My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

by Ari Shavit

First Etzion wants to settle on the western saddle of Ba’al Hazor Mountain. He wants Ofra to be founded on the site where God showed Abraham the Land. But his more practical comrades convince him that his desire is futile. The only way to break into Samaria is to take over the deserted Jordanian military base of Ein Yabrud, to raid land that is not private property and that already has buildings to settle in. And the only way forward is to take action at once, before momentum is lost and the youth lose hope and the settlers’ movement disintegrates.

  The operation is planned like a military offensive. Etzion’s work squad is to come down the mountain at the end of the workday and arrive at the deserted base below. Wallerstein’s group is to arrive from Jerusalem at the very same time. Simultaneously, Gush Emunim’s leader, Hanan Porat, is to contact the sympathetic defense minister, Shimon Peres, so that when the army discovers that the base has been invaded, he will put pressure on the army to look the other way, to accept this invasion. Between the cracks, Ofra will be founded and become a fact on the ground.

  On Sunday, April 20, 1975, Wallerstein leads a small convoy of cars from the Gush Emunim office in Jerusalem to Samaria. In the late afternoon the work squad comes down Ba’al Hazor Mountain. By evening the two groups meet at the Ein Yabrud base and take it over. A few hours pass until the regional military commander arrives and instructs the trespassers to leave. Etzion and Wallerstein refuse. They claim that they are acting on behalf of the Ministry of Defense. While the two are taken to the army’s headquarters in Ramallah, Porat puts enormous pressure on Peres and three of his hawkish aides. Late that night, Peres instructs the army not to assist the settlers but not to evacuate them, either. Etzion and Wallerstein immediately grasp the historic significance of these vague instructions. A bottle of wine is found and glasses are raised in the army’s headquarters. At midnight the two young leaders are driven back to Ein Yabrud in an army jeep, victorious. Determined, resourceful, and crafty, they have overpowered the government of Israel. In Ofra they have laid the foundation of the last colonial project of the twentieth century.

  In early March 1975, Palestinian terrorists attack Tel Aviv’s Savoy Hotel, murdering eight guests. The UN does not condemn the attack, and the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, sees his international standing grow stronger. In late March, Henry Kissinger’s attempt to reach an Egyptian-Israeli interim agreement fails. President Gerald Ford instructs his administration to reassess the United States’ relationship with Israel. The vital American-Israeli alliance is in crisis. At the very same time, America’s East Asian policy is in a state of collapse. On April 18, 1975, Phnom Penh is conquered by the Khmer Rouge. On April 20, 1975, the last Communist offensive on Laos is launched, and on April 30, 1975, South Vietnam falls. American helicopters rescue the last Americans from the rooftop of the American embassy in Saigon. In Israel there is a widespread feeling that the West might abandon it, too. Western weakness, internal weakness, and international isolation are almost palpable. Many Israelis fear that what happened in Saigon will happen in Tel Aviv, and that Israel’s fate will be similar to that of South Vietnam. No wonder there is an instinct to cling to Ofra. Not only raving right-wingers but many realistic centrists view Ofra as a symbolic response to the national and international slide toward the abyss. That is why many Israeli officials—senior and junior—secretly assist Ofra, and why leading public figures encourage Ofra and contribute to it. Within less than two years, a groundswell of support turns Ofra from a temporary encampment into a viable settlement.

  Pinchas Wallerstein speaks like an entrepreneur when he describes Ofra’s early days. First they had to cover the broken windows of the Jordanian base’s buildings with sheets of plastic, he tells me, and improvise a kitchen, organize a mess hall, bring water tanks, and deploy chemical toilets. Then they had to pave a path in the rocky terrain and pitch tents, and divide the long military barracks into small family housing units. Then they illegally drew water from the regional (Palestinian) water system and siphoned electricity from the regional (Palestinian) electric network. They dug a cesspit. They founded a field school, a metal workshop, a computer programming firm, and a small aircraft ladder factory. They brought in the first prefabricated houses. Then they got into night-long discussions about their vision for Ofra. Ofra wouldn’t be a kibbutz or moshav or a bedroom community, they decided. It would encourage private initiative and allow private property. Ofra would be Israel’s first community settlement.

