Israël's "ziektekiemen"

Is Israël wel, zoals wordt beweerd, een "democratie", wanneer haar volksvertegenwoordigers dezelfde taal uitslaan in een proces waar wij over zeggen "dit nooit meer"? Wanneer een oppositie, mensen die ook democratie voor minderheden bepleiten, in het parlement "ziektekiemen" en "verraders die tegen elke prijs vervolgd moeten worden" worden genoemd? Waar hebben we dat soort taal eerder gehoord? Met zulke (PVV-)vrienden heeft Israël geen vijanden nodig. Het zal aan zichzelf ten onder gaan.

MK Ben-Ari: Eradicate treacherous leftists

After Knesset approves establishment of inquiry commission into funding of left-wing Israeli organizations, National Union MK tells Jerusalem conference they are 'enemies of Israel,' equates them to Hamas, Hezbollah

Ynet News | Roni Sofer, Yair Altman | 01.05.11

Just hours after the Knesset approved a motion calling for a parliamentary investigation into the activity of B'Tselem, Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence and other groups, National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari referred to members of the leftist organizations as "traitors who must be persecuted at any cost."

Speaking at an SOS Israel conference in Jerusalem Wednesday evening, Ben-Ari called the leftists "germs" and "enemies of Israel."

The rightist lawmaker went as far as equating the leftist organizations to Hamas and Hezbollah.

In an audio tape obtained by Ynet, Ben-Ari can be heard saying, "Elements that want to destroy the Jewish state are operating within the State of Israel. They are nothing short of traitors. They are persecuting IDF soldiers and want to castrate our resilience."

"I see the people from Peace Now; they each have a private car. Every clerk has the finest equipment. Who funds all of this? The greatest Israel haters are funding this. If we'll have to enact a law in the Knesset to eradicate this dangerous enemy, that is what we'll do. Such a germ can destroy Israeli society. This enemy threatens the state's existence," he added.

Extreme rightist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who also attended the conference, called on activists to protest outside the homes of the leaders of the leftist groups "and explain to their neighbors that these are people who harm IDF soldiers and cause Israel damage.

"We must also face them on the legal front – file lawsuits and show them we are not suckers. Those who harm the State of Israel and its soldiers will be punished," he said.

In addition to the mass support from right-wing factions, the proposal to set up an inquiry commission into the activity of leftist groups was also backed by three members of Kadima, which heads the opposition. "We must erect a democratic and Zionist barrier against the use of human rights claims at the expense of Israeli patriotism," MK Otniel Schneller said.

"These organizations apparently have a good reason for concealing their funding sources," he said.

Kadima MK Yulia Shamalov Berkovich said, "When I see Israeli organizations that harm the only consensus in Israel – the soldiers – I want to know how this happens."

MK Robert Tiviaev, who also voted in favor of an investigation, said "groups such as Adalah cannot be allowed to operate against the IDF."

Arieh Eldad, partijgenoot van Ben-Ari, organiseerde in 2008 de conferentie 'Facing Jihad' met Geert Wilders. Rechts van Wilders een andere extremist, Daniel Pipes, die o.a. van mening is dat alle Amerikaanse moslims geïnterneerd moeten worden in speciale kampen.

DNA-onderzoek wijzigt joodse geschiedenis

Volgens Jits van Straten is 'Jood' als etnische aanduiding een mythe

Het leek duidelijk. De Romeinen verdreven de joden uit Palestina, waarna de diaspora begon. Maar volgens historisch onderzoek stammen hedendaagse joden vooral af van bekeerlingen. Die conclusie trekt op zijn manier ook microbioloog Jits van Straten.

→ Lees artikel in Trouw

Relevante links:

Gilad Atzmon: The Wandering Who?
Electronic Intifada: Book review: Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People"
Aaron Leonard (NYU): The new history of the origins of the Jews (interview)
Mondoweiss: Shlomo Sand’s ‘The Invention of the Jewish People,’ reviewed by Jack Ross
Mondoweiss: At NYU, devilish Shlomo Sand predicts the Jewish past and pastes the Zionists
Tablet Magazine: Inventing Israel
Dissident Voice: Is it Anti-Semitic to Defend Palestinian Human Rights?
Haaretz: Shattering a 'national mythology'

Triomf van Joods Actueel: katholiek = seksueel misbruik = "anti-Israël"!

Okee, katholicisme en pedo's, weer actueel. Daar komen de joden: François Houtart heeft niet alleen 40 jaar geleden zijn neefje misbruikt (en bekend), maar hij is nog "anti-Israëlactivist" ook! Bewijs! Triomf! En waarom? Omdat hij Hamas van de EU-terroristenlijst af wilde hebben, lid is van het Russel Tribunaal en oprichter van de NGO Cetri.

