A Critical Look at the Radicalization in Religious Zionism (Column 765)

With God’s help

Before the holiday, I came across a column by Shmuel Munitz dealing with the radicalization of the Religious Zionist public. He focuses on the Sabbath pamphlet Olam Katan, as a mirror that reflects broader currents within that public. He repeatedly emphasizes that he is writing from a religious, right-wing, and Zionist point of view—that is, this is internal criticism. I tend to agree with a substantial part of what he says, especially with the general spirit emanating from the groups represented by Olam Katan. But precisely for that reason, it is very important to me that the arguments be presented substantively, and that we examine them critically. Beyond a critical reading of the column, I will use it as a platform to express some of my own positions on the issues it raises.

I should preface this by saying, by way of full disclosure, that although (and perhaps because) my acquaintance with the aforesaid pamphlet is limited, my fondness for it is lower than the Dead Sea, for many reasons. Starting with the foolish rabbinic answers that appear in it, and continuing with the fact that these serve as a cover for conveying opinions that have absolutely nothing to do with Jewish law. Then there is the blatant Bibiism that subordinates everything to the survival of this atrocious government and is prepared to support any injustice for the sake of that exalted value (such as support for the Haredim and their draft-dodging law). But the main reason is that this is a page whose essence is propaganda for very narrow and conservative worldviews, from the "Kav" line all the way to today’s hilltop youth. All of this comes under a saccharine façade of openness, diversity, and inclusiveness, which (barely) conceals those tendencies. As part of that same disclosure, I should add that although this was always my impression, it was reinforced when, at their request, I was interviewed there a few years ago, and they then decided to shelve the interview for reasons of their own (which I can only guess at).

"Erase Huwara"

At the beginning of his remarks, he brings a quotation from Elisha Yered, who writes there regularly, who called to "erase Huwara" after a terrorist attack that came from there. The statement is indeed problematic, since this is collective punishment, for which there is no justification. Sometimes, however, the speaker’s intention is different and he is simply not expressing himself precisely. Literally, it sounds as though he means to execute all the residents of Huwara, but I find it hard to believe that this is in fact what he intended. It is more likely that he meant acting forcefully and not sparing the village as a whole if that were required. In other words, this is about prevention and deterrence, not collective punishment (on this distinction, see column 635 on the attitude toward the residents of Gaza). Incidentally, this may be a reaction to the feeling of paralysis and helplessness in the IDF’s handling of Palestinian terror out of concern for harm to uninvolved people. It is often precisely indiscriminate moral shock that gives rise to extreme statements from the opposite side. In public discourse, we are used to latching onto one sentence or another and arguing over it (actually not arguing, but condemning it or enthusiastically supporting it. Arguments usually do not enter the picture there). Beyond taking things out of context, sometimes this is simply biased or overly literal interpretation, and sometimes it is a careless and imprecise expression.

Still, it is clear that this is a problematic statement and worthy of criticism. But balanced criticism ought to analyze the statement, raise the interpretive possibilities, and in the end point out that it is careless and expresses a problematic spirit (cf. "to ‘zarbuv’ Gaza").

Hasty Judgment

Munitz now brings another example of Elisha Yered’s problematic statements. Following an incident in which a Palestinian family (two parents and two children) was killed by IDF fire, Yered immediately declared on social media: "This was a terrorist family that was almost entirely eliminated. A father, mother, and two children aged 5 and 7." That is indeed a very problematic statement, and unfortunately typical on all sides. Hasty judgment characterizes both right and left, as every incident is immediately interpreted in accordance with the agenda, without waiting for factual clarification. It can be a domestic incident, a nationalist incident, a terrorist attack, and so on.

But then Munitz continues and argues:

It appears that in Yered’s world there are no "uninvolved" people, even when it comes to children aged five and seven who were not sitting in the driver’s seat. At best, this was a tragic mistake—either way, the determination that the four people in the car were "terrorists" is incorrect.

