Opinion Editorials, January 2011

 Most Israelis Approve Racist Rabbis

By Rev Ted Pike

Al-Jazeera, CCUN, January 3, 2011

A recent poll in Israel showed a majority of Israelis (51%) support the racism of 50 top rabbis. Agreeing that "racism originates in the Torah," the rabbis signed a declaration banning Arabs from renting or buying real estate from Jews in Israel. A staggering 41% of secular Israelis, 64% of Orthodox, and 88% of Ultra-Orthodox agree with these rabbis (See, 50 Top Israeli Rabbis: Proud to be Racists).

Most "Israel-first" evangelicals have argued that the people of Israel are remarkably peace-loving and generous constituents of the Mideast's only democracy, even if their former leaders may have done violence to the Palestinians. But past and current events contradict this.

In the spring of 1948, Menachem Begin’s terrorists massacred more than a hundred Arab inhabitants of the sleeping town of Deir Yassin. Afterward, they stripped the surviving women and girls naked and paraded them in open trucks in triumphal procession through the Jewish section of Jerusalem, "where they were subject to the mockery and insults of the onlookers." (1) In the weeks following, such violent animosity toward Arabs increased.

The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem extensively quotes the acknowledged Israeli expert on this period, historian Benny Morris. In 1948, according to Morris, hundreds of Arab towns and cities were attacked by the Zionists, their occupants forcefully evicted. The expulsion often began with artillery shelling and even aerial attack. Many Arabs were tortured or massacred by the Israelis in order to further terrorize. Those who fled were not allowed to take any possessions with them. The Zionists bulldozed their homes to prevent return. Arabs were attacked and robbed by Jewish soldiers en route to concentration camps. Even future Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, who authorized the expulsion, was concerned about incidents of rape of Arab women (2). Forbidden to ever return, and receiving no compensation, they and their posterity have little hope of ever regaining their lost dignity, property, and autonomy.

And then there is the ultimate insult: Israel, the nation founded on terror, has convinced the world that the Palestinian dream of returning to their homes is now the very definition of "terrorism" in the Mid-East!

Was an evil government alone to blame for such injustice? Immediately after the Arabs fled their businesses, orchards, factories, towns, and villages (even luxurious villas), Zionist troops and the people of Israel flooded in to seize the spoils. In fact, the sale of Palestinian property flourished as a small industry in Israel for several years.

For the past 62 years, Jews occupied one of those cities, Safed, after its Arab inhabitants suffered horrendous atrocities. The Encyclopedia presents testimony by a Jewish witness of the siege of Safed. "In one case she saw an intelligence officer torture about ten Arab prisoners with a hoe until they bled to death." [Jewish witness Netiva Ben Yehuda said:] 'He beat these wounded men, burnt men who had not slept for days with their lips swollen from lack of water.' The intelligence officer refused to allow the accumulated bodies to be carried out of the interrogation room since he wished to frighten the other Arabs who were brought in." The Encyclopedia continues, describing Zionist attack upon a village near to Safed: "An Arab member of the Knesset later noted: 'When the people who were being robbed insisted on being given receipts, they were taken to a remote place and shot dead.'" In a nearby village, an Arab eyewitness testified: "As we lined up, a few Jewish soldiers ordered four girls to accompany them to carry water for the soldiers. Instead, they took them to our empty houses and raped them. About 70 of our men were blindfolded and shot to death, one after the other, in front of us."(3) Deir Yassin was actually only the first of many massacres designed by the Zionists to create terror. In Duwayma, in the Hebron district: "They killed some 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. They were killed by smashing their skulls with clubs…In the village there remained Arab men and women who were put in the houses without food. Then the sappers came to blow up the houses."(4)

There were 25,000 Arabs expelled from Safed on May 7, 1948, 98% of its former population. Living in this city today is the aged chief rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, who authored the recent controversial ruling against Arabs. Eliyahu, like most Jews of Safed, believes theirs is an unquestionably Jewish city—it is unthinkable that an Arab should even be allowed to rent an apartment there. Rabbi Eliyahu, as a leading Orthodox Talmudic authority in Israel, actually ruled that the duty to discriminate against Arabs is now "Halacha," or binding Jewish law. Any Jew who violates his ruling and allows Arabs to regain a foothold should, according to Eliyahu, be collectively punished by the Orthodox community including being forbidden to read the Torah (Talmud).

Eliyahu says Arabs should not be allowed to rent because Arabs "meddle" in the affairs of Jews. I wonder what term he uses to describe the violent expulsion of Safed's formerly Arab population into concentration camps. The United Nations defines such not as "meddling" but genocide.

Western Jews Protest Rabbi's Racism

Last week more than 900 Western, primarily "secular" Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis signed a statement condemning the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox rabbis who agreed with Eliyahu. Their protest seems impressive. In reality, it is held in contempt by Eliyahu and his followers. Orthodox Judaism is the official religious position of the state of Israel, and its Chief Rabbinate is controlled by the burgeoning Ultra-Orthodox "Haredim." It does not honor the spiritual legitimacy of liberal clergy or recognize marriages or conversions approved by them.

With hard-line Talmudic extremism threatening to spread to as many as 500 Israeli rabbis, Israel faces an important question. Where is this tidal wave of religious extremism taking the nation? Will it make Israel an even more segregationist, aggressive, pariah state?

In the Jerusalem Post, Isi Leibler warns: "Candidly speaking: If efforts are not made to stem extremist trends and promote moderate Zionist streams, the time is looming when the state will fall under extremist control."

