Opinion Editorials, January 2011

In November 2009, the world was stunned to learn of a shockingly popular book in Israel, The King’s Torah. It advocates murder of non-Jews and even their babies, claiming such infants would only grow up to become enemies of Israel. Ha’aretz says the book received “wide dissemination and the enthusiastic endorsement of prominent rabbis.” Some rabbinic authorities have condemned it, but many influential Orthodox leaders have chosen to remain noncommittal. (Ha’aretz, March 23, 2010, “The King’s Torah: A Rabbinic Text or a Call to Terror?”) They recognize that anti-Arab sentiment and sympathy, even with violent militancy against Palestinians, continues its dramatic upswing in Israel.

The book’s primary author, Yitzhak Shapira, was arrested in February 2010 for violating Israel’s law against incitement to religious hatred. However, he is reported not to fear imprisonment because of his influence and stature as a prominent head of the ultra-Orthodox settler movement. That confidence has been vindicated by lack of significant prosecution of Shapira for nearly a year.

Recently, a poll in Israel found a majority of Israelis approve the racist rights of Jewish property owners who refuse to sell or rent to Arabs. (See, Most Israelis Approve Racist Rabbis) Just as significantly, the government of Israel itself seems outwardly divided between bland expressions of tolerance by Prime Minister Netanyahu versus “inflammatory statements” and “unbridled incitement” of the ultra-Orthodox by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Ha’aretz, January 12, 2011, “The Extreme Right’s Incitement Will End in Murder”).

As Israel descends into ultra-Orthodoxy, increasingly violent solutions to the “Arab problem” are proposed. A recent Ha’aretz editorial describes an ultra-Orthodox video that recommends killing authorities and police who aid Palestinians attacked by settlers. Factions in the highest levels of Israel’s government, including the cabinet and Knesset, are sympathetic to the militant far right. Ha’aretz: “Scarcely a day goes by… without the coalition joining hands with the extreme right in order to depict non-Jews as hostile elements – and Israeli Human Rights groups protecting Arab rights, as enemies of the state.”

Rising Anti-Arab Militancy

Foreign Minister Lieberman embodies the new anti-Arab militancy. Ha’aretz says he “accused organizations that defend human and civil rights of abetting terror and undermining the Israel Defense forces.” He even claimed “the terror being waged against us from within is more dangerous than the terror being waged against us from without.” Ha'aretz says that if indeed those who defend Arab rights in Israel are now to be viewed as complicit with terrorists then Israel is no longer a democracy. “People who abet terror belong behind bars.”

Especially since last year’s “settlement freeze,” many Haredi call for violence against any governmental authority that restrains Jewish attacks upon Arabs. A December 2009 bulletin from West Bank settlers said, “We’ll expel the soldiers from the settlements.” Their internet-distributed pamphlet, The Jewish Voice, includes a call to “execute targeted operations against the evildoers, invade Civil Administration offices and ransack them, as well as operate violently against the Palestinians, deepen the refusal to serve in the army and not recognize Israeli courts.”

The article was written by co-author of The King’s Torah, Rabbi Yosef Elitzur. Ha’aretz has reported that the Yeshiva (Talmudic training school) he helps preside over at Yitzhar was generously funded by the government of Israel (about $250,000 in 2007-08). A similar announcement by Elitzur says “we remember that the war is over Judaism, and the main enemies are the Gentiles in our country who are trying to conquer it and confusing the minds in crooked Jews who are far from the Torah…the Jews will win by violence against Arabs.” Elitzur is smug that the ultra-Orthodox can back down even the government of Israel, allowing settlers to establish virtually autonomous bastions of violence against Arabs. Elitzur:

To this day, administration inspectors have not managed to enter Yitzhar since the freeze decree. That is because the experience and the heat at Yitzhar make every entrance by hostile elements require large forces and end with much damage to IDF and police property, even more damage to Arab property and persons, and a sector burning on all sides for a few days. When in every settlement a police patrol car becomes an unwanted presence, and administration inspectors understand they have ten minutes to run away before their tires are punctured, the government’s ability to enforce its decrees will drop sharply. (Coteret.com, December 6, 2009, “Document: Settlers Prep to Terrorize West Bank”)

With such incendiary rhetoric, it’s not surprising that violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinian farmers and communities continues, with increasing reluctance by authorities to intervene or prosecute.

Haredi, particularly in the West Bank and southern Israel, also constantly harass Messianic Christians (sometimes violently), virtually unrestrained by local police or the government of Israel. (See, Israel’s Increasing Anti-Christianity)

Calls for Murder Come from Talmud

The groundswell of possibly homicidal activism against Arabs and even Jews who defend them is especially dangerous for a powerful reason: It derives its authority from Orthodox Judaism’s most sacred Scriptures, the Talmud and its mystical/revolutionary companion, the Zohar, or Kabbalah, written by the fathers of modern Judaism, the ancient Pharisees.