First, the quotation he brought does not say that they were all terrorists. "A terrorist family" is an expression whose meaning is that the parents were terrorists, and perhaps also that their children would probably grow up to be such. And again, beyond the question of whether this description is correct, Munitz’s presentation here is tendentious, demagogic, and misleading. Moreover, if one of them really was a terrorist and there was a need to strike him, then there is justification for harming everyone in the car if that is required in order to stop it (see the aforementioned column). The fact that they were children, or that they were not in the driver’s seat, is not relevant to the discussion.

Of course, if in Munitz’s view they were shot at directly in order to kill them, then the claim that they were children and not in the driver’s seat is more relevant. But I am not under the impression that those were the facts, and it seems that here Munitz suffers from the very same failing that he points to in Yered. He judges and describes the event and Yered’s view in a biased and tendentious way, without relating to the facts.

Incidentally, Munitz goes on to argue that Yered’s regular participation in this pamphlet is no accident. The editorial staff that determines the headlines leads this same extreme line. The headline given there to the article was: "Attempted ramming attack in Samaria: four terrorists eliminated by our fighters." On the Channel 14 website as well (which is under the same ownership as Olam Katan) there was a headline: "Ramming attack foiled in Samaria: four terrorists eliminated." This is indeed a correct claim. Many people are unaware that article headlines in the media are not given by the writers but by the editorial desk. This is one of the ways an editorial staff advances its views (and of course also captures the attention of readers/surfers).

Mockery of the IDF Ethical Code

Munitz now turns to the editor of Olam Katan, Itamar Segal. According to him, he provides weekly militant statements seasoned with quotations from the sources:

In his eyes, expressing lack of confidence in the government is a crime. "Any talk of weakness and grumbling, cynicism, dejection—or worse, contempt and lack of confidence in the government and the man at its head—is nothing less than a national crime. The enemy is on the ropes; this is the time to break its neck," he wrote at the beginning of March about the campaign against the Iranian regime, and stressed: "You cannot really stop until we destroy, kill, and annihilate all the enemies, until they are truly gone."

Again, the description of the pamphlet seems correct, and it really does exude a problematic and inflammatory spirit. Its political bias is also completely obvious (lack of confidence in Bibi is, as is well known, a national crime. Later on too he presents the pamphlet’s Bibiism and shows that it is indeed wholly extreme, prominent, and unmistakable). But statements about breaking our enemies’ necks seem entirely appropriate to me, certainly in wartime. The same applies to talk about taking advantage of an opportunity and weakness in order to do so. What problem does he see in such statements?

Munitz continues and writes:

Who are the enemies? According to Segal’s description, in the absence of any other clarification, one can understand him as including all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs under that definition: "The Arab enemy is still in the heart of the land—in Judea and Samaria, in the Gaza Strip of course, in East Jerusalem, and also in the Negev and the Galilee."

Indeed, that is correct, but here the same remark arises that I made above regarding the children. The Arabs are indeed our enemies. They stand opposite us in war, and the Palestinians who live in Israel identify entirely with the people with whom we are fighting. That does not mean they are traitors, nor that they carry out illegal or violent actions against us, nor even that they want our destruction. But defining them as an enemy does not sound especially inflammatory to me. Usually, when there is a violent conflict between peoples and states, the enemy is defined as the people on the other side of the conflict. No one gets down to individual-level distinctions in such discussions, and rightly so.

Conquering Lebanon

In the next passage, Munitz writes:

At the end of last week he called on the IDF to conquer southern Lebanon: "We need to go in with the goal of staying, annexing, and drawing a new border line—the residents of the villages will never return, the area will be clear, anyone who enters the area is marked for death, exactly as is practiced in the yellow-line area in the Strip. Occupied territory will never be returned again."

