From Yehonatan [Pollard] to Yonatan [Bassi]: A Wake Up Call

By Jonathan Pollard - Special to IMRA - July 25, 2004

[May be reprinted with attribution]

[IMRA: Yonaton Bassi's cites demographic consideration as the primary
justification for retreat. It should be noted that the "demographic" issue
is a very new argument for retreat since it hinges on the rejection of the
proposition that Palestinian self determination may be realized via their
election of the leadership of a Palestinian autonomy existing with an
Israeli envelope. With the exception of the radical left, Oslo supporters -
including Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin - beleived that autonomy sufficed,
thus making the "demographic" issue irrelevant since, even in the absence of
an Israeli retreat, Palestinians would vote to elect the leadership of the
autonomy rather than vote in Israeli elections.]

A week ago no one had ever heard of Yonaton Bassi. Now his name is on the
lips of every G-d fearing person who loves the Land and People of Israel.

Bassi's name might never have been known, had he not accepted an immoral
appointment from Prime Minister Sharon to become the new Head of the
Evacuation Administration. As such, Bassi - who is a religious Jew - will be
the Chief Liquidator of Gaza and Shomron, responsible for throwing Jewish
families out of their homes and liquidating Jewish communities.

In recent interviews (see one below*), Bassi cites many rationalizations as
to why he accepted this "painful mission". He claims that it is excruciating
for him to undertake this assignment, but nevertheless, after much
consideration, he has accepted it. Why? Because he feels that as a religious
person he can do this "difficult job" with greater compassion and
sensitivity.

I recognize the mentality.

In nearly 2 decades in prison, I have been immersed in a world populated by
criminals, among them murderers, rapists, child molesters, and paid
assassins. The one thing that hard core criminals have in common is the
uncanny ability to rationalize their crimes. They always have some excuse,
some mitigating factor, which they feel justifies their having committed
some of the most horrendous crimes - unjustifiable from any moral
perspective.

Yonaton Bassi's attitude and outlook as the new Head of the Evacuation
Administration reminds me of stories that I have heard over the years from
some of these criminals. For example, the story of Mark, a man I met many
years ago, when he was doing time at FCI Butner. What was his crime? Mark
had repeatedly raped his 4-year-old daughter, videotaped the rapes, and sold
copies on the Internet.

I once asked Mark how he could do such a thing to his own baby daughter.
Didn't he love her? How could he hurt her? Didn't he know that he was
supposed to be protecting and defending his daughter, not debasing,
humiliating and exploiting her?

Mark looked at me as if there were something wrong with me for asking such
questions. Then he patiently replied that of course he loves his daughter.
"After the first time it didn't hurt her," he explained, "and after that she
seemed to like it."

He went on to say that the money he made by selling the videos was good and
his daughter enjoyed a better standard of living because of it-- so what's
wrong with that? After all, he said, sooner or later someone was going to
teach her about 'the birds and the bees' (sex), " so why not me, who really
loves her?"

Yonaton Bassi has his own version of this kind of perverted logic to justify
why a religious Jew like himself can accept and carry out an immoral and
utterly unjustifiable mission to separate the Jewish People from their homes
and their Land.

But Yonaton Bassi is not a hard core criminal. He is a Torah Jew.

Even if Bassi were a secular Jew, ignorant of Torah, it would be bad enough.
But for a Torah Jew to voluntarily accept the mission of uprooting Jews from
the Land of Israel and of expelling Jews from their homes - this is an
abomination and an unforgivable chillul HaShem! There can be no
rationalization for this kind of immorality, no mitigating factors, no
justification for a Torah Jew to willingly take on such an inherently evil
task!

As a Torah Jew, Bassi is legally and morally bound to live and act in accord
with Torah.

Torah teaches us that the Land of Israel is an eternal inheritance to the
Jewish People. It was given to us by the Almighty, to cherish, to cleave to,
to honor and to be the guardians of her wholesomeness and her wholeness. Not
the opposite!

Bassi claims that there is no choice. That Jews must abandon chunks of our
inheritance from Ha'Shem because of demographics. A Torah Jew must ask:
HaYad HaShem Teek'tsar? (Is Ha'Shem's Hand too short?) Can it possibly be
that there is any problem too great for the Almighty? Does Ha'Shem ask His
People to rewrite Torah, to voluntarily renounce parts of our eternal
patrimony, because He is incapable of solving the demographic problem? The
secularist may answer: "Yes,we cannot rely on G-d." But Bassi is a Torah
Jew. A Torah Jew knows that HaKodesh BarucHu , (The Holy One) is HaKol
Yachol (Omnipotent).

Bassi also knows that the great Rabbis of our generation have spoken, and
that Daat Torah on the matter is known. The reason we ask for Daat Torah is
because our existence fundamentally depends upon those who know Torah best.
The greatest Torah minds of the generation, including my own revered rav,
the former Chief Rabbi of Israel, the Honorable Rav MordecHai Eliyahu, have
all come down squarely opposed to the uprooting of Jews from their homes and
from our Land. The Rabbis tell us that the Evacuation plan is morally
wrong, and a desecration of G-d's name in the Land. A Torah Jew obeys Daat
Torah.

