Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a leader of the militant Gush Emunim, says he no longer supports the kind of violent acts against West Bank Arabs for which members of a Jewish terrorist underground are currently serving prison sentences. He was seconded in that view by a lawyer, Elyakim Haetzni, who is associated with the settlers movement.
The two men discussed the future of the territory at a gathering in Yitzhar, a Gush settlement in the Samaria district this week. Haetzni said the Jewish underground caused “terrible damage” but he conceded that there had been considerable Jewish support for such acts as the June, 1980, car bombings which maimed two Arab mayors and blinded an Israeli police sapper.
Levinger and Haetzni differed over how they would resist possible territorial concessions in Judaea and Samaria. Levinger urged that the “pioneer image” of Jewish settlers be stressed to attract more followers, enabling the Gush Emunim to establish more settlements.
Haetzni argued that the experience in Sinai, which was returned to Egypt, proved that settlements alone could not stand in the way of territorial concessions made for political reasons. He proposed that the-Israeli public be made aware of the dangers of concessions to the point of hysteria. “I want to create hysteria. During the Holocaust those who were hysterical were saved,” the lawyer maintained.
Levinger said he feared the future struggle over the territories would lead to bloodshed. The gathering ended with adoption of a resolution warning the government that it “has no authority to negotiate concessions in Eretz Israel” because “such concessions lack any legal or moral authority.”
In another development, settlers in Sanur, in Samaria, today abandoned a nearby mosque they had seized and converted to a synagogue. They agreed to leave the mosque after what was described as several months of “quiet persuasion” by the West Bank civil administration headed by Col. Efraim Sneh.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