In his view, a change of consciousness is needed among the people. "If we continue to think of southern Lebanon only as a security belt and enemy land, it will remain a dangerous and bleeding security belt. If we start thinking differently and accustom ourselves to the idea that this is Israeli territory in every respect, which was removed from Mandatory Palestine and from the borders of the state-in-the-making only by mistake and historical injustice, then and only then will the change in reality also take place," he wrote.

What exactly is the problem here? Many serious and decent people believe that it is right today to conquer southern Lebanon. That is what we are in fact doing right now. There is considerable logic in leaving the area without its Shiite inhabitants and under IDF control, and it is no wonder that many conclude from this that southern Lebanon should actually be annexed and perhaps even settled. The fact that in the media such statements are presented as bizarre, detached, and immoral only means that Munitz here was swept along a bit by the media’s own belligerence on these issues. One can agree or disagree with the thesis of annexing southern Lebanon, and one can see it as unrealistic and politically or diplomatically unsound. But I see nothing illegitimate or extreme here. On the contrary, this is the most reasonable position in our situation today, subject only to reservations about how practical it is.

The Morality of War

Munitz now turns to the "zarbuv" of Gaza—a term for brutally flattening it—and to the morality of war:

In February, Segal called for Rabbi Avraham Zarbib, who became famous following his reserve service as an operator of an armored D9 bulldozer, to be appointed chief military rabbi. In his view, a chief military rabbi in the "generation of redemption" should be someone with a "simple but courageous Torah-ideological position on the way the IDF should act: that the enemy must be destroyed, its cities must be flattened, and the Torah morality of Moses, Joshua, and King David, who pursued his enemies and did not return until they were consumed, must be adopted as the IDF’s official morality in place of the identity-less sedative document drafted by the pacifist professors Asa Kasher and Avi Sagi, which for some reason is called The Spirit of the IDF (in fact the writer confused two different documents—Kasher participated in writing an ethical code for the IDF formulated in 1994, whereas Sagi was among the authors of a new ethical code formulated in 2000; Sh.M.)," in his words.

In the name of "the Jewish morality of inheriting the land," Segal wrote that "whoever adopts Asa Kasher’s Western-gentile morality of war is appalled by the very simple ideas of destroying the enemy, conquest, expulsion, and Jewish settlement, and for him war is a very ugly necessity solely for the sake of self-defense." He noted that "in principle, a rabbinical judge in a state-appointed religious court is forbidden to give interviews or express a public position. Rabbi Zarbib, in the sense of It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah. ("it is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah"), broke the rules, understood that his photographs from Gaza and the interviews he gave had an aspect of national life-saving in raising the people’s spirits during war, shaped with his own hands a new reality of consciousness, and introduced into every home in Israel a concept that is nothing less than a new religious concept—the doctrine of zarbuv, a synonym for proud and unapologetic Jewish morality."

One can argue about details, but I completely agree that a call to adopt biblical war morality today is extreme and bizarre. Destroying the enemy is indeed sensible and justified, but not the destruction of an entire people as was practiced then. As for Rabbi Zarbib, one can discuss the content of what he says, but his inflammatory, coarse, and sweeping tone is certainly not beloved by me either.

Nationalist Crime and the Aspiration to Expel the Enemy

After that he returns to Elisha Yered, and brings expressions of understanding on his part, and even a degree of implicit support, for the phenomenon of nationalist crime. Yered himself rejects the claim that this is an unrepresentative fringe, and little by little I am coming to understand that he is probably right. In broad strata of the Religious Zionist public today, there is support for these criminal offenders, or at least understanding.

