A SMALL SECT, a cruel and obdurate sect, emerged several years ago from a dark corner of Judaism; and it is threatening to destroy all that is dear and holy to us, and to bring down upon us a savage and insane blood-cult.

People think, mistakenly, that this sect is struggling for our sovereignty in Hebron and Nablus, that it wants the Greater Land of Israel, and this end justifies all the means at their disposal – including those dripping with blood. But the truth is that, for this cult, the Greater Land of Israel is merely a sophisticated ploy to disguise its real aims: the imposition of an ugly and distorted version of Judaism on the State of Israel. Nablus and Hebron are just means to an end, way-stations along the course Levinger and Kahane are pursuing towards the spread of their savage conception over Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Dimona and Beit She’an.

The real aim of this cult is the expulsion of the Arabs so as to oppress the Jews afterwards, to force us all to bow to the authority of their brutal false prophets. The national split over the question of borders and the territories is merely the breach through which the waste-products of Judaism spill onto the forefront of history’s stage. It is a tragedy for all of us, hawks and doves, Jews and Arabs; but perhaps above all it is the tragedy of the secular Right which even now has not yet understood that it, too, as well as all it holds dear, is in the line of fire.

Fifteen years ago, in the abandoned train station at Sebastiya, this cult forced Yitzhak Rabin to his knees; and yet ever since then Rabin has remained on his knees before the Levingers. Worse than that – the State of Israel went down on its knees there, at Sebastiya, 15 years ago; it hasn’t been able to get back on its feet. Since then, in fact, all of us are "flat on our faces."

And now the moment of truth has arrived. The masks have come off, the disguises have been cast aside, the hands are the hands of Kahane. If the State of Israel does not arise and stop them now, the day may not be far off when they will stop us.

What is in the balance is not merely the future of the territories, nor even the question of war and peace. What is now to be determined – perhaps within a few weeks or months – is the very face of Jewish civilization. The very existence of Zionism. The very dream of being a free people in our own land.

The shocking success this cult has had in harnessing to its bandwagon large portions of the hawkish Right is also in part a result of the way it has wrapped itself in the cloak of self-righteous religiosity, the mask of patriotic Zionism, and even the guise of pioneering, to pull the wool over the eyes of hundreds of thousands of Israelis who would quake with alarm were they to recognize, beyond the dubonim and the Uzis, the face of the cruel and freedom-hating fanatic Jewish Hizbullah.

All our attempts to reveal their true face have come to naught. Ever since Sebastiya, and to this very day, they have had the upper hand and we have been routed. Whoever sees and hears what is coming forth from Ariel, Petah Tikva, Jerusalem, Acre, Ashdod and everywhere else, must recognize that the lunacy of the day before yesterday is yesterday’s exception and today’s routine; and if we do not rid ourselves of it now – it will be tomorrow’s norm. And those who defy that norm will go to prison.

The moment has come to arise and vow: They shall not pass.

ISRAEL’S GOVERNMENT of occupation in the territories has become a monster; a monster which has long since crossed the Green Line, removed its masks and even boasts of its monstrosity. Armed gangs sally forth to wreak [vengeance] upon Jews "who deserve to get shot like Arabs," and upon Jews who "look like Jews who deserve to get shot."

Remember: this cult got the rifles and the machine-guns and the bullets from the State of Israel, from us – because the State of Israel did not understand that their ultimate goal was not to wipe out Arabs but rather to wipe out the State of Israel and proclaim in its stead the Messianic and insane Kingdom of Judah.

Day in and day out, we hear the confused voices of President Herzog and Prime Minister Shamir and Defence Minister Rabin and all kinds of other figures who are stricken with blindness, pleading limply with this unclean cult "not to take the law into their own hands." But what does "taking the law into their own hands" mean? The shocking meaning of this phrase is that the law is sadism, pogromism, blind vengeance and undiscriminating slaughter – but the sadism and the slaughter must remain the monopoly of our men in uniform. Of the state.

Thus we degenerate day by day from a situation in which patiently illegal and patently inhuman deeds are done practically unhindered – to a situation in which the law itself, and in one of two cases even justice, are beginning to display signs of being swept in the direction of this savage cult.