  Yehuda Etzion speaks about Ofra’s early days like a romantic ideologue. “The first principle of Ofra was that its residents would all work here,” he tells me. “The second principle was that no Arab would be permanently employed here. The third principle was that Ofra would have a strong agricultural foundation.” For Etzion, agriculture was the crux. He believed then, as he believes now, that there is no way to hold on to the land without working the land, that there is no way to return to the land without direct physical contact with it. That’s why he cleared the first plot of land with his bare hands and planted daffodils the very first summer and cherry trees the first autumn. As the settlement grew stronger, he dedicated himself to the cherry orchard, convinced he was doing what God wanted him to do.

  Neither Wallerstein nor Etzion gives me a convincing answer regarding the Arabs. Did they not see the Arabs they had settled among? Yes, they did see them. Did they not know that all around Ofra were the Palestinian villages of Silwan, Mazraat, A-Sharkiya, Ein Yabrud, Beitin, and Taybeh? Yes, they did know that those villages existed. Did they not understand the inherent contradiction wedged between Jewish Ofra and the dense Palestinian population surrounding it? Yes, they did understand.

  Wallerstein tells me that the Arabs of 1975 were not the Arabs of today. The villages were small, poor, and primitive. Their presence was much less evident. The villagers were not hostile or violent. They showed no signs of Palestinian nationalism. In the first years, the settlers of Ofra visited the villages and traded with the villagers frequently and did not feel that the local Arabs threatened them in any way. On the contrary, at that time the villages had a primal beauty that amplified the biblical magic of the mountainous, historically charged region in which Ofra had planted itself. The Arab villagers did not seem to be a genuine obstacle.

  Etzion, on the other hand, knew better than that. He spoke Arabic, had spent long hours with Arabs, and had bought Arab land. He even had some sympathy for traditional Arab ways. He appreciated the fact that unlike secular urban Jews, rural Arabs were one with the land. I sense that Etzion knew from the outset that there would be a war to the death between Ofra and the villages, and that he believed that at the end of the war, the villages would vanish. The historically minded national religious leader never forgot Ein Harod. He was convinced that what would save Ofra was some sort of future cataclysm that was bound to come and to achieve in the West Bank what the cataclysm of 1948 had achieved in the Valley of Harod.

  And yet, when I listen to Wallerstein and Etzion, I realize that they did not have a well-defined doctrine regarding the Arabs. When they came to settle in Samaria, they were more ignorant than evil. They saw Israel’s 1970s weakness and realized that the Israeli crisis was not only political but spiritual. They felt obliged to deal with the crisis, but the solution they came up with was absurd and completely ignored the demographic reality on the ground. Wallerstein and Etzion did not realize this because they did not think through the consequences of their actions. They were young and rebellious and they were part of a juvenile movement that enjoyed breaking a taboo, crossing a line, and challenging the establishment. But they never knew where they were really headed. They never realized what sort of mess they were about to create. They established Ofra without comprehending its repercussions.

  Pinchas Wallerstein is Ofra’s secretary general for four years. He leads the way in expanding it from the abandoned Jordanian base into the privately owned Palestinian fields surrounding it. He doubles its population. He builds a kindergarten, a school, a minimarket, a pos
t office, and a synagogue. He sees to it that Ofra gets a bus line and a telephone line. He initiates and plans Ofra’s first fifty-house neighborhood. In 1977, after the right-wing Likud Party comes to power, he coaxes Menachem Begin’s cabinet into recognizing Ofra as a legitimate and legal settlement. As a result of that recognition, the once piratelike outpost receives generous support from all branches of government: housing, health, welfare, education, and defense. Within less than five years, the unlawful stronghold becomes a solid and viable settlement. Ofra is home to settler movement gatherings, to the settlers’ weekly magazine, and to the settlers’ political organs. The mother of all settlements is now the capital of all settlements. It is the icon of the settler movement and the settlement phenomena.