This is the place to note something about that. There is indeed a security problem in Judea and Samaria. The authorities and the army do not always act with the appropriate determination. There is indeed slander and vilification directed at the settlers, and even at the hilltop youth, not all of whose actions are criminal or immoral. Sometimes they act in ways that are justified. And still, the anarchic and criminal spirit, the Wild West that has been created there, is very dangerous and requires determined and resolute treatment. A Jewish terrorist should be shot exactly like an Arab terrorist. Anyone who threatens life or bodily integrity, whether Jew or Arab, is a rodef (someone posing an immediate lethal threat) in every respect, and that is how he should be treated. The differences between Jews and Arabs in relation to terrorists (including in the populist death-penalty law that was recently advanced) may perhaps once have been justified, when Jewish crime was not group-based and did not enjoy backing. In such a situation, a criminal deserves firm handling, but it is not correct to view him as a terrorist and therefore not to treat the group from which he came collectively. Today this is definitely the case, just as with the Arabs. Therefore, the current demands to equalize the treatment of Jewish terrorists seem to me clear and correct. And I have not even mentioned technical considerations such as the terrible damage these acts cause us internationally.

At the same time, Yered’s following words seem correct to me:

In his view, the way to eradicate the phenomenon is for the security establishment to act forcefully against Palestinian terror and exact a "price tag," in his words, from villages from which terrorists emerge.

That is at least part of the treatment for this ugly phenomenon.

Yered’s following words, too, are not at all unfounded:

In December 2025, Yered wrote in a column in "Olam Katan" that "the only solution that will truly prevent, once and for all, security incidents and terrorist attacks is the one mentioned dozens of times in the Torah: expelling the enemy from here. From Judea and Samaria, from Gaza, from East Jerusalem, and from the mixed cities." Yes, he also means the Arabs of Israel. In his view, "since we have not yet reached the ability to expel the entire enemy right now, we are obligated to see how, in the meantime, it is possible to conduct life here as safely as possible, while the enemy is deterred and remains on the defensive and in retreat."

I certainly do not oppose transfer in principle (especially if compensation is given to those expelled, and all the more so if they are encouraged to leave voluntarily), except that in my opinion it is not practical in our current situation. Therefore the talk about it is unnecessary and populist. But I do not see a moral problem in it. If only they had had the sense to expel all the Arabs in the War of Independence. True, that might harm uninvolved and innocent people, but the alternative harms many more such people, on both the Jewish and Arab sides. Left-wing propaganda has turned the word transfer into something untouchable and attached to it the connotation of gas chambers.

Now to the attitude toward the Arabs who sit here:

In a column that can be found on the "Olam Katan" website, under the title the generation that did not know Joseph ("The generation that did not know Joseph"), Yered laid out his doctrine. In his view, a situation must be created in which the Palestinians live in fear: "If we recognize the fact that the enemy will always try to slaughter us the moment he can, the way to prevent him from doing so—beyond deterrence, which is always temporary and limited—is to bring him to a state of defense and perpetual war over what he has. If he sits securely in the territory he has established for himself, his mind will be free for murderous thoughts and initiated attacks. By contrast, when even his presence in his home or on the hill in question is in doubt, all his energies will be directed toward preserving the current situation and halting backward retreat."

He continued and argued: "The only way to prevent invasion is to always be moving forward. Slowly, thoughtfully, and cautiously, but in a way that causes the enemy to understand that even his presence on the hill where he now grazes and wanders is under a question mark." Needless to say, his vision also includes settlement in Areas A and B: "The rush onto state lands in Area C must spread as well to the other regions of the land that are criminally defined by one Latin letter or another."

Again, in my view there is no moral defect in that approach. The problem is that it is not practical and will not really help. But precisely because I suspect that Yered’s words do not stem only from a security conception but also from nationalist populism. That, in my eyes, is morally objectionable. As long as the discussion is substantive and its aims are the protection of our lives, one may debate what the best path is. But when it comes in order to advance fascist agendas, then there really is a problem here. Incidentally, here again one sees the use of biblical directives, but beyond the fact that I do not at all support applying biblical directives in our own day, it seems to me that they have also been taken out of context. The Torah is concerned about our being led astray into idolatry and various transgressions, and not necessarily about the fact that they are an enemy who will seek our lives.

