A comment on Rosenblum

WFB said...
rosenblum claims: "CHAREIDI MISGIVINGS ABOUT MODERN DAY ISRAEL are an altogether different matter. Truth be told, the chareidi world has long since made its peace with Israel, in one way or another – and for a reason that highlights the differences between the chareidi critique and that of the progressives. Israel is today home to almost half the world’s Jews and over half the world’s Jewish children. For that simple reason alone, chareidi Jews worldwide are deeply concerned about Israel’s security however dismayed they may be about the internal direction of the country. Precisely because they do not doubt for a minute that the entire world depends on the existence of the Jewish people are they ardent defenders of Israel’s security. In this respect, I have found little difference between the 16th Ave. Telshe minyan in Boro Park and the average Modern Orthodox shul in Teaneck. The latter may have a few more members convinced that they have security expertise worth sharing with Israel’s prime ministers and generals and the former may worry a bit more about kiruv in the Holy Land, but, in general, the sense of involvement in Israel’s fate does not differ greatly between the two. Chareidi Jews can acknowledge that the creation of Israel was not without moral taint and caused the suffering and dislocation of tens of thousands of Arab residents of what would become the new state. But in that respect, Arab refugees were no different than the other 38 million people dislocated in various ethnic conflicts around the world in the 20th century. With the sole exception of the Palestinians none of those millions still enjoy refugee status today. No moral absolutism will cause chareidim to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel and thereby increase the danger to its Jewish residents just because Israel, like every other nation state in history, was born in war. If the Jewish people is to fulfill its world mission, it must first survive. And because Torah Jews believe in that world mission they urge Israel to follow the principle of “the one who comes to kill you, rise up and kill him [first],” towards those who remain committed to expelling all the Jews of Israel from their homes. And it does not matter, at this point, that those who come to kill us may have real grievances so long as they cannot reconcile themselves with Jewish existence in any part of Eretz Yisrael."

This is wishful thinking on his part, trying to transfer his personal beliefs onto charedi society in general. unfortunately however, this is not true. i dont remember if it was the yated or the hamodia which editorialized in favor of disengagement primarily because it meant those religious zionists would be getting what they deserved. (reason possibly not stated explicitly. furthermore it was only one of them, the other paper was against it)But what happened to their deep security concerns? point is a significant portion of the charedi public has serious problems dealing with Israel's existence because of some strange theological position of theirs, and pretending that the problem doesn't exist may not just make it go away.