  But Pinchas Wallerstein wants more. Ofra is not enough. Like others in the Gush Emunim leadership, he watches in pain in 1979 as Israel’s right-wing government hands over the Sinai desert to Egypt in exchange for peace. He sees that the process of contraction is gaining momentum and might soon reach the West Bank. Although Ofra is a success, it does not stop the landslide its founders had planned to stop. That’s why Wallerstein thinks it is essential to take over vast territories of the West Bank. He seeks to prevent an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement by establishing dozens of Ofras. And he does. In 1979 Wallerstein is nominated head of the regional council of the Binyamin District. He paves roads, builds industrial parks, establishes Jewish communities. Energetic, creative, and shrewd, he gets successive Israeli governments to endorse and advance the Gush Emunim dream. In his twenty-eight years in office he establishes forty settlements, enlarging the settler population under his jurisdiction from one thousand to forty-three thousand. Simultaneously, he plays a leading role in the settlers’ Yesha Council, which compels Israeli governments to build and support 140 settlements and dozens of illegal outposts throughout the West Bank. He helps bring hundreds of thousands of settlers to the occupied territories. After succeeding in Ofra, Wallerstein realizes that there are no limits. There is no power in post-1973 Israel that can stop him. That’s how Wallerstein is able to build one Ofra after another. One Ofra, ten Ofras, a hundred Ofras. Along with his friends and comrades he institutionalizes the Gush Emunim revolution. He creates a new demographic-political reality that redefines Israel and changes the course of Zionism.

  Yehuda Etzion also wants more. For four years, he works in his cherry orchard. To this day he remembers with delight the screech of the chains of the tractor that broke the land of Ofra for the very first time. He brings the cherry plants from the Valley of Jezreel and lays out the orchard with pegs and white ropes. He recalls digging the holes for the trees, watering the holes. The first section of the orchard is sour cherry, the second section is Japanese plum, the third is sweet cherry. Then he plants another orchard, twenty miles away, of peaches, nectarines, and grapes. Four years after the initial planting the first harvest arrives. He recounts to me the exhilaration he feels when the decorated wagon drives into Ofra carrying its first fruits.

  But Etzion also realizes that although Ofra has taken root, its success is local and limited. Prime Minister Menachem Begin has betrayed the Land of Israel, he insists, by returning the Sinai. The Israelis of the plains are not standing by the Land of Israel. Retreat is in full motion, and it seems clear that Judea and Samaria might fall. Americanism is the new Hellenism and it is making Israel un-Jewish, weak, hollow, and rotten. Israel can only be saved by a new idea or a deed or an event that will transform history.

  The Temple Mount has always fascinated Yehuda Etzion. As a child, he went with his father to West Jerusalem to look over the border toward the site that the Holy Temple once occupied. By the time the Six Day War broke out, Etzion was obsessed with the Temple Mount. And even when he was striving to build Ofra, he always knew that it was only a station on the road to the Temple Mount. “The Temple Mount is the focal point of the land,” Etzion tells me. “But it is in the hands of gentiles. As long as the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Omar mosque stand on the Temple Mount, there can be no salvation for Israel.”

  In 1979, as Wallerstein begins his work at the Binyamin District Regional Council, Etzion begins meeting in Jerusalem with Yehoshua Ben Shoshan, Menachem Livni, and Shabtai Ben Dov. All four agree that no Islamic abomination should stand on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount embodies the covenant between God and Israel. It is the source and the focus of Jewish life. The Etzion Four see the Temple Mount as the place to launch the revival of a Judaic Israel. Only dramatic action on the Temple Mount will make it possible to restart Zionism, so that this time it will be right and pure and truly Jewish.

  Wallerstein does not know this at the time, but in 1980 his path parts from Etzion’s. They still live house by house in Ofra and are still Ofra’s moral leaders. Wallerstein admires Etzion’s spirit, and Etzion respects Wallerstein’s work. But in their daily lives they are working on two very different enterprises. Wallerstein is determined to establish more and more settlements, which he does. But Etzion becomes convinced that Wallerstein’s settlements are not enough. They are vital for the cause, but they will not solve the core problem. What is needed is a profound internal change. What is needed is revolution. It is necessary to replace the State of Israel with the Kingdom of Israel. Western democracy will have to make way for the great Jewish court, the Sanhedrin. God Almighty will have to intervene in modern history and save his people, his Israel.

