Revivi, mayor of Efrat, Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, Pinhas Wallerstein,Rabbi Yoel Kretzmer from the Kibbutz hadati, Moshe Feiglin and Amotz Shapira, head of Kol Yisrael radio
I am happy that other Efrat residents have also expressed their outrage at this evening and have asked to cancel it.
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Ashamed- by Nadia Matar
Shavua tov
I just want to say that this entire kenes titled "Refusal of orders - where will it lead us" is a big mistake and harms the struggle for Eretz Israel greatly.
I am not talking about the fact that it is completely lopsided, 5 mamlachti (pro-government in principle) extremists against one loyalist of Eretz Israel-
reminds you of Popolitika where they always had one token rightwinger among a sea of leftists just to be "yoitze zein."
But I am talking about the very fact that Efrat bichlal, in general, has this kind of kenes.
As if the national camp bichlal has a problem of "sarvanut" (refusal of orders).. .
There is no sarvanut in the national camp. All our boys serve in the army. None of our boys refuse to carry out orders related to fighting the enemy. The left has a problem with sarvanut - with many of them not going to the army or some extreme leftists even refusing to attack Arabs when they need to. THAT is sarvanut.
In contrast, when our soldiers refuse to carry out the order of pinui yishuvim - the problem is not with our boys who show loyalty to Eretz Israel but the problem is with the illegal, immoral and anti-Jewish order of uprooting yishuvim.
The politician who gave the order of uprooting yishuvim and the officer who demands from his soldiers to carry out the order - THEY are the problem. THEY are betraying Zionism. THEY are betraying Eretz Israel . THEY are betraying the army's ethical code that says that a soldier in the IDF will fight the enemy and protect his people, and not the opposite.
This kenes that Efrat is organizing is mamash falling into the trap of the Leftists.Or maybe, on second thought, it is a kenes to try and please the leftists.... . once again! And I ask: what is going on here????
Last month Efrat held a kenes, inviting the pakid in the minhal in charge of the "freeze" to lecture on "building possibilities" during the freeze.
Less than 15 people showed up, but that is beside the point.There was really no need for such a kenes. The moetsa could have written down all the instructions of the minhal as to how one is allowed to maybe close a porch, and publish it in the Efraton. But it was a PR move to tell the authorities: unlike the other yishuvim where they don't allow pakachim in, we are nice. We collaborate with the authorities. Please like us. We are not the Shomron G-d forbid. We are m-o-d-e-r-a- t-e-s.
Now we have a kenes coming up with mamlachti extremists who all (except Feiglin) believe that soldiers have to be blind and deaf robots, and that orders are "above all", and must be obeyed no matter what.
And I ask - What is going on here?
In one word, the message coming from Efrat's moetsa (who is behind the 2 evenings ) to the authorities is:
Please love us, we are goodie-goodies- we are moderates- please include us in your upcoming plans- please let us be in the settlement blocs -
And don't worry...when you will uproot Tekoa, and Nokdim and Ofra and Bet-el...we the leaders of Efrat will make sure our boys carry out the holy orders.
I am so ashamed that Efrat is behind this kenes; I have no words.I am happy to see others have also expressed their outrage at this lecture and have asked to cancel it.
I guess time has come to organize a kenes titled:
"What did we do wrong in our mamlachti-dati education, that a religious person can even think of obeying the illegal, immoral and anti-Jewish order of uprooting Jews, destroying yishuvim and thus betraying Zionism and Judaism?"
With great sorrow,
Nadia Matar
Efrat
11 comments:
you think "uncompromising" is necessarily a good thing? if you and nadia think there's an obligation to ignore "non-jewish" orders, we could talk about what that means and all the "non-jewish" aspects of idf service (like the haredim do)all day, all year, forever.
meanwhile, if you voluntarily accept your draft order with no complaint, or (especially) get all gung-ho about it, you are essentially signing a contract to do whatever they tell you.
unlike the good ol' days, and for better or worse, the idf is NOT run by kings, prophets, high priests,"judges", etc. as cowardly anti-intellectuals like to say (it's actually applicable in this case), "it is what it is."
you can fight it, or you can accept it. but the idea of changing it according to what's jewish or "anti-jewish" is a non starter. the idf feels it has made enough concessions to religion with kosher kitchens and hesder programs. chalas. :)
the idf is a secular army, completely controlled by secular politicians who use it as a police force as they see fit. that's how it is here, and EVERYWHERE ELSE. the haredim are at least dealing with this issue from a clear and honest ideological perspective. the dati leumi have until recently taken the exact opposite approach, also clear and honest. this "middle of the road" stuff rolls off the idf's back like water off a duck. as they see it, military prisons have PLENTY of space. nadia matar, much as i admire her, is just blowing off steam.
regards,
devils advocate dept.
Shalom!
Why did Feiglin agree to participate? I find his agreement disturbing.
Yoni, Nadia isn't blowing off steam. She's trying to get a destructive evening canceled. She's trying to wake people up to the fact that most of the Yesha Council too frequently doesn't have the interests of Yesha at heart. She's not infallible, and she has made serious mistakes, but this time she's right. Just because not enough people will come to the right conclusions after reading her article doesn't mean that she's blowing off steam.
I disagree with your classification of "non-starter". The issue is not "chalas" at all. Religious soldiers, including rabbis, (some, not all) are constantly struggling to improve the situation concerning Yesha, kashrut, Shabbat, modesty etc. Are they wasting their time? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you think so. Do you think that people working in kiruv is heavily secular areas are wasting their time too? Should we just give in when presented with a tough situation?
I'm not sure what you meant in your last paragraph about "dati leumi have until recently taken the exact opposite approach" and being "middle of the road". Did you mean that the dati leumi community is becoming more or less middle of the road?
