Summary
Yehuda Etzion, an organizer and the leading theoretician of the Jewish Underground, convicted for the 1980 attack on the Arab mayors and the Temple Mount conspiracy, who defended his actions in five lengthy articles in Nekuda written from his prison cell (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3350-3560).
Details
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Lustick presents Etzion as one of the organizers of the underground network and its leading theoretician; at his trial he said he had been “privileged to cut off the legs of some of the murderers”, referring to the car-bomb attack that severely injured the mayors of Nablus and Ramallah in June 1980 (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3350-3560).
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The text as printed says he began serving a seven-year prison sentence in 1982 for his role in the mayors attack and in the conspiracy to blow up the Temple Mount; the chronology as printed is recorded on the source page under Open questions, since the arrests that uncovered the network are dated by the same chapter to April 27, 1984 (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3350-3560).
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From July 1984 to April 1986 Nekuda published five lengthy articles by Etzion, written in his prison cell, presenting an elaborate ideological, political and theological justification for his actions (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3450-3560).
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Chapter 3 note 40 records that Etzion was pictured in apparently friendly conversation with an Arab on the cover of a special June 1980 Nekuda issue dedicated to friendly relations with the Arabs, very close to the day of the mayors attack (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3 notes, lines 3560-3624).
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Chapter 5 presents Etzion as standing on the extreme edge of the movement in the directness of his transcendental authorisation: at his trial he challenged the court’s right to judge him and declared himself responsible for “the purification of the Temple Mount … from the structure now located upon it … the building known as the Dome of the Rock” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 4619-4850).
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In his Nekuda articles Etzion compared his response to God’s commandment to Abraham’s willingness to offer Isaac, and located his authority in volunteering for the holy and in the future renewal of the Sanhedrin and the anointed from the House of David; Aviva Segal predicted that when the Temple is rebuilt Etzion will be honoured as a prophet (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 4619-4850).
Related pages
For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Jewish Underground, Gush Emunim, Temple Mount