"De vraag is nog maar welke activiteiten deze grote Palestijnse kindervrienden ook tijdens hun bezoeken aan de Palestijnse gebieden ontplooiden."

Maar dan is de vraag ook wat Israëlische cipiers met Palestijnse kinderen doen:

"An international children’s rights charity has said it has evidence that Palestinian children held in Israeli custody have been subjected to sexual abuse in an effort to extract confessions from them.

The Geneva-based Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected 100 sworn affadavits from Palestinian children who said they were mistreated by their Israeli captors.

Fourteen of the statements say they were sexually abused or threatened with sexual assault to pressure them into confessions." (bron)

Of wat 'anti-Palestijnse' joden met kinderen uitspoken: Cloistered Shame in Israel - TIME over seksueel misbruik binnen de Haredi-gemeenschap in Israël.

NB De vrouw uit Beit Shemesh draagt een zogenoemde 'joodse burka'. A 54-year-old Israeli mother of 12 was under arrest Tuesday for allegedly severely abusing her children, police said. The mother was also suspected of failing to report multiple cases of incest among her children. (Jerusalem Post)

Eind 2009 ontving François Houtart de UNESCO Madanjeet-Singh prijs voor de promotie van tolerantie en geweldloosheid. Ook was hij kandidaat voor de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede. Ja, dat kan natuurlijk niet anders dan "anti-Israël" zijn...

Als de Belgische joden van Joods Actueel nu alle mensen met een "anti-Israël" mening tot een ziekte of een ras zouden uitroepen, dan werd het in ieder geval duidelijk waar ze mee bezig zijn.

---

François Houtart. Belgian Marxist Priest and sociologist, director of the CETRI ( Tricontinental Center ) and the review " Alternatives Sud".  Militant antiglobalist.  The canon François Houtart is a catholic priest and intellectual Marxist of international fame.  Grandson of the count Henry Carton de Wiart (1869-1951), who was one of the leaders of the Catholic Party and pioneer of the Christian democracy, François Houtart was born in Brussels in 1925.  After his training in philosophy and theology at the Seminar in Mechelen, he was ordered priest in 1949. Graduated in political and social sciences of the catholic University of Leuven and graduate of the International Higher Institute of Town planning of Brussels , he is a doctor of sociology of the UCL where he was a professor of 1958 to 1990.  Author or co-author of many publications regarding socio-religious research, he took part, as expert, in the council of the Vatican II (1962-1965). He participated in the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on US Crimes in Vietnam in 1967. Today, he directs a ONG, the CETRI ( Tricontinental Center ) based in Louvain-la-Neuve as well as the review "Alternatives Sud".  Regarded as a prophet by the ones, like a dangerous activist by the others, François Houtart is one of the most active collaborators of the World Social Forum of Porto Allegre and one of the most convinced militants for "another globalisation". Houtart is Executive Secretary of the Alternative World Forum, President of the International League for rights and liberation of people, president of the BRussells Tribunal and senior adviser to the President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann. (bron: BRussels Tribunal)

Israel Shahak

Israel Shahak over judaïsme, Israël, zionisme en antisemitisme = xenofobie


Lees hier zijn boek Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years

Israel Shahak (Hebrew: ישראל שחק‎; born Himmelstaub, April 28, 1933 -- July 2, 2001) was a Polish-born Israeli professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known especially as a radical political thinker, author, and civil rights activist. Between 1970-1990, he was president of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights and was an outspoken critic of the Israeli government. Shahak's writings on Judaism have been a source of widespread controversy.

Born in Warsaw, Poland,[1] Shahak was the youngest child of a cultured, religious, pro-Zionist, Ashkenazi Jewish family.[2] During German occupation of Poland, his family was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. His brother escaped and joined the Royal Air Force. His mother paid a poor Catholic family to hide him, but when her money ran out he was returned. In 1943 he and his family were sent to the Poniatowa concentration camp, near Lublin, where his father died. Israel and his mother managed to escape and returned to Warsaw, but within the year, they were both sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Shahak was liberated from the camp in 1945, and shortly thereafter emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine, where he wanted to join a kibbutz, but was turned down as "too weedy".[3]

From age 12, Shahak cared for and provided economic support for his mother who survived the Nazi camp in a very poor physical condition. After a period of learning in a religious boarding school in Kfar Hassidim, he moved with his mother to Tel Aviv. After graduating from high school, Shahak served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in an elite regiment.[4] After completing service with the IDF, he attended Hebrew University where he received his doctorate in chemistry. He became an assistant to Ernst David Bergmann.[5]

In 1961, Shahak left Israel for the United States to study as a postdoctoral student at Stanford University. He returned two years later to become a teacher and researcher in chemistry at Hebrew University, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. He published many scientific papers, mostly on organic fluorine compounds.[6] After the 1967 Six-Day War and the ensuing occupation, Shahak became critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians,[4] a supporter of a Palestinian state, and wrote many articles and several books outlining his views of Israeli society and Judaism.