  At this point the conversation with Etzion becomes far more fascinating than my conversation with Wallerstein. Yehuda Etzion has never before spoken about the Temple Mount plot as he speaks now, revealing his innermost hopes and fears of that time. “When we founded Ofra, we already knew that our struggle would pit truth against falsehood,” he tells me. “The government’s attempt to make Samaria a Jewish-free zone was false. Our fight with the government was a fight between the good angel and the evil angel. Jewish legend teaches us that such a fight ends with a surprising outcome: the evil angel says ‘Amen’ in spite of himself. After being beaten, he is forced to see the truth. This is what happened in our case, too. Even though the forces we encountered were far superior, in the end our truth won. Even Labor’s leaders said ‘Amen’ in spite of themselves.

  “Ofra’s success gave us a tremendous boost. It strengthened our faith and emboldened us. A lot of what happened later happened because of Ofra’s success. From all over the country and from all walks of life people came to see us and be with us. They were surprised by what we had accomplished. Suddenly, they saw a light on the mountaintop. So after we lit the light of Ofra, we lit the light of Elon Moreh, and we lit the light of Shilo, and we lit the light of Beit El. While secular Zionism remained below in the lowland, we climbed up and lit more and more bonfires on the mountaintops.

  “But I lived in fear. What was accomplished was far from secure. What was built was not yet stable. Everything still seemed vulnerable and reversible. And then there was the shameful peace agreement with Egypt, and the duplicity of the government, with Labor drifting further and further away from what it once was. So much so that I felt I could no longer trust the national leadership. I felt betrayed by it. And so I had to fight the State of Israel, which had ceased to be the emissary of the nation of Israel. I was obliged to act on my own for the good of the nation of Israel. As there was no real leadership to speak of, and no real state to speak of, the duty rested on me.

  “In the late 1970s I was introduced to the writings of Shabtai Ben Dov. Ben Dov prepared an operative plan for the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel. I learned from him that settlements were not enough, that there was an urgent need to replace the set of foreign values that Israel had adopted. American and European concepts had to be done away with. We needed to embrace concepts that followed directly from the Torah of Israel. We had to leave democracy behind and go back to the source. We had to foment a Kingdom Come revolution.

  “I knew that the Temple Mount was the focal point. The mountain is where our Father in heaven connects with
us. The fact that the Temple Mount is not in our hands is the most damning testimony of how low we have sunk. The mosques on the Temple Mount are a humiliation to the people of Israel and the history of Israel and God. Blowing up the mosques would allow us to break through to the heavens. It would pave the way to sanctity, divine presence, the Sanhedrin, and the Temple. It would be a purge that would end the old corrupt era and usher in a new pure one, that would replace the secular State of Israel with a Torah-inspired kingdom.

  “A third world war? An Islamic march on Jerusalem? Tens of thousands of casualties? I thought about these scenarios but came to the conclusion that they were pessimistic and alarmist. I realized that when the Dome will collapse all hell would break loose. But I didn’t think that thousands of tanks would move on Israel and that hundreds of missiles would be launched. But I also thought that even if I was wrong, the risk was worthwhile. Ben Gurion thought that the foundation of Israel justified the war it begot. Now things are no different. It was absolutely clear to me that making Israel a holy state justified suffering a war against all of Israel’s enemies.”

  In the early 1980s, as Pinchas Wallerstein mobilizes more and more of the resources of democratic Israel to build settlements in Judea and Samaria, Yehuda Etzion mobilizes more and more settlers in Judea and Samaria to bring about a revolution that will topple democratic Israel. Wallerstein tries to impose a colonial stalemate in the West Bank, while Etzion tries to ignite Armageddon on the Temple Mount. Their success with Ofra makes the two men outrageously ambitious. While the pragmatic Wallerstein succeeds in making the Israeli republic a subcontractor of the Greater Israel edifice, the messianic Etzion wishes to replace the Israeli republic with a kingdom.

  Even today, when he reconstructs the events of thirty to forty years ago, Wallerstein is energetic, forceful, and detailed. He remembers every road he opened, every industrial park he initiated, every budget he extracted from the government. He circumvented here and he maneuvered there, and he pushed and he shoved and he made mainstream Israeli politics flow to the riverbed of Gush Emunim.