Perhaps the most highly esteemed Pharisee in the history of Judaism is the “great” Maimonides. He said concerning the “Akum,” or Gentiles: “Do not have any pity on them, for it is said…Show no mercy with them. Therefore, if you see an Akum in difficulty or drowning, do not go to his help. And if he is in danger of death, do not save him from death.”

Speaking of idolaters (those who worship the false prophet Jesus), Maimonides decreed: “Do not eat with idolaters, nor permit them to worship their idols…Either turn them away from their idols, or kill them” (Hilkoth Akum (X, 1)). (1.) Such venerable Judaic authority underlies The King’s Torah. Its homicidal sentiments are literal interpretations of the 2,000-year-old Talmud and Zohar, the highest ethical and spiritual authorities of Judaism.

Israel’s second largest newspaper, Maariv, quotes some of The King’s Torah, whose homicidal recommendations (which the book claims are “halakah,” binding Jewish law) continue for 230 pages.

In any situation in which a non-Jew’s presence endangers Jewish lives, the non-Jew may be killed even if he is a righteous Gentile and not at all guilty for the situation that has been created… when a non-Jew assists a murderer of Jews and causes the death of one, he may be killed, and in any case where a non-Jew’s presence causes danger to Jews, the non-Jew may be killed. The dispensation applies even when the pursuer is not threatening to kill directly, but only indirectly… even a civilian who assists combat fighters is considered a pursuer and may be killed. Anyone who assists the army of the wicked in any way is strengthening murderers and is considered a pursuer. A civilian who encourages the war gives the king and his soldiers the strength to continue. Therefore, any citizen of the state that opposes us, encourages the combat soldiers or expresses satisfaction over their actions is considered a pursuer and may be killed. Also, anyone who weakens our own state by word or similar action is considered a pursuer… Hindrances – babies are found many times in this situation. They block the way to rescue by their presence and do so completely by force. Nevertheless, they may be killed, because their presence aids murder. There is justification for killing babies if it is clear they will grow up to harm us (emphasis mine). And in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately and not only in conflict with adults.

Echoing Maimonides, this work extensively clarifies that “idolaters” who violate the Talmud’s Noahide laws (Christians) must also be executed: “When we approach a non-Jew who has violated the seven Noahide laws and kill him out of concern for upholding these seven laws, no prohibition has been violated.”

Readers who would like to become familiar with rabbinical passages teaching the Jewish right to murder both Gentiles and Christians may read my articles “The Talmud: Scalpel That Bleeds the Mideast” and “The Jewish Kabbalah: Root of Mideast Violence” at Truthtellers.org. Ultra-Orthodox fanatics are not inventing a new Judaism. They are only returning to a literal interpretation of the Talmud/Kabbalah and applying it in the modern anti-Arab, anti-Christian context.

Maariv concludes:

One student of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar explained, from his point of view, where Rabbi Shapira and Elitzur got the courage to speak so freely on subjects such as the killing of non-Jews. ‘The rabbis aren’t afraid of prosecution, because in that case, Maimonides [Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1135–1204] and Nahmanides [Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, 1194–1270] would have to stand trial too, and anyway, this is research on religious law,’ the yeshiva student said. ‘In a Jewish state, nobody sits in jail for studying Torah.’

How correct that student is. The modern ultra-Orthodox movement has behind it 2,000 years of rabbinic hate of Gentiles (and Christians) as well as possibly hundreds of Israeli rabbis presently supporting it. It is authentic pharisaic Judaism. Such genuine Talmudism bears little resemblance to modern derivatives of Judaism (so popular in the West), such as the Conservative and Reform movements. They “spiritualize” and rationalize away the Talmud’s actual teachings in order to make Judaism amenable to civilized society. That is why such theological “liberals” are loathed and largely boycotted by the Orthodox establishment in Israel.

The government of Israel, maintaining the Orthodox position through its Chief Rabbinate, is founded on the same sacred rabbinic scriptures which give the ultra-Orthodox license to kill. For this reason, stringent repression of ultra-Orthodox terror is unlikely.

Thus, we see that a religion and nation founded upon the depraved teachings of the Pharisees is not bringing forth the fruits of high-mindedness, tolerance, and peace in the way evangelicals have eagerly anticipated for more than a century. Instead, this apostate system, "Babylon the Great," (See, 'Babylon the Great' is Israel) whose forebears tried to extirpate the infant church 2,000 years ago, produces the same bitter fruit: persecution.

This persecution may manifest itself in Israel against Arabs or Messianic believers -- or internationally through Jewish-created, Christian-persecuting ADL "anti-hate" laws.

But make no mistake. Persecution from Jewish sources is the wave of the future. Judao-Pharisaism threatens freedom everywhere.

Endnote:

(1.) Pranaitis, Rev. I. B., The Talmud Unmasked (pg. 76, 83)

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Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative watchdog organization.

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