In his later years, Shahak lived in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem. He died in Jerusalem at age 68 due to complications from diabetes and was buried in the Givat Shaul cemetery.[4] In an obituary published in The Nation, Christopher Hitchens wrote that Shahak's home was "a library of information about the human rights.....He became a well-known activist in international circles, co-authoring papers and giving joint speaking engagements with American political dissident Noam Chomsky, and winning plaudits from Jean Paul Sartre, Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens and Edward Said.

Reviewer Sheldon Richman explains that for Shahak, Zionism was both a reflection of, and capitulation to, European anti-Semitism, "since it, like the anti-Semites, holds that Jews are everywhere aliens who would best be isolated from the rest of the world."[8]

In 1994 he published Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, in 1997 he published Open Secrets: Israel's Nuclear and Foreign Policies, and in 1999 he published Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel, co-authored with Norton Mezvinsky. In the introduction to the last book, Mezvinsky and Shahak explained that, 'We realize that by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism we are criticizing a part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing others'.

Nederlandse opperrabijn Binyomin Jacobs meent dat alle niet-joden antisemieten zijn

Wikipedia meldt over opperrabbijn Binyomin Jacobs: "De Opperrabbijn rekent zich tot de stroming van de Lubavitcher Chassidiem die bekend staan voor hun openheid naar zowel de niet-religieuze joodse gemeenschap als naar de niet-joodse samenleving."

De werkelijkheid is 180 graden anders. In een interview in Arutz Sheva, spreekbuis voor joodse extremisten in Israël, verklaarde hij:

"The gentiles will always find excuses for anti-Semitism. They will say Jews are richer, they separate themselves from the rest of society, geniuses etc... None of these reasons justifies anti-Semitism, but you can't change the outlook of Jew-hatred through rational arguments." (ynetnews.com)

Hoe moet je zoiets noemen? Antigentilisme? Goyofobie?



In oktober dit jaar sprak rabbijn Jacobs voor de gentiles Christenen voor Israël, een graag geziene gast van deze moslimhaters, over "geld verdienen, zakendoen, handeldrijven en rijkdom in het licht van de Thora, Talmoed, de Halaga, de Joodse leer". Op dezelfde gelegenheid gaf CvI informatie over hun "jongerenprojecten in Israël", waarmee in werkelijkheid hun financiering van zowel joodse nederzettingen als outposts op de Westelijke Jordaanoever wordt bedoeld.

In 2007 betoogde Jacobs in het Hirsch Instituut dat de genocide op de Kanaänieten in orde was omdat zijn god vond dat hun land aan de joden toebehoorde. En dat niemand een boodschap zou moeten hebben aan de resoluties van de VN, zo vervolgde hij, suggererend dat zijn god hetzelfde weer mag doen met de Palestijnen als met de Kanaänieten. Dat het niet een god was die de Kanaänieten uitroeiden vermeldt hij natuurlijk niet, zodat niemand hem kan beschuldigen van het bepleiten van genocide.

"Toon dat je vrede wilt hebben. Maar tegelijk geldt: staar je er niet blind op en zorg dat je leger in stand blijft." ... Focussen op het vredesproces of op militaire slagkracht? "Ik zie niet in waarom je tussen die twee zou moeten kiezen. Maar als het onverhoopt zou moeten, kies ik voor militaire slagkracht." ... Hardop peinzend: "Als ik in Israël zou wonen, zou ik denk ik inderdaad op Shas gestemd hebben. Maar ik zou dat niet van de daken schreeuwen." (interview met Jacobs, refdag.nl)

De spirituele leider van Shas is de extremistische rabbijn Ovadia Yosef, die meermalen heeft bepleit dat Arabieren en Palestijnen moeten worden uitgeroeid. Ook hij heeft het niet hoog op met niet-joden. In oktober dit jaar stelde hij: "Waarom gojim [niet-joden] nodig zijn? Ze zullen werken, ze zullen ploegen, ze zullen oogsten. Wij zullen zitten en eten als hun meester. Daarom werden de Goyim gemaakt." en "Gojim zijn alleen geboren om ons te dienen. Los daarvan, hebben zij geen plaats in deze wereld; alleen om het volk van Israël te dienen."

Wanneer we dan in Wikipedia lezen dat rabbijn Jacobs "een goed netwerk [heeft] weten op te bouwen zowel binnen de landelijke en lokale politiek" dan lopen mij de rillingen over de rug.

