Summary
A founder-figure of Gush Emunim who termed its programme the Zionism of Redemption, later a Tehiya Knesset deputy who left that party over its secularism, and in Lustick’s Chapter 4 a leading voice of the movement’s doctrine on the Land and on Arabs (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2278-3624; Chapter 4, lines 3625-4118).
Details
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Porat was one of the group of rabbis, religious war veterans and Young Guard activists, most influenced by Tzvi Yehuda Kook, who established Gush Emunim in spring 1974; its express purpose was to advance what Porat termed the Zionism of Redemption (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2400-2500).
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He was one of Tehiya’s three deputies elected in 1981, alongside Yuval Neeman and Geula Cohen, on 44,500 votes (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2850-3050).
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Early in 1984 he left Tehiya because of its secularist stance and failed in a short-lived attempt to found a new movement in the spirit of the Kooks, Orot (Lights), before joining Haim Druckman’s Matzad in the Morasha alliance (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3060-3200).
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In Chapter 4, on the Arab question, Porat is quoted for the principle that humane treatment is appropriate “only for those Arabs ready to accept the sovereignty of the people of Israel”, from which he infers a duty of merciless war against Arabs who reject Jewish sovereignty and a requirement to deport the families of Arab juveniles who throw stones at settler automobiles (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 4, lines 3800-3950).
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On the Land, Porat holds that Israel’s national connection to the Land of Israel is unique among the nations, a land of destiny and a chosen land, not just an existentially defined homeland, and he advises against any “apologetic arguments” that distinguish some parts of the land as more important than others (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 4, lines 4050-4118).
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In the immediate aftermath of the Yamit evacuation, Porat called for preparing “in terms of our consciousness and by establishing new settlement nuclei, to settle those portions of the Land of Israel that today are still not in our hands”, naming nuclei for the Litani area, Gilead, Transjordan and Sinai (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 5119-5400).
Related pages
For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Gush Emunim, Tehiya, Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Eretz Israel