The dati leumi in the IDF have not been "clear and honest" anyway. For the most part, taken as a whole, they have been vague and wishy-washy on halachic issues. There has been no clear, unified rabbinic advice for dati leumi soldiers. Every soldier is forced to choose his own rav.
Hadassa DeYoung, K'far Darom/Elon Moreh
yoni, I don't know where you come from in your comments.
There are things one doesn't compromise on, and I prefer Nadia to Moetzet YESHA, the Likud etc.
The IDF is a lot more complex and Jewish than you describe. And I'm willing to fight to make it better.
Hadassa, thanks for answering.
" Are they wasting their time? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you think so."
hadassa, i don't think jewish boys and girls and their rabbis are "wasting their time" by working within the system to make army life more compatible with a halachic lifestyle, not at all. i think it's terrific from a chinuch perspective on a number of levels. it's also anti-discriminatory in that it makes it b'chlal possible for religious people to participate in the national project. there are lots of other good things about it.
but once your halachic objections require the refusal of orders you're a hypocrite every moment you stay in the army, and frankley a danger to morale, unity and the lives of your comrades. i said the dati leumi used to be straight and uncompromising because they wholeheartedly took on military service with no if's, and's or but's. they didn't come with a special codicil that said "i agree to follow orders unless they conflict with MY understanding of what my job is".
people who feel this way are entitled to their feelings, of course. i also think it's a terrible and immoral thing to use the jewish army to expel jews from their homes. but once those feelings become a commitment to disobey orders L'CHATCHILA, that soldier either needs to leave army service or be removed. (unless he keeps it to himself :) get it?
until israel becomes a full theocracy, and all it's military actions are dictated by torah considerations, that's just how it has to be. that's how armies work. and we need our army to work much more than most nations do.
and the same goes for the lefty "refuseniks".
bottom line: it makes much more sense to put our energies into fighting any possible political decision to do a military pinui, than it does to try and turn the idf into an army that will refuse such orders if they are chas v'shalom given.
while i disagree with the haredim and the lefty refusers, i respect their lack of hypocricy about the issue. as batya said at another post, they "vote with their feet.
the dati leumi, or some of us, want to be big giborim in the army and refuseniks too. uh-uh. doesn't work that way. i can't see it.
sorry if i went a little off topic and got a little long-winded.
maybe i can be more clear: any individual soldier is certainly free to refuse any order on the spot, for any reason, and take the consequenses. in the case of halachic or moral issues, it's the only honerable thing to do. but nadia matar and many other talented people are actually expending their energies trying to get the idf itself to refuse orders-to essentially dictate policy-or start/encourage a "revolution in the ranks"- or i misread their intentions. this is a dangerous waste of time right now. maybe later, after we annex yesha, we can add it to the new torah constitution. :)
Yoni, in short, I believe that our campaign to make things here better, more Jewish must be multi-focused. That's the only way it will work. The govt won't improve unless they realize that the army won't cooperate with their evil, and the army won't get better unless they think their actions will affect the govt etc.
At the same time we must work within education and the media. We all have a role or multiple roles.
Shalom!
Yoni, we have only one Tora and it is binding at all times, even in the IDF. If it helps, the IDF Code of Ethics specifically states that a soldier MUST disobey orders that are immoral or illegal.
People who believe that the Tora is truth cannot honestly compare the left-wing sarvanim, who refuse to fight Arabs because they think that Jews have stolen their land, with the right-wing sarvanim, who are following the Tora. You complain that rabbis and other leaders are undermining the army by calling for mass refusal of orders. It's just the opposite. The soldiers benefit greatly from knowing that they have backing for following the Tora. The expulsion de-moralized the IDF. Not refusing orders resulted in all the things that the mamlachti rabbis thought would happen if soldiers did refuse orders.
shalom, hadassa.
"The soldiers benefit greatly from knowing that they have backing for following the Tora."
every soldier is an individual. you have no way of knowing whether any individual soldier "benefits" from such "knowledge". the backing of the rabbis, or nadia matar, or anyone who is not a king, prophet, messiah or high priest may or may not be "the backing of the torah". the matter we are discussing has nothing even close to a consensus among the rabbinic leadership in this generation, l'hefech- those who support insubordination are a tiny, persecuted minority, who apparently risk even having their yeshivas shut down and their students barred from combat positions for even whispering this opinion. so who says it has the "backing of the torah"? you? very nice. and i say i have the backing of the torah in supporting the integrity of the idf as an army consisting, for better or worse, of mostly secular jews (and non-jews). the numbers of kippa sruga wearers in the officer corps is well known, but don't expect them to follow you as a whole down this path. their yeshiva educations teach them to think critically and not be swayed by emotional appeals.
i salute your motives. i share your abhorrance of any expulsions of jews from their homes or land, anywhere, anytime. but you're still wrong. you're supporting a fifth column in what should be a unified front of torah leadership. sorry.
Hadassa said...
Why did Feiglin agree to participate?
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To express his opinion on behalf of refusing illegal orders.
I find his agreement disturbing.
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Agreement on what?
Are you making baseless assumptions? Just asking.
Shalom!
I answered promptly but my reply, which I hadn't saved, got zapped into cyberspace before it even reached the blog. I haven't had a chance to get back to here until now so I'm just going to briefly set the record straight. I wasn't implying that Feiglin had changed his opinion and was in favor of blindly following orders. My concern was that by joining the panel instead of joining the residents trying to cancel the evening he was giving legitimacy to the other participants. I'm sure I'll have an opportunity later on to address everything else that got zapped.
Shalom!
One more thing. Yoni, there is no "unified front of torah leadership". For that reason alone some of your comments are baseless.
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