The farce of a secular and democratic Jewish state

Haaretz | By Gideon Levy | 16.12.10

The debate over the conversion bill is deceptive. It's being held in -remote and dark places, it deals with trivial matters, it appears to affect the fate of very few, and it seems to interest even fewer. But what is really going on there should trouble every Israeli, because it touches on the most fundamental issues that define our society and state.

The question whether military or civilian rabbis will determine who is a Jew is marginal. Rafi Peretz or Shlomo Amar, who cares? Ten times more significant is the question whether we happen to be living in the only country on earth where clerics determine the right to citizenship. No less important, how do we dare continue deceiving ourselves that this is a secular and democratic state?

The rabbis are Israel's gatekeepers. What most of them believe became painfully evident recently when they published a ruling that prohibits renting apartments to Arabs and foreigners. One "moderate" rabbi did propose a "compromise": renting apartments only to "good Arabs." Another moderate rabbi said that "there is no wisdom" in the rabbis' letter, but not a word about morality and justice. Most of them are frighteningly narrow-minded, obsessed with fear, and willing to whip up hatred toward foreigners they never met. What do they know about the world? Or about human rights?

Convinced and trying to convince others that the Jews are a chosen people, to which entry and even contact with those deemed inferior is forbidden, they live in their narrow pale of settlement, most of them boorish and ignorant of what happens outside. They are our gatekeepers, and they determine our real image. Like the goons who get to select people at the entrance to dance clubs, the rabbis determine the character of the whole party, and this party is a benighted religious party.

The conversion debate raises another, deeper question: according to the bill, Judaism is a religion, solely a religion and not a nationality or people. So much for "the Jewish people" and "the people of Israel." If rabbis are the gatekeepers, then it's about joining a religion and ritual, not a people and state. In the so-called secular state of Israel, then, it is impossible to join the Jewish people and stay secular. How can we claim that Judaism is both a faith and nationality if joining it is based solely on Jewish law and rulings of rabbis? What about those who want to join "the people of Israel" but don't believe in God? Why is the word atheist still a profanity in Israel, unmentionable? Entry for religious people only? Only in a state governed by religious law.

It's time to admit that this approach can only be called racist. Yes, that hackneyed term. That's what it is when it is the blood flowing through the veins that determines your status. If the grandson of a woman whose Judaism is doubtful has the right to automatic citizenship when he arrives here from the ends of the earth, and a non-Jewish soldier who chose to fight and live here runs into rabbinic obstacles, then this is not just judgment by religious law, but judgment by racist law. If the Arab native is an outcast, but a member of the "Tribe of Menasseh" from Burma is welcomed with full rights simply because a rabbi said he was Jewish, then this is a benighted theocracy. Sixty-two years after the establishment of the state, the time has come to summon the courage and change this reality.

Sufficiently rooted already, Israel must continue to be a home and shelter for every Jew, but by no means just for them. The time has come for normalcy, for joining the enlightened world, in which immigration laws are determined solely by civil criteria. Not entry for all - there's no such thing anywhere in the world - but criteria of a state and society, not of God and religious law.
For most Israelis, who have grown up in this distorted reality, all this seems to be normal. It's normal to live in a state where there is no public transportation on the Sabbath, where on almost every doorpost there's a mezuzah, where there's no possibility of civil marriage, where the state institutes blatantly religious laws and the rabbis are the sole arbiters of who can join the people. There's virtually no protest against any of this. Even the public debate, to the extent that it exists, is limited to the marginal questions: the military or civil rabbinate? And after all this, we dare call ours a liberal and modern state.

Israel’s religious extremists send the peace process up in smoke

Population changes are transforming the country’s politics for the worse, argues Con Coughlin.

The Telegraph | By Con Coughlin | 10 Dec 2010

Over the past week, fierce forest fires have devastated large swathes of Israel, killing 42 people – including the country’s most senior female police officer. So you could be forgiven for thinking that the emergency services needed all the help they could lay their hands on.

It is not hard to imagine the firefighters’ anger – and disbelief – on discovering that the country’s interior minister, Eli Yishai, had rejected an offer by a Christian charity in North America to donate some fire engines. Given that the country often struggles to provide adequate cover during such emergencies, the proposal by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews could have made a vital contribution to the attempts to bring the fires under control.

But Mr Yishai, who represents the ultra-Orthodox Shas party in the ruling coalition, had other ideas. Shas, which speaks for Israel’s burgeoning ultra-Orthodox community, is deeply suspicious of non-Jewish organisations, even those that are committed to Israel’s well-being. Many of its supporters fear any help offered by Christian groups is part of some sinister plot to convert the Jews.

Fanning the flames of intolerance: the rejection of Christian help to fight the forest fires has caused tension within Israel

So Mr Yishai vetoed the American charity’s offer – and in doing so, further inflamed tensions between more secular-minded Israelis, who form the majority of the population, and the religious hardliners whose growing influence over government policy is a source of mounting friction between the communities. The anger only grew when Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Shas, publicly declared that the fires were divine retribution for the failure of secular Israelis to observe the Sabbath.