How is it that Bassi pays no heed to the Torah authorities? Instead, he
cites mortal men, like the Chou-en Lai and the Government, the Knesset, the
Justice Ministry and the Army as his highest authorities. Bassi says that
he cannot stop the evacuation. That may be true. But that does not mean that
he ought to be a part of this chillul HaShem. Daat Torah is clear that
neither he, nor any G-d fearing Jew, should be a part of it.

Moreover, by accepting this immoral mission, Bassi has become an icon for
those who deny G-d'S sovereignty over the Land. The religiously ignorant
and the irreligious now have in Bassi a model of a religious Jew who has
sold out. From his model the irreligious infer that all Jews, even religious
Jews, will eventually sell out for a price. Sell out what? Sell out their
emunah and bitachon, and their belief in the eternal nature of G-d's
promises to the Jewish People. (G-d forbid!)

That brings us to the 3 cardinal sins. A Torah Jew knows that there are only
3 cardinal sins for which a Jew must lay down his/her life rather than
transgress. They are: Shfeechat Daam (bloodshed; murder); Avoda Zarah (idol
worship); and Gilooee Arayot (illicit sexual relations).

Other than these 3 cardinal sins, a Jew is permitted, in a life and death
situation, to transgress all of the mitzvoht (commandments) of the Torah to
save a life. Why? Because the Torah enjoins us to live by the mitzvoht, not
to die by them.

However there is one more case in which a Jew must die rather than
transgress a mitzvah. In the case where a Jew is asked to perform an
action - any action - in order to deny Torah, the Jew must choose to forfeit
his life rather than deny Torah. To illustrate, if a gun were put to the
head of an observant Jew and he were ordered to eat a ham sandwich; to save
his life he may eat. But if an observant Jew were ordered to perform the
same task for the explicit purpose of denying the validity of Torah law, a
Jew should rather forfeit his life than agree to deny any part of Torah.

The Biblical story of Chana and her seven sons, who went to their deaths,
one by one, for refusing to bow down to a gentile King as a public denial of
Torah, exemplifies this principle. The six elder sons refused to bow and
were put to death one after the other. The 7th son, the youngest, then stood
before the King. The King tried to spare his life. He told the child, "I
will throw down my ring. All you have to do is bend down and pick it up;
everyone will think that you bowed to me but in fact all you will be doing
is picking up my ring. That will be sufficient for me to save your life."
The King threw down his ring. The child refused to pick it up. The child
chose to go to his death rather than give the impression that he had denied
Torah by bowing. His mother Chana remained silent, in full accord with her
sons' acts of self-sacrifice.

Is there any question that by choosing Yonaton Bassi, a religious Jew, to be
the Chief Liquidator of Jewish homes and communities in Israel, PM Sharon
created a situation where a Torah Jew will be blatantly denying Torah? The
very nature of the task Bassi has accepted denies the most fundamental tenet
of Torah: Ahavat Yisrael (Love of Israel).

Our sages tell us that the three salient characteristics of a Jew are that
they are "bayshaneem", "rachmaneem" and "gomlei chassadim" - "humble",
"merciful", and "doers of kind deeds". If any of these characteristics are
missing in a Jew's character, his lineage is suspect.

How can Bassi reconcile his Torah observance with the diametrically opposite
character traits that his new mission as Chief Liquidator requires? Instead
of being humble, he must be arrogant and heartless to turn Jews out of their
homes. Instead of being merciful, he must be merciless to expel Jews from
their land. Instead of being a doer of kind deeds, he must be so devoid of
goodness that he does not recognize the evil inherent in what he doing; and
so devoid of human kindness, that he may deceive himself by doing evil and
calling it good.

Gevalt! Wake up, Yonaton Bassi! Wake up! Your good Jewish soul is in peril!

When a child is born, Heaven decrees all the skills, talents, and
characteristics that the child is to possess. It is up to the child to work
hard to develop these gifts in order to enjoy them for all the rest of
his/her life. Our sages teach us that the only thing that Heaven does not
decree is if the child will be wicked or righteous -- that is entirely
dependent on the choices that he/she makes in life. You have made a choice,
Yonaton Bassi, but it is a murderous choice, a heartless choice, a choice
that will haunt you and your descendants until the end of time.

Yonaton, my brother, you have erred in judgment. You have damaged yourself
and all of Torah Jewry in the process. But it is not too late to turn back.
Not too late to be mitakken eht ha' mihoovaht - to repair that which has
been distorted. I urge you, take the mantle that has been passed to you as
Chief Liquidator of the Jewish People and throw it back at the Prime
Minister's feet. Let not the Jewish blood which that that mantle will incurr
stain your good Jewish soul.

