Posted on 01/20/2002 8:45:33 AM PST by Demidog
At the National Press Club, Washington DC , 11 December 2001
With G-D’s help May the Creator grant that my words find favor in His eyes.
Each day’s news brings with it horrible tales of suffering from the Holy Land . The death toll on both sides mounts steadily. Indeed, so overwhelming is the seemingly never-ending stream of death and mayhem that it requires an exceptionally bloody day to merit significant media consideration. We have all grown accustomed to the fact that the Israeli state and its Palestinian opponents are locked in mortal combat. So it has been, so it is and so, it seems, it always will be.
Indeed, this pessimistic prognosis seems rooted in a century of precedent. The first Jewish settlers who came to Palestine with the intention of establishing a sovereign Jewish state there arrived towards the end of the nineteenth century. Palestinian nationalism – then generally subsumed under the title Arab nationalism but soon to assume its more particularistic title – began to flourish at about the same time.
The clash of these movements was played out through various wars, atrocities, revolutions and dispossessions throughout the twentieth century. Various strains of ideology in these rival nationalisms have attempted to bring the matter to closure, either by force of arms or, at times, by recourse to the negotiating table.
All these efforts, be they military or compromise oriented, have one fact in common. Their result is always the same. They have failed – failed utterly and totally. We may delude ourselves by yet dreaming, as many do, that there is one final war or one last peace plan which can calm all those concerned. Unfortunately there is no indication that such is the case.
We of Neturei Karta International find the toll of dead and wounded on both sides to be intolerable. We feel that it is high time for a radical departure from the assumptions that have governed and, effectively stifled free debate on the subject.
Our perspective is far from new. It is the centuries old view of the Torah. It was once universally shared by all Jews and it is only our people’s recent flirtation with assorted secularist dogmas that have caused it to be forgotten of late in some quarters.
Simply stated – The essence of Judaism is our faith -- our belief that G-d spoke to Moses and the assembled multitudes at Sinai and there gave His Revelation to the world. This was, is and always will be, Judaism.
The Jewish exile from the Holy Land , which followed the Roman destruction of the Second Temple close to two thousand years ago, was always viewed by our people as a Divine punishment. The state of exile in which we found ourselves was not seen as the result of military or political weakness. Rather, the Creator had decreed that until such time as He would chose to redeem the world, world Jewry was to remain in exile. The only possible means to alter what was and is a metaphysical state are spiritual. Repentance, prayer, Torah study, deeds of kindness and the like could hasten redemption. Nothing else would be effective. Any other means of ending exile is metaphysically doomed to failure.
Zionism was a movement dedicated to altering this traditional view of redemption. It posited that political maneuvering; revolutionary terror, war and dispossession would yield Jewish salvation.
Nothing could be further from the truths of Judaism.
However, Zionism not only broke with the teachings of our faith, it also entered upon a campaign, now over one hundred years old, to persuade and, eventually, force, when possible, Jews to abandon their allegiance to G-d and the Torah and recreate themselves as secular nationalists.
The Zionist movement was not only a heretical departure from Judaism and a practical attempt to lure Jews from their Torah. It was also monstrously blind to the indigenous inhabitants of the Holy Land . In the 1890s, less than 5% of the Holy Land ’s population was Jewish, yet, Theodore Herzl had the nerve to describe his movement as that of “a people without a land for a land without a people.”
Time and again both Revisionist and Labor Zionists, the former overtly and the latter under the clouds of deceptive rhetoric, have sought the elimination of the Palestinian people from their state. They have dispossessed thousands and refused them the right of return or minimum compensation. They have kept the people of Gaza and the West Bank stripped of basic political and human rights and denied them the dignity of self-determination.
This aggression has plunged the region into its never-ending spiral of bloodshed.
Sad to say, the bloody results of Zionism were not unexpected. They were foretold in the Talmud. There we read that a human based attempt to return en masse to the Holy Land would result in terrifying loss of life. This is an unpleasant truth but its seems quite validated by the past century’s events.
People of the Press, I have come before you today to offer a new perspective on the Middle East, a new explanation as to why all previous attempts at peace making have failed. It is our belief that they are inherently doomed to fail. All of them share one fatal assumption. They find it axiomatic that the state of Israel should exist. And, in contrast to the plain evidence of the past half-century of Jewish history they see its existence as a positive development for the Jewish people.
Only blind dogma could at this date see Israel as something good for the Jewish people. Established as a so-called safe haven it has consistently over the past five decades been the most dangerous place on the face of the earth for a Jew to live. It has been the source of tens of thousands of Jewish deaths, of families torn apart and has left a trail of grieving widows, orphans and friends in its wake.