Zionist leaders in 1948 needed Jewish terrorists to sabotage and destroy British control (and thus covertly supported Urgun and the Stern Gang). So today the Netanyahu government is unmistakably coddling the Ultra-Orthodox element in Israel. Not a week passes that Ha'aretz does not complain of discrimination against Arabs as the government fails to punish violent or abusive settlers and IDF soldiers guilty of the most abusive actions against Palestinians and their property. Ha'aretz routinely itemizes every kind of perversion of authority by local governing bodies against Arabs. These include denial of water rights and well drilling, issuance of building permits, transportation blockage toward Arabs and movement of their goods and services (including exclusion from Jewish-only highways), and chronic failure to address acts of violence and vandalism by settlers against Arab landowners. Just last week Jewish settlers set on fire a flock of Palestinian-owned sheep, to the torment of the sheep and financial loss of their owner, a farmer with a wife and eight daughters. The script can be written, as in hundreds of other cases, that nothing significant will be done to apprehend or punish the offenders. The same is true of IDF soldiers guilty of obeying orders to persecute and humiliate Palestinians, in and out of wartime.

Next Big Wave: Expulsion of Palestinians

The hard-core Zionist leadership in Tel Aviv knows there is no Jewish fanatic as extreme as a literal interpreter of the Talmud. With no conception of tolerance toward those who disagree with them, they are capable of the worst kinds of violence. The underlying purpose of the government's indulgence of the Ultra-Orthodoxy sweeping Israel today is to create a generation of terrorists empowered to accomplish Arab expulsion. Already, Ultra-Orthodox leaders candidly and publicly encourage their followers toward that goal.

Of course, evangelical mouthpieces of Israel, such as Pastor John Hagee, WorldNetDaily, and tens of millions of "Israel-first" followers, will go along with anything Israel does. Evangelical media will cooperate to edit the worst abuses rising from the "final solution" of the Arab question, rationalizing even violent expulsion as part of Israel's timeless, God-given mandate to subdue and occupy Canaan.

Yet, evangelicals should beware. Ultra-Orthodox Judaism proclaims that, according to the Talmud and Zohar (Kabbalah), the greatest enemies of Judaism are not Arabs but followers of the false prophet, Jesus. Having subdued the Middle East, the Zohar commands Jews to exterminate "Amalek" - all Gentiles who resist conversion to Judaism throughout the world. The Talmud says unless the "Goyim" follow the seven "Noahide" laws, which include forsaking idolatry (worship of the false prophet Jesus), they must also be killed. (See, Coming Jewish 'Utopia' Ruled by Noahide Laws)

In a remarkable book, The Jewish Utopia, published in 1932 by Talmudic scholar Dr. Michael Higger and endorsed by the founder of Conservative Judaism, Solomon Schechter, Dr. Higger says of the Messianic (anti-Christ) age to come:

In general, the peoples of the world will be divided into two main groups, the Israelitic and the non-Israelitic. The former will be righteous; they will live in accordance with the wishes of one universal God; they will be thirsty for knowledge, and willing, even to the point of martyrdom, to spread ethical truths to the world. All the other peoples, on the other hand, will be known for their detestable practices, idolatry, and similar acts of wickedness. They will be destroyed and will disappear from earth before the ushering in of the ideal era. (5)

In short, Ultra-Orthodox rabbis, under tacit approval by the government, are preparing the next generation of religious Israelis to become exterminators of Arabs - and after that, homicidal persecutors of Christians. Dozens of Israeli rabbis now agree that Israel must end "the Arab problem" immediately, by violence if necessary. (See, Homicidal Rabbi Finds Wide Support in Israel and Top Rabbi: 'Gentiles Exist to Serve Jews')

Meanwhile, evangelical Christians contribute tens of millions of dollars annually to the very Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox groups who alarm more moderate Jews worldwide. They morally and financially "bless" those who literally believe that someday they will do God a service by not just biting the hand that has fed them (evangelicals) but by actually killing Christians.

During the recent forest fires in Israel, evangelical hands were outstretched in kindness to Israel. But they were bitten by one highly influential Ultra-Orthodox leader, Shas Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Approached during Israel's emergency by evangelicals offering firefighting equipment and help, he refused, evidently believing God could preserve His Holy Land without pollution by gifts from the idolatrous Goyim.

Is the church offended? Hardly. Already forbidden to witness for Christ in Israel and mortally threatened by international Jewish supremacism in myriad ways, evangelicals cannot be alienated by Jewish insults, ingratitude or attack.

So great is their infatuation with the "Beast," with whom they have rolled in bed for more than a century, that evangelicals seem willing not only to be repeatedly bitten by this "Beast" but also to be devoured by it.

FOOTNOTES

1. The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, page 271. Intercontinental Books, P.O. Box 756, Grand Central Station, NY, NY 10163-0756. edited by Palestinian Christian barrister and diplomat, Dr. Issa Nakhleh. The Encyclopedia is available in most university libraries or online at www.palestine-encyclopedia.com.

2. Ibid, page 261. Ben Gurion wrote in his diary at that time: "The bitter question has arisen regarding acts of robbery and rape in the conquered towns."

3. Ibid, page 262.

4. Ibid, page 265. Quoted from David Gilmour, Dispossessed The Ordeal of the Palestinians, London, Sphere Books, 1980, pages 68 and 69.

5. The Jewish Utopia, Michael Higger, Ph.D., The Lord Baltimore Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1932. This book is available from Emissary Publications, 503-824-2050.

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

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