The 'refusal' of Jewish terror

About two years ago, I encountered a demonstration by settlers near the central bus station in Jerusalem. The settlers sought to express their frustration over what they regarded as the government of Israel's lax response to the intifada. Alongside the familiar slogan of "Let the IDF win" and the racist slogan "No Arabs - no terror," another slogan was also sounded: "We want war! We deserve war!" - as if war were a prize or gift.

Consider the very popular parallel drawn between conscientious objection from the right - that is, Torah-inspired refusal and perhaps active and violent resistance to evacuating territories, and conscientious objection from the left - that is, refusal to take part in the state's oppressive rule over the Palestinians via the army, adopting instead non-violent measures such as refusing to enlist in the army.

The conventional argument is that whoever supports the legitimacy of refusal by one side cannot dispute the legitimacy of refusal on the other side of the political spectrum without being accused of hypocrisy or double standards. Refusal is refusal, according to this argument.

But is there really no difference between the types of refusal, despite the fact that everyone calls them by the same name? Isn't it reasonable to consider "what" is being refused and what means are used to exercise this refusal before rendering judgment on the refuseniks? How can one even compare the refusal of a pacifist to bear arms or participate in violent, immoral activities to the refusal of a bloodthirsty person who regards war as a treat? Is it really true that refusal is refusal?

Some will argue that evacuating people from their homes is no less immoral, and perhaps even more immoral, than the manner in which the Israeli army is dealing with the uprising in the territories. If this is the case, why is the slogan "We deserve war" being sounded? After all, the settlers could also opt for non-violent refusal. Why don't they refuse to serve in an army that is about to evacuate them from their homes? But, as we all know, this is not what they are really interested in.

The true heretics are not the pacifists who are sitting in prison, but rather the settlers. They are the ones whose refusal stems from anti-democratic and belligerent motives (if not to say a Jewish version of jihad) that have nothing to do with the way democracy operates. Herein lies the real hypocrisy, which is silenced by the false comparison between conscientious objection from the left and conscientious objection from the right: How can fundamentalist Islamic terror be fought while the state is nurturing Jewish fundamentalist terror within it? The headline for the public debate should "Terror is terror" rather than "Refusal is refusal."

Comparing the two types of refusal makes the debate superficial and encourages us to ignore the most dangerous aspect of what is happening among the settlers: mobilization of the Jewish religion as justification for terror. The "only" religion the pacifists believe in is respect for all human life and opposition to violence. The "religion" of the settlers is a religion of weapons and blood and they even have the chutzpah to try and deceive us and claim this is Judaism.

I agree with the settlers. They deserve war. But the war they deserve is not a war in their name, financed by the state, while sacrificing the lives of millions of peace-loving Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, the war they deserve is against them and the terror they conduct and threaten to conduct against the Palestinians, against state officials carrying out the evacuation policy that a decisive majority in the country supports, and against all Israelis, regardless of their religion.

No pain justifies the use of terror, as deep and humiliating as the pain may be. Israel responds firmly to every Palestinian terror attack. Palestinian terror is unforgivable, even if it stems from authentic feelings of dispossession, humiliation and loss on one hand, and self-righteousness wrapped in religious arguments on the other. But true consistency requires a firm response to fundamentalist Jewish terror. Perhaps the settlers deserve war, the rest of the exhausted Israelis and Palestinians deserve peace.

Dr. Triger teaches law at the College of Management.