Not to mention the countless thousands of Jewish souls diverted from religion. And our Rabbis state “If you cause one to sin, it is worse than killing him”.
And, let us not forget that this tale of physical Jewish suffering is far magnified among the Palestinian people, a nation condemned to poverty, persecution, homelessness, all pervasive hopelessness and all too often, a far too premature, death.
This web of pain, the cries and tears of the grieving, demand of us as Jews that we return to the wellsprings of our faith. We must accept our task to serve G-d in humility and peace. This is the essence of a Jew.
And, when so doing we will inevitably reject the bizarre and malicious doctrines of Zionism, the falsification of Judaism.
We will realize that defying the Divine decree of exile is doomed to bloody failure.
We will realize that our people’s hopes cannot be built by shattering those of another people.
We will demand and with G-d’s, help live to see the peaceful dismantling of the state. We will return the land to those who dwelt upon it for centuries, the Palestinian people. Under their sovereignty, we will work towards a just solution to any Jewish – Palestinian problems created by the brief period of Zionist ascendancy.
There are I’m sure some skeptics here in the audience who feel that a Palestinian state would represent a threat to the Jewish people. My friends, I have been there time and time again as Neturei Karta International has visited Palestinian and Islamic organizations and I have been greeted with extraordinary warmth and brotherly concern. We have visited Iran , been hosts of the government. We were allowed to speak in Iran to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, without any prior censorship. We have discovered time after time, that Muslims in general actually yearn for good relations with Jews and, that when the evil face of Zionism is stripped away, the naturally good relations between our peoples bubbles to the surface.
Actully history bears witness that through out the centuries Muslim countries were extremely hospitable to the Jews. In fact as a general rule the Jews faired far better in those countries than in other host lands.
And in Palestine alone our grandparent have testified to the fact that the Muslims and Jews lived in peace and harmony up until the advent of Zionism.
Many stories of the close friendship that existed at that time circulate in the Jewish communities, for instance, baby sitting each others children was a daily occurrence
We also operate a web site. There isn’t a day goes by when we don’t receive e- mails from around the Islamic world. They are all positive. They bless, express love and brotherhood. Often they credit us with having cured them of anti Jewish sentiments. From Yemen to Great Britain the delight these people experience in finding anti Zionist Jews is palpable.
This then is the image we offer as an alternative to the current horror – of a Jewish people free of the need to kill and be killed, free to pursue their Divine task of Torah practice and free to live in peace and respect with all men. May the Creator grant that we all be worthy of seeing that day. And ultimately the day when all will recognize the one G-D and serve Him in harmony. AMEN
Oh, it was more than fair. And true. Let's not forget TRUE.
OR, you could here and now admit that you posted that article to deliberately provoke a spitting contest and didn't give a tinker's ditty what was in it since you had to be told over and over and over.
This article was posted for discussion. There was much discussion. If you've read the thread and the comments you will have noted that his views were given credence by some and not others who know alot more than I about the Talmud and the Torah. That was what I had hoped. I found out that he's alot more fringe than I first suspected but that there are also other Orthodox Jews who have some of the same opinions. Whatever the ADL says about him is taken with a pound of salt as they are prone to calling anyone who doesn't agree with them an anti-Semite.
He was sloppy with historical facts. That doesn't necessarily kill his argument but it doesn't help him either.
It's fatal to his position because if it is proven to be false, if it is seen that the Jews suffered at the hands of the Arab Islamics like they suffered at the hands of European Christendom and post-Christendom (the anti-Semitism which formed out of the Enlightenment - Voltaire, Fourier, Proudhon, Goethe, etc.), then it would undermine the totality of his argument. It would illustrate that the Jews could never trust the Arab Islamics with their sovereignty and hence any claims that as living as a minority under Islam they would be well treated, respected, etc, would be undermined. By agreeing with my assessment of the failure of his historical comments you have admitted the failure of his position whether or not there is any substance to his Torah claims.
They are quoting verbatim from him. Find his threat of a lawsuit against the ADL please. Find where he has asked them to correct those portions quoted from him. If you can't then I'll know that either you have just put up a smokescreen or you're too lazy to back up your accusation against the ADL. If they have quoted him wrong then I'll apologize to you.
In your opinion. His religious arguments do not change. Moreover, the historical references you site are not in the region of Palestine by and large but in Syria, Morocco and on the African continent IIRC. And furthermore, well after the Moslem empire had fallen except for one recorded period around the beginning of the empire.
