A Consuming Fire
For so many Jews who came from Ukraine, the image of the Cossacks riding into town meant the shtetle would soon burn. People would die, lives would be devastated. The memory of those marauding Cossacks was etched into my childhood in Israel, listening to parents and grandparents of classmates in grade school. Later on, as I soaked in holy teaching from Hasidic luminaries, the terror of the Cossacks came rushing back through their stories and their music.
The Cossacks are back. There is a consuming fire burning in Judea and Samaria, a travesty unfolding on the West Bank of the River Jordan.
While our eyes have all been trained on the disaster that keeps devouring the civilian population in Gaza and the tragedy of our hostages who are still rotting away in captivity, Cossacks have been raiding Palestinian villages, burning crops, stealing livestock, uprooting trees, and murdering helpless civilians in the Occupied Territories. Except, this time the Cossacks come from among us. The murderous, lawless marauders are Jews who dare flaunt the Bible and their religiosity as a cover for their heinous crimes.
These modern-day Jewish Cossacks did not materialize out of thin air, unnoticed by the authorities. They have been raised and nurtured on the milk of Jewish superiority, racism, Arab-hatred, and a thirst for vengeance and utter domination of the West Bank.
To be clear – this did not start after the horrific massacre of October 7th, perpetrated by Hamas. This began in 1968 with the more radical branch of Jewish settlers on the West Bank and blossomed quietly over the last 57 years. Raphael Smotrich, Orit Strook, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, ministers in the current Netanyahu government, are the fruit of that poisonous tree; they are the public face of the masked hoodlums on the West Bank.
To make matters worse, many of those settler zealots are now deeply embedded in the IDF. They are brave soldiers and commanders. They are diligent citizens and conscientious volunteers in Israeli society. They are highly educated and productive citizens. They are also, unfortunately, messianic fanatics who no longer merely dream of an Israel from the river to the sea – they are actively working to make it happen.
The worst of the zealots are the Hilltop Youth, a band of murderous marauders who blatantly flaunt the law and regularly attack Palestinian civilians on the West Bank. Previously, there were feeble attempts to reign these youths in but since Ben-Gvir became minister of internal security, he has removed the ‘bias’ against these lovely young men and they are now free to pillage and murder under cover of the police and the Border Guard.
Israel’s minister of defense, Israel Katz, declared a week ago: “When a Jew sets fire to a Palestinian home – that is not terrorism.” Smotrich, minister of finance, in his secondary role within the department of defense, has helped set up the infrastructure for settler soldiers who ‘help secure the settlements,’ giving these thugs the necessary machinery to carry out their crimes.
I have railed against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza offered up by Mr. Trump – so enthusiastically endorsed by Netanyahu and his odious government – but on the West Bank the ethnic cleansing has been happening in real time right under our noses.
I was on a zoom call this morning with four representatives from the New Israel Fund, Yesh Din – There is Justice, and Rabbis for Peace. According to their very detailed reports and numbers furnished by thedailyreport.org, since October 7th, 2023, 285 Bedouin households, numbering 1,669 people, including 807 children, have been uprooted on the West Bank. The number goes up to about 2,907, if we add in those displaced by demolition of houses by the IDF. More than 600 Palestinians, including 28 children, have been killed on the West Bank since October 7th, 2023. Since that tragic date, there have been 757 settler attacks on Palestinian civilians that have resulted in casualties or property damage.
There is no war on the West Bank. The Israeli government does not claim there is one. There is a military administration that has been controlling the lives of the Palestinian population of 2,345,000 souls since 1967. There is no existential threat from the Palestinian population on the West Bank – even the Israeli government makes no such claim. All of that does not stop the settler Cossacks from terrorizing innocent Palestinians, because existential threat is not the issue – ethnic cleansing is.
Judaism’s foundational sacred text, the Bible, is full of astounding, beautiful, profound teaching. It also includes some questionable verses, and some even downright awful ones. This forces a Jew – any serious Jew – to pick and choose from the teachings and writings we have inherited. Anyone who tells you they are not picking and choosing is either lying to you or to themselves.
We all pick and choose. I shall know you by what you pick and choose. The settlers pick and choose the most virulently xenophobic, ethnocentric, and genocidal verses in the Bible and then back them up with some Rabbinic and Kabbalistic interpretations that confirm their bias. I know all the verses and all the quotes. I loathe and reject them. Always have.
I can also tell you that for every awful verse that speaks to the heart of these bandits, there are beautiful verses that completely contradict their chosen texts. This is not a biblical polemic, so I will just mention a few terrible verses for you to consider, and some beautiful ones to sooth your souls.
Here are the Biblical verses I choose not to embrace: Exodus 23: 27-33 Numbers 33: 51-53 Deuteronomy 20: 16-17. There are many more in Joshua, Judges, and Samuel.
Here are some verses I love: Genesis 1: 27 Exodus 22: 5 Leviticus 24: 22. There are many, many more beautiful verses throughout the Bible.
This is what one Cossack, inspired by his favorite biblical texts, chose to do this week: Yinon Levi, an extremist settler who had previously been sanctioned by the Biden administration for harassing Palestinian civilians, murdered Awda Hathaleen, a Palestinian non-violent peace activist, English teacher, and father of three, in his home. Levi is captured on camera brandishing the gun with which he murdered Awda. Following the murder, Levi was released by the police the next morning for temporary house arrest, while awda’s brother and two other Palestinians were arrested and are still in jail. Other members of Awda’s family are being investigated. The police are refusing to release awda’s body unless the family promises that his funeral will be performed only after one in the morning and attended by no more than fifteen people.
I have personally viewed a recent video showing settler marauders attacking a Palestinian home and stealing 3 sheep. The Cossacks were all brandishing long sidelocks, and fringes. I watched other videos, taken by Israelis of unimpeachable character, showing settlers setting fire to and uprooting Palestinian olive trees. These videos are all available for public scrutiny. I urge you to watch as many as you can stomach.
To date, the Israeli government has been pretty silent about the crimes, while hinting coyly at possibly annexing the entire West Bank. The police actually help many of the Cossacks on their raids, and the IDF usually stands by and does nothing. In contrast, opposition MK, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, showed up today to offer his condolences and condemn the heinous act.
I do not like hooligan marauders. I like them even less if they are Jews, because they are my people. Forget that they should know better after the endless pogroms our people have endured – they should check Leviticus for how they are to treat the stranger who dwells among them.
I will not appeal to the Settler Cossacks – I believe their souls have been corrupted beyond repair. I appeal to all and any of you who care about humanity, about our Jewish heritage, about our Israel – the one that aims to be the homeland of the Jewish people and the realization of Isaiah’s prophecy.
Do not remain silent. Speak up and condemn this abomination. Do not stand idly by. I beg of you on behalf of innocent Palestinians but, even more so, on behalf of scores of decent, righteous Israelis who have never stopped caring about the soul of Israel, even as the Netanyahu government has abandoned liberal Jews around the world and the legacy of Israel’s founders.
Speak up – the gates of justice and mercy are closing. Open up the gates at the hour of the locking of the gates.