Opinion Editorials, March 2008
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Ovadia Yosef: The Israeli Rabbi Of Hate By Khalid Amayreh PIC, March 5, 2008
“So I believe that I act in the spirit of the Almighty God. By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1924 ““A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail” Dov Lior, Rabbi of Kiryat Arba “We will carry out a greater holocaust against the Palestinians,” Matan Vilnai, Deputy Defense Minister, 1 March, 2008 Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, which represents Jews from the Middle East, has urged Jews around the world to pray for Israeli soldiers, not only on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, but also on Mondays and Thursdays. According to the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, Yosef told his followers that Israeli soldiers need to be blessed by the Almighty for killing and maiming hundreds of Palestinians, mostly innocent civilians, in the past few days. “Had it not been for them, would we have time to study the Torah? To turn the books,” Yosef was quoted as saying Saturday night during his weekly sermon in Jerusalem. It is really lamentable that Yosef thinks that it is only through murder and genocide of Palestinians that Jews can sit down and study the Torah. Jews, after all, have been and are studying the Torah for many centuries without “Jewish soldiers” engaging themselves in mass murder, mass terror and mass oppression. Does the rabbi think that linking Torah studies to mass murder in Gaza brings honor to the Torah and to Judaism? Yosef, who on several occasions called Palestinians “rats,” is considered by many in Israel as one of the greatest living sages of the Torah. However, his enthusiastic support for ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinians caricatures a callous man who quotes ancient texts to justify every conceivable crime against humanity and every abomination against God and man. Yosef is not unaware of the Nazi-like atrocities the soldiers he is blessing have committed and are committing in Gaza. He knows too well that an army that murders innocent civilians, including babies in their mothers’ laps, is not an army of righteous soldiers, but rather an army of thugs and criminals, not unlike the Gestapo and SS and wehrmacht. I understand that some Zionist rabbis tend to believe in the horrible idea that in war time, there is no such a thing as “innocent civilians of the enemy.” In other words, “All’s fair in love and war.” But this is a stunningly immoral concept that degrades man to cannibalistic savagery. Because then every mass murderer from Adolph Hitler, to Joseph Stalin, to Ariel Sharon, to Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak could justify the mass murder of civilians on the ground that in wartime, no holds are barred. Indeed, this would be the most comfortable justification for all the holocausts, genocides, pogroms and inquisitions in the world since Adam and Eve. Well, I really wonder how these rabbis of evil, people such Yosef, Dov Lior, David Batsri, and many many others, would react if a Nazi apologist argued that the mass killings of Jews during the holocaust was a perfectly justified and legitimate act “since we viewed European Jewry as our number-1 enemy, and we were at war, and in wartime there is no such a thing as innocent civilians of the enemy.” Now, what is the difference between a rabbi praying for and blessing an army that has just murdered and maimed hundreds of innocent people in Gaza , and a German Nazi priest praying for and blessing Nazi killers who had just carried out one of those pacification raids in central or Eastern Europe? Does the rabbi think that a holocaust by Jews is kosher? Does he think that non-Jewish children and women and men are un-human, or lesser humans? What kind of Torah is he studying? What kind of God is he praying to? Does he think that the Torah prohibition against murder covers only “Jews”? Rabbi Yosef is more than just an unenlightened old man; he is actually an evil man. He is evil because in the name of the Torah and in the name of Judaism, he tries to make evil look good, ugliness look fair and cardinal sins against God and man look as great acts of charity. It is really hypocritical that while many Zionists don’t stop denouncing Catholic religious leaders for supporting the Third Reich and for keeping silent in the face of the Holocaust, rabbis, even prominent rabbis, such as Yosef, are more of less indulging in the same evil behavior they are denouncing. Yosef may be a learned man in matter of Jewish theology. But he seems to be a dwarf in understanding the moral messages of the Torah. Because if he were truly faithful to the true spirit of Judaism, he should realize that murdering innocent people-non-Jews as well as Jews- is the greatest crime under the sun. Doesn’t he read “Thou Shall not murder”? Doesn’t he read “thou shall not oppress?” Is this his way of making “Tikkun Ha’olam,” or fixing the world, by blessing and encouraging child killers and mass murderers? It is sad how men of religion who think they are hallowing the name of God are actually doing Satan’s work. And we wonder why
the world is in such a mess! |
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