We are trying to say to President Herzog, to the prime minister and to all the rest: For God’s sake stop nattering about "taking the law into their own hands." If each and every one of you, no matter what your view of a desirable and possible political solution is, does not speak out and begin to call crimes against humanity "crimes against humanity" – you, and all of us, will be sucked into the abyss of complicity in these crimes. If each and every one of you – hawks and doves, religious and secular, rabbis and legal advisers – does not speak out and call sadism "sadism" and a pogrom "a pogrom" – Judaism itself will be sucked into the depths of bestiality and defilement.

WHOEVER TORTURES human beings – even enemies – with red-hot iron bars, is not merely someone who is "taking the law into his own hands" but rather a criminal whom the law should take into its hands. Whoever abuses children, woman and men, and whoever goes out to make a pogrom in a village or burn down the door of a journalist’s home or beat up an IDF soldier or murder a political opponent – is not merely someone who is "taking the law into his own hands" but rather a villain and a criminal, whom the law must take into its own hands.

If each and every one of you – including you, Mr. Shamir, and you, Mr. Rabin, and you, the Chief Rabbis and all the other rabbis – does not speak out and call murder "murder," you too will not be invulnerable to the murderers’ bullets or to the fate of the late Emil Grunzweig.

Out there, in the dark, there is already someone who sees you, too, as traitors. And someone out there, in the dark, has made you far game. And the man out there who is loading his gun with the bullet that has your name on it – has already got your confirmation in advance that your murder will be merely another instance of "taking the law into his own hands." Don’t worry – there is sure to be someone who will immediately add: "They acted out of an understandable predicament."

If you do not speak out – yes, first and foremost you, the heads of our government, you, the leaders of the Right, you, the lovers of a Greater Israel, you, the rabbis – if you do not take steps with all possible speed to rehabilitate the law which is beginning to be perverted, and justice [for both] Arab and Jew, one and the same law for the settler and for the protester against the settlement, equal justice for friends and for adversaries -- if you do not do this at once, our blood is on your heads; and, at the end of the road, your own blood as well. You have been warned.

Without one law and equal justice for everyone, you will have to give up not only Ramallah and Hebron: you will have to give up the State of Israel, because the State of Israel cannot live without one law and equal justice. Nothing can exist here without one law and equal justice. Not Hebron. Not Tel Aviv. And not Judaism. And not the State. It will be a jungle here. Beirut.

THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT of occupation in the territories is crumbling and degenerating not because Arab children are throwing stones and petrol bombs. In ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem as well, stones are thrown on the Sabbath, and the Tel Aviv underworld is proficient in the matter of petrol bombs. The occupation government is crumbling because the more or less agreed-upon foundation which has supported the occupation for 21 years has disappeared: it is no longer possible to use the old excuse that "there’s no one to talk to," that there’s no partner for peace, that without the territories our enemies will throw us into the sea. These claims are dead.

I don’t know what is deep in the enemy’s heart, but on his lips there are now suggestions for compromise and the peaceful co-existence of two states. Perhaps they are liars and deceivers. Perhaps. But we will never know unless we enter negotiations and examine their suggestions face to face. The continuing deterioration, the blood being spilled, and the blood that will yet be spilled, is therefore also the responsibility of those who stubbornly pretend that there is no one with whom to talk.

There are among us a number of decent people who say to themselves: only by rebelling will we be able to force the politicians to change direction. It is not difficult to see how a number of decent people have already arrived at the spiritual imperative to break dastardly laws, avoid perverted regulations and refuse to serve with the army in the territories is in danger of becoming a monster or of returning home broken and disheartened.

I and others like myself have not yet reached the point in our souls from which there is no return. We are still struggling to repair what has been bent, not to destroy it. To mend the breaks, and not merely to find a way out of the horror for ourselves.

But we too have our limits. We must sound a strong and clear declaration: we are not infinitely patient. Our patience is coming to an end. The hypocrisy of our leaders, the self-justification of our officials, the shocking pliancy of two or three judges, the prevalence of a double standard can bring us all to the point of saying: this is it.

Should the day come when thousands and tens of thousands refuse to go to the territories to carry out the oppression of the population there the government of occupation will collapse. However, at that time, the last links holding this society together will burst. Seven times a day we restrain ourselves from leaping up and shouting "Enough! We won’t have any more of this." Do not make the mistake of interpreting our public responsibility as dithering, our restraint as acquiescence.