Furthermore they don't refute what he actually said as opposed to what you (and I) apparently thought he said.
And in Palestine alone our grandparent have testified to the fact that the Muslims and Jews lived in peace and harmony up until the advent of Zionism.
He's quite specific about the time periods he speaks of:
Only blind dogma could at this date see Israel as something good for the Jewish people. Established as a so-called safe haven it has consistently over the past five decades been the most dangerous place on the face of the earth for a Jew to live. It has been the source of tens of thousands of Jewish deaths, of families torn apart and has left a trail of grieving widows, orphans and friends in its wake.
I think I mis-spoke. His so-called history gaffes were perhaps not made at all.
What? Do you know what the &*ll you're talking about? He said Islam. Regarless of place. However, even if we restrict ourselves to Arab Islamic lands (by the way, you seem to be dumfounded with the fact that Algeria, Morocco, etc. are Arab Islamic countries) as I have illustrated to you the persecution, massacres and death lasted 13 centuries on and off . But maybe you didn't realize that this is how Mohammed began his treatment of the Jews:
The following from the expert on the dhimmi under Islam, Bat Ye'or, in The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (pp. 43ff.)
In 624 Muhammad, joined by more followers, called upon the Qaynuqa, one of the Jewish tribes of Medina, to recognize his prophetic mission. When they refused, he besieged and overcame them. On the intercession of one of their protectors---a recent convert to Islam---their lives were spared, but they were expelled from the city, their lands and a part of their possessions being confiscated by the Muslims. The following year the Jewish Nadir tribe suffered a similar fate: Muhammad burned down their palm groves and divided all their fields and houses among thecommunity of Believers. 4In 627 the Meccans sent a united force to lay siege to the Muslims in Medina but they withdrew suddenly on a stormy night and without fighting. However, guided by the angel Gabriel, Muhammad then turned his host against the Jewish tribe of the Qurayza, who had been neutral during the seige. Because the Jews refused conversion, Muhammad attacked and overwhelmed them. Trenches were then dug in the marketplace of Medina, and the Jews---six to nine hundred of them, according to traditional Muslim sources-----were led forth in batches and decapitated. All the menfolk perished in this way, with the exception of one convert to Islam. The Prophet then divided the women, children, houses, and chattels among the Muslims.5
Shrewd in political matters, Muhammad then endeavored to win over the powerful tibes of Mecca. In 628, taking advantage of a treaty of nonbelligerency (Hudaybiya) with the Meccans,6 he attacked the oasis of Khaybar, one hundred and forty kilometers northwest of Medina, cultivated by another Jewish tribe. The assailants came to the oasis at night and in the morning attacked the peasants as they were coming out to work in the fields, carrying spades and baskets.7 Their palm groves were burned down. After a siege lasting a month and a half, the inhabitants surrendered under the terms of a treaty known as the dhimma. According to this agreement Muhammad allowed the Jews to continue cultivating their oasis, on condition they ceded to him half of their produce; he also reserved the right to break the agreement and expel them whenever he wished.8 Subsequently, all the Jewish and Christian communities of Arabia submitted to the Muslims under the terms of a dhimma similar to that granted at Khaybar
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4. al-Bukhari (d. 869), Les Traditions Islamiques (Al-Sahih), trans. O. Houdas and W. Marcais (Paris, 1903-1914), vol. 2, title 41, chap 6; title 56, chap. 80; 3, chap. 154:2. This compilation of the acts and sayings attributed to Muhammad, completed in the ninth century, constitutes one of the two pillars of Islamic jurisprudence, the other being the contemporary compilation made by his younger disciple, Muslim (d. 875).
5. Idn Ishaq, pp. 461-69; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet (Paris, 1969), pp. 142-46; W. Montgomery Watt, "Muhammad", in the Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge, 1970), 1:39-49.
6. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, p. 154: Bukhari, vol. 2, title 54, chap. 15.
7. Ibn Ishaq, p. 511; Bukhari, vol. 2, title 56, chaps. 102: 5, 130.
8. Ibn Ishaq, pp. 524-25; Bukhari, vol. 2, title 41, chaps. 8, 9, 11, 17, and title 57, chap. 19: 10. For example of the treaties between Muhammad and the Jews living in Makna (near Eilat), see al-Baladhuri, vol. 1, The Origins of the Islamic State (Kitab Futuh al-Buldan), trans. P.K. Hitti (New York, 1916), pp. 93-94.
And in Palestine alone our grandparent have testified to the fact that the Muslims and Jews lived in peace and harmony up until the advent of Zionism.
