Occupied Jerusalem- Two decades ago, the Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzorg, the spiritual father of the “Youth Tilal” settlement movement, put an ideological perception seeking to undermine the democratic system in Israel, and the establishment of a religious rule based on the superiority of the Jews over the entire historic land of Palestine, and the displacement of the Palestinians by force.
Now, after the “Al -Aqsa Flood” on October 7, 2023, the influence of the extremist nationalist religious movement has escalated within Israel, it appears that this vision has become closer to ever to verification, according to an expanded investigation published by the Haaretz newspaper.
The investigation indicates that the transformations that Israel witnessed since October 2023 reflect remarkable progress in the implementation of an extremist exclusionary project, its features are manifested in various state institutions.
With the orders of the Torah
In the media scene, the Israeli institutions abandoned the principles of “professional balance”, and adopted an inflammatory speech based on revenge, which established feelings of hatred and incitement to violence.
While the judiciary played an effective role in adding legal legitimacy to the policies of the extermination war in Gaza, as some of them – some of whom belong to the settlers and the religious Zionist movement – approved decisions that prevent the introduction of humanitarian aid, and they went to the extent that the aggression was described as a “biblical war”.
In the education sector, indicators of orientation have increased towards a hard -line nationalist discourse, and teachers calling for equality are separated, and students teach concepts based on ethnic cleansing and justification of genocide.
The investigation was prepared by a space tea, a professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Maryland, and Tamir Sorik, Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University, and the work of researchers in this investigation is integrated to provide a new and integrated reading of a articulated era of Palestinian history, which combines documentary analysis and history.
The investigation was based on a poll conducted last March, in favor of the Pennsylvania State University, and included a representative sample of 1005 Israeli Jews, and the results showed a disturbing shift towards supporting an extremist religious discourse calling for displacement and collective violence against the Palestinians.
According to the results of the survey, 82% of the participants supported the forced deportation of the residents of the Gaza Strip, and 56% supported the expulsion of the Palestinians from inside the lands of 1948, and 47% agreed to repeat what is known as the “Jericho Biblical massacre” by implementing genocide when storming Palestinian cities.
The poll shows that 65% said that there is a “contemporary embodiment” of the biblical enemy known as “the currencies”, and 93% of these confirmed that the “wiped out” will is still in effect today.
Dismantling scales
Rabbi Ginzorg’s speech from the beginning was not only theoretical. Since 2005, he has publicly called for the dismantling of what he called the “state scales”, that is, the Israeli secular institutions, as obstacles to the development of the “Jewish people” in their land.
Ginzorg was inspired by “Qabbaniya” (Al -Kabbah), which are philosophical spiritual beliefs and explanations that explain life, the universe and the caretaker, a spiritual classification that divides the state into 4 “scales” or layers that must be broken, namely the media, the judiciary, the government, and the army.
He believes that the first three must be fully destroyed, while the army is “edible crust”, which can be repaired by getting rid of “non -Jewish values” that prevent him from practicing killing according to the Torah.
Ginburg presented clear religious justifications for mass killing, praising the massacres such as Baruch Goldstein, who carried out the massacre of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
He considered that the time has come to the emergence of a “hazelnut crusher”, a simple Jewish person led by a primitive desire for revenge, not bound by moral values or laws, will implement complete extermination against non -Jews, especially the Palestinians.
Extremism
As for Rabbi Ginzorg, the moment of “October 7” came to be a historical opportunity to accelerate the implementation of his vision. In one of his bulletins after the attack, he wrote that “the brutality of the Amalek” requires complete genocide without hesitation, and even considered that the sacrifice of Israeli prisoners in Gaza is an acceptable price in order to achieve “full victory.”
It seems that his ideas are no longer confined to the margin. The March 2024 poll showed that the supportive percentage of ethnic cleansing and genocide increased sharply, compared to 2003 when he only supported the deportation of Gaza residents, and 31% expelled the Palestinians at home.
The results of opinion polls – Surik says, “This escalating orientation trend for the savage and extermination,” as the young generation in Israel appears more support for the policies of mass displacement and violence against the Palestinians, compared to the generation of their fathers, and these data reflect the escalation of fascist tendency within Israeli society, and its transition from the margin of discourse to the core of official and institutional policies.
What is more remarkable, Sorik adds, “It is the penetration of this extremist discourse even among the secular Israelis,” as 69% of the secular supported – according to the poll – the collective deportation of the Gaza population, and 31% supported the genocide based on the biblical novel.
This reflects, according to Surik, the absence of a real alternative within the secular current of Christian Zionism, as the secular current did not provide a coherent system based on human rights as an alternative option, so the extremist religious discourse is the dominant, even on the groups that are supposed to resist.
Demolish all obstacles
The investigation reviewed how the four scales were lost; Where the media abandoned the professionalism and embraced the speech of revenge and expulsion, and the judiciary turned into a legitimacy tool for violence.
As for the army, it was penetrated by ideology, and most of the recruits did not reject killing and expulsion policies, only 9% of men under the age of 40 rejected these ideas.
Education has witnessed a radical shift in the last two decades, with the increasing support of ethnic cleansing among school graduates, as 66% of those under 40 supported the expulsion of the Palestinians from within.
Ginzorg’s vision is not limited to religious domination, but rather seeks to destroy the idea of the state itself, as he stated that “any government must be overthrown, even those that are held according to the Torah, in the event that it does not serve this project.” It appears that political divisions, the repetition of elections, and the decline in the rule of law are all in the direction of achieving this vision.
The last shift is not just a reaction to the Palestinian “violence” or the Hamas attack, says a space tea, “but rather as a result of the accumulations of contracts for the feeding of settlement thought in curricula, media and political and Zionist system, as a settlement colonial movement, which in its essence involves the possibility of ethnic cleansing and extermination,” as happened with other settlement experiences around the world.
Despite the seriousness of this path – he continues a space – it is not inevitable, and if the Israeli slipping towards a religious antitheat system “requires a complete rejection of the principle of Jewish excellence, whether religious or secular, and re -imagining the Israeli identity as an identity based on equality between the sea and the river, not on religious and ethnic concession.”