But then, such acrimonious exchanges have become the norm rather than the exception, in a country whose very future is, many fear, being placed in jeopardy by the growth of the extremists. And this week’s decision by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, to reject an American request to extend the freeze on building in settlements, provides a graphic illustration of the trend.

After last year’s general election produced an inconclusive result, Mr Netanyahu took advantage of Israel’s complex electoral system to form what is arguably the most Right-wing government in its history. Thus, while his Likud party remains dominant within the coalition, it relies heavily on the support of Shas and the even more hardline Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel is our home”), led by Avigdor Lieberman, the hawkish foreign minister. Mr Lieberman, who was born in Soviet-controlled Moldova and emigrated to Israel in the 1970s, finds his greatest support among the million or so Russian Jews who have become Israeli citizens since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The real problem, however, is that while many Israelis resent the growing influence of the likes of Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, the coalition is in many respects a reflection of the demographic changes that have transformed the political landscape over the past 20 years.

Modern Israel is barely recognisable from the country I was first posted to 25 years ago. Then, the overwhelming consensus favoured peaceful co-existence with its Arab neighbours. Shimon Peres, the Labour leader who now serves as Israel’s president, was at the forefront of official efforts to make peace with the country’s enemies, which ultimately resulted in the signing of treaties with Egypt and Jordan.

In my district of Jerusalem, Jews and Arabs lived happily side by side; it was not uncommon for Palestinians to babysit Israeli children while their parents enjoyed a night out, perhaps at one of the Palestinian restaurants that catered for Israeli tastes.

Today, the divisions between the communities are so entrenched as to make such cosy arrangements unthinkable. The current attitude is better reflected by a recent rabbinical edict that forbids Jewish landlords from renting properties to Palestinian tenants.

Looking back, it seems clear that the rapid expansion of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, together with the mass immigration of Russian Jews, has been a major factor in this sharp shift in political orientation.

The closest Israel has come to making peace with the Palestinians was in 1993, when Bill Clinton signed the ground-breaking Oslo Accords with Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister, who was subsequently murdered by a Jewish extremist opposed to any deal. Reflecting on recent efforts to revive the dialogue by his wife Hillary, now Secretary of State, Mr Clinton singled out Russian immigrants as the central obstacle, identifying “children of Russians and settlers” as “the hardest-core people against a division of the land”.

That is a view shared by many senior officials in Whitehall, who tell me they are pessimistic about the prospects for a Middle East peace settlement. “Israel is a very different country today to what it was 20 years ago,” one recently admitted. So long as the country’s fate lies in the hands of religious and nationalist extremists, I find it almost impossible to contemplate the day when Israelis can once again co-exist peacefully with their Palestinian neighbours.

Familie Evers emigreert traditioneel

Wanneer een prominent, of in deze familie van, in Nederland 'antisemitisme' roept is dat een garantie voor een royaal aantal koppen in de krant. Vandaag is het weer: Zoon rabbijn Evers emigreert om antisemitisme. Benzion Evers volgt het advies van Frits Bolkestein op. Dat is natuurlijk zijn goed recht. Wanneer zijn gezin zich in Israël, een bezettingsmacht die al 63 jaar in staat van oorlog met zijn bewoners en buren is, veiliger voelen, is de emigratiewens alleen maar logisch. Zaak is dan wel dat ze niet naar een joods getto op de Westelijke Jordaanoever verhuizen. Hoewel je daar wel ongegeneerd met wapens mag lopen, er een joodse ordedienst is én de bescherming van het bezettingsleger, de zaak stevig ommuurd is met hekwerk, en ze daar van wegen gebruik kunnen maken die exclusief voor joden zijn aangelegd. Het is maar waar je je prettig bij voelt.

Benzion Evers (in De Gelderlander)

Vader Evers meent dat Israël niemand bezet omdat, om kort te gaan, zijn god dat heeft gezegd. En omdat "Judea" nu eenmaal "Jodenland" heet. Wat het Internationaal Gerechtshof zegt, het hoogste rechtsorgaan ter wereld, daar heeft de rabbijn geen boodschap aan. Simpelweg omdat daarin volgens hem "meer Arabieren zitten dan Joden". De wereld van rabbijn Evers bestaat hoofdzakelijk uit joden en niet-joden. En dat is opmerkelijk, omdat dat ook een van de hoofdkenmerken van een antisemiet is.

De joodse broeders van rabbijn Evers vieren feest terwijl zij naar de bombardementen op Gaza kijken.