False. He created two lies. He stated that and he stated the broader Islamic claim. Both of them are false. In Palestine the Jihad dislocated and colonized ancient Jewish and Christian communities. The Jews who were'nt taxed to extortionist amounts, were pillaged, massacred and chased out over successive Jihads. He lied once and made his lie more profound the second time.
He's quite specific about the time periods he speaks of:
Only blind dogma could at this date see Israel as something good for the Jewish people. Established as a so-called safe haven it has consistently over the past five decades been the most dangerous place on the face of the earth for a Jew to live. It has been the source of tens of thousands of Jewish deaths, of families torn apart and has left a trail of grieving widows, orphans and friends in its wake.
Ah, now we see your agreement with Arab Islamic propaganda. Now see see again the game. Safety is dependent on the other party. The Arab Islamics have engaged the Jews in countless wars and in terrorist acts against them. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I think I mis-spoke. His so-called history gaffes were perhaps not made at all.
He lied and you showed how pathetic a lie he made by making one of the most tepid attempts to help him. He better go somewhere's else for help. First you stated he probably goofed up and now you're not sure. Boy are you an advocate.
Please expound. Exactly what have I lied about? Go ahead and point to one, two, any, if you can find any. I got nuthin' to hide, kiddo. So spit it out and be done with it because you are like the proverbial bull in a chinashop. Whatever you wanna say can be said here and now. Your turn.
226 posted on 1/20/02 8:57 PM Pacific by Nix 2 [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 223 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
You lied about me.......... you lied about yourself. You just lie, don't you.
...The anguish of our hearts has brought us to make our suffering public to our people. Indeed, our brethren in Baghdad still dwell in humiliation and turn their cheek to the hand of those that smite them. They are satiated with scorn and the oppression of the Muslims who inhabit the city and continue to accost us with the words "turn aside, you impure (one)"; and they greet us with reproach and spit in our faces. Whenever a Jew passes in the street, "wolves" gather around him to hail him with pieces of refuse an cover his head with dirt. If he be an important person wearing a smart turban, then they scheme in their jealousy to downgrade his elegance and knock off his headgear so that it rolls in the mud and dirt....So we beseech our brethren, guardians of our deliverance....to watch over their brethren that they should look kindly upon us to put an end to their beatings and persecution from these savages...
(Rabbi Solomon Bekhor-Husayn (1842-1892) - printer, community leader and journalist in Baghdad)
Jews of Morocco (1888)
...I felt as though I were in an evil valley whence mercy had been banished. Full of bitterness, I lamented over the plight of my brethren, who suffered such affronts in this miserable land. For the Jew is considered here as an object of disgust. If he is molested, his very hair being pulled out from his scalp or if he is struck a mortal blow, even though he is supposedly protected by the authorities, his assailant is no more rebuked than if he had struck a dumb animal....Such is the plight of my brethren in this savage land. I can only beseech the Rock of israel [God] that He deliver them from their prison, and that He redeem them from the darkness, so that they can go up to Zion, their heads at last crowned with joy and light.
(Rabbi R.A. Shimon (1848-1928))
Jews of Tunis (1888)
...It is a fact that religious fanaticism obliges Muslims to act unpleasantly toward non-Muslims, for it is a principle with them that the latter must be considered as infidels. Our brethren have thus suffered great tribulations, which the Muslims have heaped upon them, so much so that many were converted to islam, or have been driven out of their minds. Then there are all those who have disappeared outside the city or in the wilderness, while others have been assassinated in broad daylight. Some have been executed as a result of false accusations...and another as done to death for having insulted the Islamic faith (the Europeans have made great endeavors in this respect to obtain greater freedom and conditions of life that are more civilized, and have nearly succeeded). The Jew is prohibited in this country to wear the same clothes as a Muslim and may not wear a red tarbush. He can be seen to bow down with his whole body to a Muslim child and permit him the traditional privilege of striking him in the face, a gesture that can prove to be of the gravest consequence. Indeed, the present writer has received such blows. In such matters the offenders act with complete impunity, for this has been the custom from time immemorial...Consequently, the Jew is the target for all manner of vexation, for this has been the lot of the wandering Jew in the lands of his exile.
