The Annexation of the West Bank
The Annexation of the West Bank
in which Kahanist rhetoric has become normalised throughout mainstream Jewish Orthodoxy
NOTE :: I believe in and love the state of Israel. I also believe in the Torah.
I am a Torah on One Foot person — I do not want to do to others what I do not like done to myself. So, I do not want to participate in or tacitly endorse the annexation of the West Bank. I live on Musqeam land in British Columbia, and if I endorse the appropriation of Arab or Bedouin land and the displacement of Arab and Bedouin people living on those lands, for the Zionist Project, then I endorse the appropriation of my home and the displacement of myself and my family from our home for the Musqeam Project. There but for the grace of G-d goes I. I am everyone and everyone is me and yet everyone is themselves as separate individuals. I do not relinquish my moral compass for tribal allegiance, that does not make me a bigot, it makes me an independent thinker. I am not a Borg, I will resist because I know it is not futile even when you tell me it is.
Please read this piece with that in mind.
“The Jewish people have a natural right to the Land of Israel … the Jewish people have the exclusive and indisputable right to all parts of the Land of Israel … the prime minister will lead the formulation and implementation of policy within the framework of which sovereignty will be applied to [the West Bank].” — Religious Zionism and Likud Coalition Agreement, Israeli Government, Times of Israel 28.12.2022
What is Nefesh B’Nefesh? Founded by Tony Gelbart and Rabbi Joshua Fass in 2002, Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN), has a mission to facilitate and celebrate Aliyah, advocate for Olim, and educate towards a stronger connection to Israel. Nefesh B’Nefesh has official partner status with the Israeli government to facilitate and process immigration to Israel by American and Canadian Jews. NBN actively promotes the settlement of Palestinian land in its immigration promotional material to Jewish North Americans. Israel controls 61% of the West Bank via Zone C per the 1995 Oslo II Accord, in which Israel agreed to gradually hand over that control to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority maintains official control over Zone A and B, the remaining 39% of of the land of the West Bank.
As of today, Bezalel Smotrich, the racist, facist, homophobic, extremist leader1 of the far right Religious Zionist Party, controls civil matters for the West Bank in addition to his post as Israel’s Finance Minister. My Home in Israel real estate seminars about purchasing property in Israel, including Zone C, and Regavim seminars about “Arab land grabs” have stirred an intense and passionate and emotionally charged collective response in Canada and the United States.
Why, though? Why now? Why is this happening? I can speak for Canada.
Canada has devolved into in a country with poor leadership, propped up by NGO money laundering corruption and foreign interference and a mediocre media industry and a poorly skilled professional journalist class. Canada has become a country with a weak law enforcement infrastructure, pandering to the demands of the DEI Wokerati Aristocracy for the end goal of lowering the standards of law enforcement to promote a diverse society, to give diverse Canadians a feeling of safety and inclusivity. Put bluntly, Canadians are in an abusive relationship with our political and community and human rights leaders, who hold us hostage in this social and cultural hellscape they created and cannot figure out how to remedy.
“This is a revolution: this is how you bring a million people to [the West Bank].” —Smotrich
Where do Kahanists think the displaced Palestinian, Arab and Bedouin populations should live when they succeed in clearing out their designated untouchable humans from Zone C? I don’t understand the logic of wilfully inflicting the most oppressive punishment on another living human, destroying his home and uprooting him from the land which he has lived on for centuries in many cases.
Smotrich and his ilk do not indicate where they think their inconvenient Arabs should go. However Smotrich himself admits without shame that he does not want Arabs in Israel, nor the West Bank nor Gaza. Smotrich wants a solution for Gaza. Encourage voluntary migration of Palestinians, Smotrich says, as if Canada and the USA and Europe exist as overflow areas so the religious extremists of the MENA region can play their twisted version of Dungeons and Dragons meets Religious Crusades meets Game of Thrones and whinge about how everyone in the world hates them. The latest shenanigans of sh1tty pious praying men in the MENA region who lack conflict resolution skills involve Smotrich clawing back Zone B land to preserve Jewish heritage sights threatened by Palestinian development.
So, I am not gonna write at length today. I wanted to introduce another lens for your intellectual camera so you can keep looking at this conflict intentionally, with a values focus rather than a tribal focus. At some point the tribe narrative and your moral compass will conflict and that’s a you problem, not a me problem.
Let’s keep the important things in sharp focus as a nation, Canada.
I will end the post with a question I have for Canada.
What does Zionism mean to us, Canada? I honestly think the discussion needs to happen and I don’t believe we have the intellectual fortitude or the emotional resilience as a collective, nor the leadership, nor do we possess as individuals or a collective the spiritual savvy required to have this discussion.
Do Canadian Zionists want to free Samaria and Judea from Arabs or do they want to free Canada from Arabism and Islamism and Antisemitism? It seems to me you can’t have both. It seems to me that people who have chosen to leave Canada, to make Aliyah your ultimate objective, don’t feel too arsed about compromising Canada by forcing the country into a difficult foreign + social policy and immigration and diplomacy conundrum to placate Smotrich and other religious fascist racist homophobes in the Middle East doing cruelty in G-d’s name.
Did you give up on Canada?
That’s how it looks from where I stand—in your dust—when you decided to move away to another country permanently because you think it’s better over there. Everyone must do what is right for them, and I must do what is right for me, which is stand up for Canada, the only place I have to call home. I don’t have a cool back up plan, this is it for myself and my family, which now includes a granddaughter, born early on June 25, 2024. One tiny life changes the whole world for me now. I don’t think my position different from many other Canadians—that makes us, who remain behind in the place others have abandoned, committed to rebuild and heal and grow our communities and our nation.
Happy Canada Day.
Smotrich planned to blow up Ayalon Highway in Israel, in response to the 2005 Israeli decision to leave Gaza. He and 4 others were found with 700 litres of fuel according to former Shin Bet deputy chief Yitzhak Ilan, who interrogated him at the time.