Yonaton Bassi, a week ago no one knew your name. Take heed, my brother, lest
your name become a curse for all generations! Return to HaShem and give up
this murderous task! Reclaim your honor and your place among the true
believers in G-d's eternal grace. As a Torah Jew, you can do no less! -30-

*ADDENDUM: Arutz7 Interview with Yonaton Bassi - (07/19/04)

EVACUATION AUTHORITY HEAD SAYS HE HAS A "PAINFUL TASK"

Yonaton Bassi, of the religious Kibbutz Sdei Eliyahu in the northern Jordan
Valley, has been appointed to head the newly formed Evacuation
Administration. His position will be parallel to that of a government
ministry's director-general. Arutz-7's Haggai Segal spoke with him today:

Q. Are you at peace with the Prime Minister's disengagement plan?

A. ... I'll tell you what the Prime Minister told me. He said that this job
can be undertaken only by someone who, on the one hand, feels the great pain
of the terrible uprooting of the people from their homes, but who on the
other hand feels that there is no other alternative. I think that in this
matter, this definition applies to me as well.

Q. Why do you think the Prime Minister has turned to you for this painful
task?

A. You'll have to ask him, but it is certainly a painful mission, possibly
the most painful there is. I therefore had to deliberate between turning it
down and leaving the work to someone else, or taking it upon myself - with a
heavy personal price, especially given the circles in which I live - knowing
that I might be able to make it easier for the people involved... I spent
several days of deep introspection on this matter, and I came to the
conclusion that in these matters, one must not think only of himself, but
rather take the broad picture into account.

Q. You are a senior member of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, a member of
Kibbutz Sdei Eliyahu, and it may well be said that the religious kibbutzim
are the glorious settlement enterprise of Religious Zionism of the 1930's,
40's, 50's, maybe even further -

A. - also the 60's and 70's.

Q. - yes, also the 60's and 70's, and even in Gush Etzion (Judea) you have
some Kibbutzim. So how then can you become the chief liquidator of a
parallel settlement enterprise?

A. First of all, eh, I'm not the chief liquidator [nervous chuckle], I would
like to correct this. We will not deal with evacuation; the name Evacuation
Authority is not a good one, and we'll change it. Our main job will be to
try to provide the best solutions to all the families that will have to
decide between various alternatives: do they want to continue to be farmers
or not, do they want to move to a community in the Negev or to somewhere
else, and the like. We will try to give each one the solution that's best
for him. The [entire disengagement] is of course being coordinated by
people other than me, such as Gen. Giora Eiland, others from the Justice
Ministry, the Prime Minister's Office, and they are dealing with
legislation, military issues, and others. Our job is just to deal with the
hardest and most painful part of all, and that is the people themselves.

Q. In other words, your job is to encourage the people to leave of their own
will, in exchange for compensation?

A. Not to encourage; we will turn to them -- we won't force them to
negotiate with us, but we'll rather propose that they talk with us and we'll
try to figure out the best alternative.

Q. Allow me to return to this once again. It's true that you were never a
member of Gush Emunim [the original settlement movement for Judea, Samaria
and Gaza, formed after the 1973 Yom Kippur War - ed.] but you were certainly
educated on the principle that 'where the Zionist plow passes, that will
mark our border' - and here we see that not only is this principle is being
broken, but that you are among those promoting and advancing this trend,
even if out of admirable motivations.

A. I believe that this public discourse on what I would call "geography or
demography" is a long one, and it's certainly not upon me to complete it,
though I am part of the Israeli public that is deliberating over it. If the
State of Israel concludes that in order to be a Jewish and democratic state,
it has to peel off a very large Arab population, it also must bear the heavy
pain that follows. This is of course not a decision that I made, but rather
the government, and I know that I won't even be able to begin my work until
the Knesset passes a law regarding the compensation and the various
regulations, etc. ... I assume this will pass sometime after the Knesset's
summer recess. Until then, I will merely serve as a coordinator of some
type for all the many government offices that are already dealing with this.

Q. You certainly must have thought about the possibility that most of the
residents will not agree to take compensation, but will rather opt to remain
in their homes.

A. I'll tell you what I think they're doing already. I think they're doing
what Yaakov Avinu [the Patriarch Jacob] did when his brother Esav was on his
way to greet him. Yaakov prepared in three ways: Prayer, Gifts, and War,
i.e., he took several different approaches. On the one hand, they are
preparing, legitimately, to do whatever they can in the framework of the law
to resist this plan, while at the same time they are also dealing with the
alternative. I think they will be smart if they do both at the same time,
so as not to harm themselves.

Q. Do you mean, and perhaps the Prime Minister discussed it with you, that
those who don't agree to leave on their own might not receive compensation
at all?

A. There's no such thing. I don't think anyone has even thought of such a
possibility.

Q... Isn't it clear to you that this disengagement will lead to other
disengagements in Judea and Samaria, along the lines of, "Today Gush Katif,
tomorrow Ofrah"?

A. I personally think that there is nothing that strengthens the Judea and
Samaria settlement enterprise more than when we relieve and reduce the very
heavy demographic pressure. But of course it could be that I am wrong. I
don't think there is anyone who can say what will happen as a result. Chou
en-Lai, the Prime Minister of China in the 70's, was asked his opinion on
the [18th century] French Revolution, and he said that not enough time had
passed for him to judge it. When you're in the middle of a historic
process, it's hard to see it from a broad perspective. I would guess that
whoever gives it a historic perspective now, does so based only on his own
outlook.

-30-