Emigratie uit Nederland is familietraditie Evers

Wat we in de hijgerige berichtjes echter niet lezen is dat het hele gezin Evers naar het buitenland emigreert. Het betreft gewoon een familietraditie. In een artikel van De Stad Amersfoort (25 oktober 2006) lezen we dat rabbijn Raphael Evers 11 kinderen heeft. "Alleen de oudste zoon met vrouw en kind woont in Nederland en het contact met de andere kinderen verloopt via de telefoon en computer, omdat ze in het buitenland studeren en wonen. Slechts de jongste twee wonen nog thuis." Ik neem aan dat wanneer de "jongste twee ... nog thuis" wonen, dat die (ten tijde van publicatie) in het buitenland studeerden.

"Ik ga niet emigreren"

Uit het bericht van het NIK van 7 december jl. kunnen we opmaken dat Evers tegen EU-president Herman van Rompuy heeft gezegd dat hij niet gaat emigreren, want hij gaat "de wortels van het antisemitisme blootleggen", omdat de situatie in Amsterdam bar en boos is. Vreemd, want volgens de rabbijn was er in februari dit jaar nog weinig aan de hand. En is het nog merkwaardiger dat zijn zoon Benzion 3 dagen later in de Telegraaf meldt dat hij dat zijn vader na zijn pensioen wel gaat emigreren. Ook naar Israël.

Some things just didn’t make sense

MondoWeiss | by Steve Feldman | December 1, 2010

I grew up in the womb of the Jewish Community of Washington, D.C, studied at our Hebrew Academy (a school that my grandfather helped found), and worshiped at the Beth Shalom Orthodox Jewish synagogue. After marrying, I travelled to visit family in Israel. On one trip, I had the pleasure of seeing one of the Israeli national forests that held trees that I had helped to plant with the coins I collected in my youth. Looking out from atop a tree-covered hill, I remember experiencing a feeling of pride in Israel military power while catching the sounds of Israeli fighter jets passing though the valley below.

My understanding of Israel evolved. On one of the trips to Israel, my uncle, proud of Israel’s many accomplishments, drove us to see diverse different parts of the country, including the swamps that were drained and the forests that were planted. In none of those places did we see any sign of places where Palestinians used to live. “That’s odd,” I wondered. “How do I reconcile us reclaiming a land of empty swamps and deserts and making them bloom with the fact that 700,000 Palestinians had become refugees? Where had these people lived?” Something just didn’t seem to fit. If the land had been empty swamps and deserts, how did 700,000 people become refugees?

In trying to learn more about Muslims, I took a course on Islam that presented the Muslim perspective of what Islam was like. Boy, was it different from the perspective learned from my teachers/rabbis and the U.S. media! The course made the basic tenets of Islam sound altogether similar to those of Judaism that I studied in Hebrew school: devotion to one God, giving charity, acting in humble, respectful ways that bring honor to one’s faith, and treating others as we would be treated. I began to wonder if our perceptions of Arabs were misperceptions.

As I studied the history of Israel, I learned disturbing things that did not fit at all with the things I had been taught. I had been taught things like, “Arabs started all the wars,” and “Jews never terrorized anyone.” I was very surprised to find that these fundamental facts of Jewish history were flatly wrong, that Israel, in collusion with England and France, started the 1957 war, and that there were organized Jewish terrorist groups—the Irgun and the Stern Gang. These organizations were recognized as terrorists by other Jewish organizations of their day. According to Israeli historians, the Jewish terrorist groups had perpetrated the first bombings of buses and civilian markets in Palestine (only much later did I appreciate the irony in the claim that we can’t negotiate with terrorists, knowing that leaders of the Irgun and Stern Gang had been elected Prime Ministers of Israel).

At least we Jews didn’t commit atrocities. Well, I found out we did one time, in a place called Deir Yassin. Later though, I learned that it wasn’t just Deir Yassin; Israeli historians documented that we Jews had expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children from their homes, whole villages of people, before any Arab army declared war on the nascent Jewish state. I no longer found this surprising. Having learned that so many of the other “historical facts” I had been taught weren’t true, learning that there had been expulsions didn’t seem surprising. Indeed, the expulsions—committed by horribly persecuted European Jews desperate for a country of their own— seemed to make a whole lot more sense than what I had been taught: that “Arabs fled their villages in order to make it easier for the Arab armies to kill Jews.” When I think of that now, it never really made much sense, as up until about 1920, there were hundreds of thousands of Muslim and Christian Arabs in Palestine, living in peace alongside thousands of Jews. If Arabs had wanted to “throw the Jews into the sea,” it seems they could have done it long before 1948. Any remaining seeds of doubt were dispelled by learning that there were Haganah war plans—in writing in the IDF archives!—that called for, “Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris)” and “the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”