In any event, all these are general statements about the proper policy to be adopted, and as I wrote, most of them are entirely legitimate in my view. But acts and initiatives by private individuals to attack Arab life and property—phenomena that have greatly intensified in recent years and make headlines all over the world—are of course blatantly immoral, and as noted, these acts must be prevented. This is terrorism in every respect, and if there is no other way to stop it, then such people should be shot without hesitation. Again, I do not mention here the devastating harm these acts inflict on the state and on all of us, because statements of that kind blunt the moral criticism I have of them.

Yered, by contrast, is not particularly shaken by all this:

In another column he expressed resentment that the security establishment does not allow anarchy to run wild without interference. "The security establishment suffers from vertigo. Enormous pressures are being brought to bear on various actors in an attempt to eradicate any drive to seek contact and defeat the enemy. Whoever raises his head a little and tries to act on the ground—soldiers, security coordinators, or residents in settlement outposts—encounters severe sanctions from the system, which sometimes cost him his position or his property," he wrote. "Fighters are dismissed, flocks on the hills and farms that were the spearhead in the battle over the open areas are confiscated, and a wave of arrests is sweeping through the settlement movement. Central Command, which actually underwent a real positive change over the past year, has within a few short days, under pressure from the far left, become an anxiety-stricken body that is afraid of its own shadow."

These really are inflammatory and extreme statements, although even in them there is something. Sometimes there is indeed a sense of excessive persecution of such people, in parallel with the general paralysis in dealing with them. The governmental and military system seems to be at a loss and confused, and that is a large part of the problem that gives rise to these phenomena. Entire spheres that are conducted like the Wild West, both on the Arab side and on the Jewish one, are a disaster for the state and a plainly immoral situation.

Presenting Mordechai David as a Hero

We have now arrived at Mordechai David:

An example of radicalization is the way the Sabbath pamphlet related to the actions of the right-wing activist Mordechai David. In a column by Naaman Levavi and Tal Kopel of "Kivun Forum," they compared him to Nachshon ben Amminadav, no less. Yes indeed, the very one who, according to tradition, was the first to leap in at the splitting of the Red Sea. In February they wrote that "the tectonic event of the week has nothing to do with the budget or with the American threat against Persia. No indeed, the most significant event is Mordechai David’s blocking of Aharon Barak’s car."

Amichai Shilo, who writes a column with a satirical flavor called "Shabbat Parliament" alongside his writing on the zealously right-wing site "HaKol HaYehudi," wrote sardonically: "Since I too am a statesmanlike person who believes in unity, I would like to condemn Mordechai David because he should have blocked Aharon Barak when he (Barak) was much younger."

The editor of the pamphlet, Segal, criticized the voices in the religious sector that condemned Mordechai David. "The Religious Zionist public is a polite and statesmanlike public," he wrote, "it likes its demonstrations polite, it is careful to check how the secular left looks at it, it recoils from using coarse words, and quite often prefers style over substance. It is rather put off by various Mordechai Davids who possess the genetic trait of Mordechai the Jew, he will neither kneel nor bow down ("he would neither kneel nor bow")."

I actually think these claims of Olam Katan have real substance. Mordechai David blocked the way of various people, and that is indeed not okay. But I do not see what is so terrible about this act. Much worse things are done in our midst. And I have not yet mentioned the roadblocks and harassment from the anti-government side (cf. Sarah Netanyahu at a Tel Aviv hair salon). With considerable justice, many raised the claim that the blame lies with the attorney general, who explained to all of us that blocking roads is part of the right to protest. For some reason, that stops when it comes from the wrong side. Again, in my view roadblocks are generally not a legitimate tool, but that has to be applied equally.

You will no doubt accuse me of whataboutism, so Munitz has already beaten you to it:

He then lapsed into whataboutism, of the kind that often characterizes fanatical right-wing circles: "Want to be shocked by Mordechai David? Please, that is your right. But on one condition: that you be shocked a thousand times more by what the elites who destroyed democracy, the Kaplanists who destroyed the army and generated refusal to serve, and the lawless far left and its leaders in the Knesset did here, not hesitating to weaken the IDF in the middle of an existential war just in order to do a little more politics and bring down the Bibi they so despise."

