Political Violence and Extremism

• Published in: Israel Studies Vol. 4; no. 2; pp. 237 - 246
• Main Author: Aronoff, Myron J.
• Format: Book Review Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington Indiana University Press 1999
• Subjects: Culture; International; Jewish people; Jews; Literature; Nonfiction; Politics; Reading; Review Essays; Social conditions & trends; Society; Sprinzak, Ehud; Verbal aggression; Violence; War; Israel
• ISSN: 1084-9513; 1527-201X; 1527-201X
• DOI: 10.1353/is.1999.0002

Sprinzak's discussion of the polarizing 1981 election and the equally divisive war in Lebanon covers familiar ground without adding new insights or perspectives. His analysis of Kach and the reaction to it recapitulates findings of his own previous work. The crisis of the Israeli radical tight precipitated by the Oslo Accords saw the settlers and Gush Emunim surprisingly quiescent. "Apart from the radical right's shocking electoral defeat, there were three reasons for the de-radicalization of Gush Emunim: the `materialization' of the settler community in the 1980s, the rise to power of the `technocrats' of the movement, and the decline of charismatic religious leadership" (219). In my comments on an earlier analysis by Sprinzak, I suggested that the Jewish terrorist underground might be explained as an attempt to revitalize Gush Emunim, which was undergoing institutionalization, and the process that Max Weber defined as the routinization of charisma.(2) A similar process characterized this later period, with the radicalization at the fringes in the struggle to stop the autonomy plan. In fact, the founder of Chai Ve-Kayam, Yehuda Etzion, was the ideologue of the Jewish underground of the 1980s and the father of the Dome of the Rock demolition plan. Sprinzak correctly identifies his organization as a revitalization movement. Sprinzak is at his absolute best in analyzing the rabbinical discussions of din rodef and din moser(3) as a "culture of Halakhic character assassination" (257). He links the Kahanist counterculture (including Dr. Baruch Goldstein) with Rabin's assassin by revealing that Baruch Hagever: A Memorial Volume for Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the Saint, May God Avenge His Blood, was avidly read by Yigal Amir, who later spoke about Rabin's "cultural war against the real Jews" (264). Extremist yeshivot linked the Kahanist counterculture and the settlers, bringing the legitimacy crisis to its peak. Sprinzak includes brief discussions of the rabbinical struggle against Oslo II, the rise of Zo Artzenu, and the Pulsa Di Nura (a rare Kabbalistic death curse) ceremony conducted against [Yitzhak Rabin] by Avigdor Eskin, a former Kach activist, and "an odd group of extremists" on 6 October 1995 as preludes to the assassination. Yet he portrays Yigal Amir as an exceptional Jewish Zealot. Several of his fellow Bar-Ilan students, including Avishai Raviv (the Shin Bet informer), heard him speak of the obligation to kill Rabin and [Shimon Peres], but no one took him seriously. There is no explanation why Raviv failed to report such threats to the Shin Bet. And despite accusations and circumstantial evidence to the contrary, Sprinzak asserts that "it is almost certain that Yigal Amir had no unequivocal rabbinical sanction to kill Rabin" (280). The final chapter summarizes the general findings, arguing that, comparatively speaking, Israeli Jews have been remarkably nonviolent. Sprinzak explains this exceptional self-control in rather vague terms of "Jewish internal solidarity and the presence of nonviolent taboos in Jewish society and culture" (292). He also credits the determined actions of past prime ministers in suppressing violent groups. He is particularly critical in blaming the Rabin government for its "sluggish response to the most extreme among the anti-Oslo activists" (295). While this might appear to some readers to be blaming the victim for the crime, Sprinzak carries considerable authority on the subject. His contention "that had the government acted more decisively against Kach, Kahane Chai, Eyal, and Mate Ma'amatz... outlawing their parties, and prosecuting their leaders for incitement -- the Hebron massacre and the Rabin assassination might have been avoided" must be seriously considered (295-6). Unfortunately such counter-factuals as "what might have been if...?" can never be definitively answered. This reader gets the impression that Sprinzak's frustration stems from the failure of the government to follow such advice, which he probably gave them.