I was left with a new appreciation of the Israel/Palestine conflict, no longer thinking of “the founding of the Jewish State” but always thinking of “the founding of the Jewish State at the expense of the non-Jewish families who were already living there.” We used to be so proud in hearing that our heroic soldiers killed 20 of theirs for every one we lost because we cared so much for human life. Now I realize that killing 20 of them for each one of ours, or imprisoning hundreds or thousands, shows nothing about our regard for human life./ I’ve begun to consider how the world looks both to us, and to them. Yes, we are horrified when a Gilad Shalit is taken prisoner. But now I feel the same pain for each and every Palestinian who is taken prisoner. We know the pain when the people of Sderot are terrorized; I feel the same pain for the terror suffered by our brothers and sisters in Gaza. I still feel the pain knowing that Jews were killed in the Hebron massacre of 1929, but now I also realize that over 800 Muslims were killed in Palestine that year, and that the conflict was caused by colonialism and nationalism, not by anti-Semitism. The idea of Israeli democracy and equal treatment was lost, too. I read the writings of Palestinian Christian families, Israeli citizens, who were displaced from their homes and not allowed to return to those homes after the 1948 war was over, even though the families were still living in Israel. A Jewish person from Minneapolis can go live in the homes of those families, but not the Israeli Christian family who had been expelled. And those trees I had helped to plant? They had been planted over the remains of Palestinian families’ homes and villages. I don’t have the same sense of pride in those trees anymore.

I hear my Israeli relatives talk of Arabs as though they were animals. Having grown up in the Jewish community, I used to think that way, too. I understand that thinking, knowing that we’ve seen Arab terrorism and that my Israeli family members have probably lost close friends to it. Still, I know that we commit most of the killing. I’m left with the same sick feeling upon hearing Arabs called animals as when I heard Blacks called animals back in a less enlightened time in Washington, DC.

My sense of Jewish morality remains as strong as ever. The lessons in Torah tell me that the expulsions of Palestinian families from their homes and villages were not in keeping with Jewish values. Yes, we Jews must have peace and security, but peace and security can’t come from mistreating other people. Peace and security will come when we realize that what we did was not in keeping with our Jewish standards, when we treat our Muslim and Christian brothers as we would ourselves be treated, and when we tear down the walls and invite Palestinians to return to their homes and villages to live in peace together.

Feldman is author of A Jewish American’s Evolving View of Israel published by the American Council for Judaism (and Compartments: How the Brightest, Best Trained, and Most Caring People Can Make Judgments That are Completely and Utterly Wrong.

Israël gaat deportatiekamp bouwen voor Afrikaanse illegalen

"Goyim [niet-joden] zijn alleen geboren om ons te dienen. Los daarvan, hebben zij geen plaats in deze wereld; alleen om het volk van Israël te dienen." --Rabbijn Ovadia Yosef, de geestelijk leider van de Shas partij (11 zetels), 11 oktober 2010 2010

Israël gaat een groot deportatiekamp bouwen in de Negev-woestijn voor duizenden Afrikaanse illegalen die het wil uitzetten. Maar niet voor de duizenden Thaise, Chinese en Filippijnse illegalen, die al jarenlang worden uitgebuit door Israëlische boeren. Waarom zou dat zijn? Vanwege de huidskleur? Misschien willen de Afrikanen geen methamfetamine gebruiken om harder en langer te kunnen werken?

De NRC is de enige Nederlandse krant die erover bericht - maar het woord "kamp", en dat het gaat om Afrikanen, wordt in tegenstelling tot de buitenlandse mainstream pers verzwegen. NRC meldt dat "duizenden illegale migranten ... zullen worden gehuisvest in de zuidelijke Negev-woestijn." Gehuisvest?

» Thaise gastarbeiders in Israël systematisch uitgebuit

» Exploited Thais in no man's land
As Israeli rockets whizzed overhead bombarding Gaza, migrant labourers were ordered to work on while their employer took his dogs to safety.

» Netanyahu: Illegal African immigrants - a threat to Israel's Jewish character

A group of children of foreign workers that could be deported from Israel by a decision of the Israeli governament. People took the streets of Tel Aviv to protest against this possibility. August 14 2010

Israel to expel 400 migrant workers’ kids
Monday, August 2, 2010 LOS ANGELES TIMES

JERUSALEM — Israel moved Sunday to deport the offspring of hundreds of migrant workers, mostly small children who were born in Israel, speak Hebrew and have never seen their parents’ native countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new policy was intended to stem a flood of illegal aliens, whose children receive state-funded education and health care benefits, and to defend Israel’s Jewish identity.

How to Kill Goyim and Influence People: Israeli Rabbis Defend Book's Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews (with Video)

A rabbinical guidebook for killing non-Jews has sparked an uproar in Israel and exposed the power a bunch of genocidal theocrats wield over the government.