We are not dithering. We are exercising self-control. The reason for this self-control is the realization that, should Israel be forced to leave the territories because of internal pressures as well as external pressures, it might arouse appetites among the extreme and fanatic Arab elements who will not stop at any border. It’s a sense of responsibility that holds us back. For now.

THESE WARNINGS MUST be sounded in unambiguous language: we do not want the nation to be ripped apart but under no circumstances whatever will we acquiesce in the transformation of our country into a monster. And we will not allow them to use us to serve as the fangs and claws of the monster.

One more point: if any of you have been toying with the hope of solving it all with some sort of swift and drastic action transfer or other mass war crimes you had better realize that such a thing will not happen. Not because the "world" won’t stand for it, not because of the danger of the situation deteriorating into all-out war, but because very simply we will not allow you to commit transfer or other crimes against humanity. Even if we have to lie down under the wheels of the lorries. Even if we have to blow up the bridges.

However, it’s not the insane cult that I would like to address now, but rather our normal opponents, the hundred of thousands of Israelis who believe that giving up territories constitutes a death threat to the state.

My dear hawks: I believe the sincerity of your doubts and suspicions, I do not make light of your reasons, and I ask that you, too, make the emotional and intellectual effort to understand the depth and sincerity of the hundred of thousands of Israelis like ourselves, who are convinced that the continuation of the occupation and the wars to come are a death threat to this country.

You are not an incited mob; we are not defeatists and traitors. You are Israelis who are convinced that now is the time to begin to make peace within the framework of leaving the territories otherwise there will be an unparalleled disaster. This disagreement will have to be solved fairly quickly, by means of debate and persuasion and not by means of terror, defamation and hysteria.

Do you want to convince us that in fact there is no one with whom to hold talks? Then let us sit down and negotiate with our enemies all our enemies and find out whether or not there is in fact someone with whom to make peace. We’ll try it and see. All this on condition that with respect to everything having to do with pogromists, sadists and Jewish murderers you take a stand together with us, shoulder to shoulder.

Furthermore: let us work together in the struggle to rescue Judaism from those who want to turn it into Hizbullah, and Zionism from those who want to turn it into Abu Nidal, and the State of Israel from those who are turning it into a monster. Put simply, I call upon you of the sane Right to take a stand together with us in defence of the common core: Thou shalt not kill. And there, "Thou shalt no kill" is stated plainly, without any sub-clauses permitting the killing of an Arab girl or a leftist Jew.

For decades, the Palestinian national movement took a fanatic, extreme and inflexible stance. It was undeterred by any form of slaughter, including the slaughter of its own people, and was not prepared to give up an inch. May God preserve the nation of Israel if it adopts a similar stance, now that the Palestinians are perhaps beginning to shake themselves free of the insane opinions which brought down upon them, and upon us, a tragedy that has lasted for 80 years. May God preserve the nation of Israel from stepping straight into the shoes out of which the PLO is trying to step at this very moment.

And perhaps when peace finally comes, all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, will have to build a join monument to our stupidity and blindness. Every child knows that, ultimately, Israel will today get less than it would have got five, 10, 15 years ago from an advantageous position of vision and generosity – whereas they, the Palestinians, will ultimately get only a small part of what they might have got peacefully and honourably more than 40 years ago.

Only the dead will get nothing – apart from wilting flowers. And let us hope that on the day that peace comes, all of us, Jews and Arabs, will not have to wipe the spit of the dead from our faces.

Peace will come, perhaps, when another hundred thousand Israelis are convinced that our way is the right one, the logical one and the responsible one. Therefore, we must go forth now – and tomorrow, and the next day – to all the places where there are concentrations of people who do not agree with us. True, in some of those places they are not awaiting us with flowers. And it isn’t easy to change minds. But those are the places we must go now: after all, our goal is not that each one of us, individually, will feel a bit better and a bit purer – but rather to work for the coming of peace.

And peace, like war, begins and ends in people’s hearts. If we do not soon reach the hearts and minds of more and more Israelis – the monster will get them, and us. There will be no dialogue between Israel and Palestine if we do not manage to talk with at least some of our opponents – and convince them. We must not hesitate to enter into this dialogue and we must not evade it. In a dialogue between us and the Israelis who hesitate, we have a chance to succeed – because we speak in the name of undistorted Judaism, in the very name of the Zionist idea, in the name of logic. Moreover: we come in the name of life and peace.

And life and peace will prevail!

(Translated by Vivian Eden)