(Fellah)
Jews of Palestine Before 1847
O brothers of Israel, how can I convey to you the hardships of the yoke of exile that our brethren living in Palestine suffered prior to the year 1847? Even were I to relate everything, would it be credible?...I shall recount some of the suffering of our brethren in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, which my ancestors have related to me or which I have seen with my own eyes and which has remained in my memory....It was was a great danger to Jews to venture even a few yards outside the gates of Jerusalem because of Arab brigands. Alas, woe to him that fell into their hands for he would be [as one] struck dead. They were accustomed to say Ashlah Yahudi, that is: "Strip yourself, Jew," and any Jew caught in such a predicament, seeing their
aggressiveness and weapons would strip, while they divided the spoil between them and sent them away naked and barefoot. They call this spoil: kasb Allah, that is, Allah's reward.....If a Jew encounters a Muslim in the [narrow ] street and passes on the latter's right, the Muslim says ishmal, that is, "pass on my left side." If he touches him or bumps into him, and especially if he stains his clothing or shoes, then the Muslim attacks him and strikes him cruelly and finds witnesses to the effect that the Jew insulted him, his religion, and his prophet Muhammed, with the result that a numerous crowd of Muslims descend upon him and leave the Jew practically unconscious. Then they carry him off to jail where he is subjected to terrible chastisement. When a Jew passes through their market, stones are thrown at him, his beard and earlocks are pulled, he is spat upon and jeered at and his hat is thrown to the ground. The poor Jew is so in fear of his life that he dares not question their conduct lest they murder him, so he runs for his life as one would from wild animals or from the lion's claws and thanks God that at least his soul is saved, and all these tribulations he is ready to suffer for love of the Holy Land. When a Jew buys anything from a Muslim and inquires its price, if the Jew tries to barter as is the custom among traders, they attack him and spit in his face and give him fierce blows until he is obliged to buy the object for the original price....When they need to have something carried from the market to their house they wait around until by chance they see a Jew, even an elderly man. Indeed, they make no difference between a rich man or a scholar, but they strike him to their merriment until he is forced to carry the burden on his shoulders to their house
On one occasion they happened upon the saintly Rabbi Isaiah Bardaki, who day and night was engaged in study and good deeds and had been a devout person since his youth. When they saw him they forced him with their blows to carry a heavy load on his back to their house. If they see a Jew dressed in green they take hold of him violently and strip him of his garments and have him imprisoned, claiming he had mocked their religion...There are many more such sufferings that the pen would weary to describe. These occur particularly when we go to visit the cemetery [on the Mount of Olives] and when we pray at the Wall of Lamentations, when stones are thrown at us we are jeered at.
(Moses b. Menahem Mendel Reischer, 19th century Polish traveler)
(Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam)
Anti-Zionism Among Jews
Jews who criticize or oppose Zionism are usually Orthodox and maintain that Israel can only be regained miraculously. They view the present state as a blasphemous human attempt to usurp Gd's role, and they work to dismantle Israel. However, unlike many gentile antiZionists, they firmly believe in the Jewish right to Israel, but only at that future time of redemption. The bestknown of the religious antiZionists are the Neturei Karta.
Two common religious grounds are typically given for antiZionism. One is that today's Zionism is a secular Zionism, packed with nonJewish influences, and lacking key features like Moshiach and the rebuilt Temple. Adherents to this position are more on the nonZionist rather than antiZionist side. The other reason is that the Talmud (Meseches Kesuvos, 111a), as part of a discussion of certain Torah verses mentioning oaths, states that when Israel went into the second exile, there were three vows between Heaven and Earth:
1. Israel would not "go up like a wall" [conquer Eretz Yisrael by massive force].
2. Gd made Israel swear that they would not rebel against the nations of the world [would obey the governments in the exile].
3. Gd made the nonJews swear not to oppress Israel "too much" [translation of phrase yoter midai].
Groups accepting these positions are more on the antiZionist side.
The religious counterreply to the above is that secular Zionism is a preliminary stage of religious Zionism, and that the vows no longer apply since the gentiles violated their part (by such actions as the Roman persecutions, the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazi Holocaust). The Balfour declaration of 1917 and the United Nations partition vote of 1947 are also regarded as having given permission to the Jews to reestablish the state by the nonJewish rulers of the area. Once this permission was granted it could not be revoked. It should also be noted that the oaths cited above are only mentioned as a side point in one place in a discussion in the Gemara, and as the viewpoint of an individual. Many people feel that they do not apply in any case.
Some Religious Zionist Jews see the formation of the secular state as accelerating the process of redemption, with themselves playing a major role in doing Gd's will by serving the state, whose creation is often seen as miraculous.
Socalled "nonZionist" Jews are pleased that Israel exists from a practical standpoint-as a haven for oppressed Jews and as a land imbued with holiness wellsuited for Torah study. But they don't generally assign religious significance to the formation of the modern state, and often decry aspects of its secular culture.
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