Q&A: Settlements and the Palestinian Issue
Settlements and the Palestinian Issue
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m asking this as a practical centrist who is simply wondering what your position is on the matter.
Does the Rabbi see value, in the current situation, in building in isolated settlements?
If not, would the Rabbi be willing to accept an approach according to which all the settlements should be evacuated (of course except for the blocs), while leaving the IDF in place to continue protecting us until the day comes (hopefully) when we can separate from the Palestinians in a reasonable way?
There is such a proposal from the Molad organization and others (supported by many senior military figures), and they list its advantages as saving us a tremendous amount of money, preventing the messianic camp from determining an irreversible reality in the territories in which we will be unable to establish a Palestinian state, etc., etc. I was interested to know what the Rabbi thinks about this, both practically and in terms of values.
Thank you,
Answer
I don’t know, because this is not a plan but perhaps one step within something that is supposed to be a complete plan. In order to formulate a position on this, one would need to see a full plan with options for every situation that might arise.
Specifically regarding this, it is not clear why settlements should be evacuated already now, before there is any need. At most, just don’t allow them to expand. Evacuate them when a need and an opportunity for that arise.
But the whole matter is hypothetical, and there is no point in formulating a position on this question. In any case, it will not actually happen, so what is the point of discussing it?!
Discussion on Answer
That’s really not serious. If everything is truly in your hands and you can evacuate settlements, then you can also simply not expand them. But it’s not in your hands, just as it’s not in your hands to prevent their expansion (that’s even easier). You need to decide whether you’re discussing a theoretical issue or a practical one. There is no practical issue here, and on the theoretical level there is no need to evacuate anything. The expenses can be managed. That is really not our main problem.
The reasons to evacuate now are to make sure there won’t be a situation in which they expand in the future to an irreversible point. To save a tremendous amount of money. The cost of the isolated settlements, including roads, infrastructure, transportation, and the IDF security burden, is enormous. And to show the world who the problematic party in this story is.