I already wrote my view about whataboutism in column 317. There is certainly room for whataboutism-type arguments in many contexts, and it is quite rare that they are irrelevant. I explained in that column that, in my opinion, this is one of the stock phrases the left uses to silence its opponents. What that means is that you are not required to play a fair game with an opponent who does not observe the rules of the game. Therefore, one should not accuse you over blocking roads when everyone else does the same thing (sometimes this is called "selective enforcement"). What is wrong with such an argument?! One can of course debate whether that is indeed the situation, but the mere fact that an argument is a case of whataboutism is not necessarily a defect.

On Partisanship

Munitz goes on to accuse Olam Katan of partisanship:

Another illness that characterizes some of the content in "Olam Katan" is the tendency to examine everything through the lenses of a political position—whether it serves "the camp" or not. Thus, for example, they rallied to defend Bezalel Zini, who is accused of smuggling cigarettes into the Gaza Strip for hundreds of thousands of shekels during the war. Even before it was cleared for publication that one of the suspects in the affair was the brother of the head of the Shin Bet, David Zini, the editorial staff of "Olam Katan" published an item quoting his father, Rabbi Yosef Zini, who claimed that "this affair is a hundred times graver. Anyone with eyes to see understands that they want to bring down the prime minister and harm the entire right."

In the "Cellphone Q&A" section of the printed pamphlet, originally intended for halakhic questions, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner was asked whether there was any truth to the accusations against Bezalel Zini. Rabbi Aviner answered emphatically: "No. All the accusations and assessments were not backed by testimony, facts, or confessions. Numbers were thrown in every direction without any basis." He argued that there is hardly a military unit in Gaza and in Rafah that did not employ Gazan clans to do its dirty work in return for small favors (food, sweets, etc.), and concluded: "Bezalel Zini is a great idealist who contributed a great deal to the IDF. A very moral person. This is simply an injustice, and it must be corrected immediately." Needless to say, Rabbi Aviner is not a jurist and is not familiar with all the details of the investigation. For that matter, in the past Rabbi Aviner defended Rabbi Motti Elon and President Moshe Katsav, and refused to believe the accusations against them.

These really are bizarre phenomena, and very characteristic, and on this I entirely agree with him. Although here too, of course, quite a few whataboutism arguments could be raised (such as those who believe every complaint by a woman, or every allegation against hilltop youth, even before they have checked the details).

Summary

You will be able to find not a few extreme statements in what I have written here, but to my credit it may be said that they point in both directions. Anyone who feels that this is inconsistent or too extreme should examine himself. One of my aims in this column was precisely this: to balance the discourse and try to shake the agendas out of it. My opponents may be right about many things, and there is no reason to condemn them for everything. The same goes for my camp (if I even have one). I despise from the bottom of my heart every component of this government, down to the very last one. I think the hilltop rioters are terrorists who must be dealt with harshly, up to and including gunfire. And yet I am not prepared to accept every claim against them without examination simply because it is directed against them.

The great ill from which both Olam Katan and Munitz suffer, and in truth almost all of us, is the presentation of a black-and-white picture, with no shades and no willingness to see complexities. One can be very extreme in one’s attitude toward the hilltop rioters and at the same time understand why they do this, and also see problems on the other side, and vice versa. In particular, I am not prepared to submit to dictates of discourse that try to place terms and approaches outside the pale simply because someone decided that whataboutism is an irrelevant argument, that transfer is Nazi, and that shooting Jewish terrorists is extreme. The time has come for us to free ourselves from those chains and move to substantive discourse. I have written more than once that, in my opinion, respectful discourse is really not a central issue. What truly matters is substantive discourse, and that is really not the same thing.