AlterNet | By Max Blumenthal | August 30, 2010

When I went into the Jewish religious book emporium, Pomeranz, in central Jerusalem to inquire about the availability of a book called Torat Ha'Melech, or the King's Torah, a commotion immediately ensued. "Are you sure you want it?" the owner, M. Pomeranz, asked me half-jokingly. "The Shabak [Israel's internal security service] is going to want a word with you if you do." As customers stopped browsing and began to stare in my direction, Pomeranz pointed to a security camera affixed to a wall. "See that?" he told me. "It goes straight to the Shabak!"

A Jewish state or an Israeli democracy?

Benjamin Netanyahu is unsure of his identity: His insecurity is behind his pointless demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as uniquely Jewish.

Haaretz | By Shlomo Sand | 26.09.10

A Jewish state or an Israeli democracy? In the talks that appear to be taking place between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked his negotiating partner to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. One can understand the prime minister: A man so little observant of the Jewish religious tradition is unsure of his Jewish identity, hence his insecurity about the identity of his state - and the need to seek validation from our neighbors.

There's far too little criticism in Israel of this latest whim, which until recently was absent from Israeli diplomacy. For years, Israel struggled to be recognized by the Arab world. But in March 2002, when the Arab League and the Muslim world took up the Saudi initiative to recognize Israel within its 1967 borders, a new threat appeared: peace, which can fragment the Jewish character of the state from within, and rightfully so.

There's a wall-to-wall consensus, from Yisrael Beiteinu to Meretz, from enlightened journalists to learned professors, on Israel's definition as a Jewish state. But this definition strikingly resembles the definition of Iran as an Islamic republic or the United States as a Christian country. True, some American evangelists believe that the United States' Christian character is at risk and seek to cement it in legislation. But the United States, like the rest of the enlightened world, still sees itself as belonging to all its citizens, regardless of religion and creed.

Most Israelis would respond to this by saying Judaism and Jewishness represent not a religion but a people, so Israel must belong not to all its citizens but to the Jews of the world, who, as we know, prefer not to live here.

Strange, I didn't know you could only join a people via religious conversion and not by taking part in its day-to-day culture. But perhaps there's a secular Jewish people-culture I'm not aware of? Maybe Woody Allen, Philip Roth and others are secretly well-versed in the Hebrew language, cinema, literature and theater? For me, the best definition of belonging to a people is the ability to recognize the name of at least one soccer team competing in the local leagues.
The trouble is that the Zionist enterprise, which created a new people here, is far from satisfied with its creation and prefers to see it as a bastard. It prefers to cling to the idea of a Jewish people-race, profiting for now from its imaginary existence. We should remember that the strong solidarity among evangelical Christians and the partnership in faith among members of the Bahai faith still doesn't make them peoples or nations.

Rahm Emanuel, as we know, belongs to the American people, and Bernard Kouchner belongs to the French people. But if tomorrow the United States decides to define itself as an Anglo-Saxon rather than an American state, or France seeks recognition not as a French but as a Gallic-Catholic republic, both men will have to immigrate to Israel.

I'm sure many of us wish for that. This is yet another reason for the insistence Israel is the state of the Jewish people and not an Israeli democracy.
Since not all the non-Jews among us can identify with their state, what they have left is identifying with the Palestinian Authority, Hamas or the movie "Avatar," and perhaps demand tomorrow that the Galilee, which as we know does not have a Jewish majority, will be the Kosovo of the Middle East.
 
The writer is a history professor at Tel Aviv University.

Het joodse gen en superieure intelligentie

Van een opmerking van het Duitse SPD-lid Thilo Sarrazin krijgt de wereld het schuim om de mond. Maar verkondigt de Israëlische minister van Binnenlandse Zaken en vice-premier Eli Yishai hetzelfde, dan is dat blijkbaar de normale gang van zaken in Israël, omdat de pers er niet in is geïnteresseerd. Zelfs wanneer de ons bevriende schurkenstaat nazi-ideeën koestert blijft Nederland kritiekloos bevriend.

Genoegelijk gingen de anti-semitische opmerkingen van Sarazzin over Turken/moslims jarenlang aan 'de wereld' voorbij. Dat komt omdat het normaal is geworden om de ergste dingen over moslims te roepen, onder het mom van vrijheid van meningsuiting. Maar die zogenaamde vrijheid verdwijnt als sneeuw voor de zon wanneer het de afstammelingen van de Israëlieten betreft. Omdat die mensen blijkbaar meer waard zijn (geworden) dan de afstammelingen van de Ismaëlieten.

Minister van Binnenlandse Zaken en vice-premier Eli Yishai en president Simon Peres dollen met haatrabbijn Ovadia Yosef, geestelijk leider van de extremistische Shas-partij waar Yshai lid van is. Yosef meent onder meer dat de holocaust de straf van god was.

Op 8 augustus jl. verklaarde Yishai in de Jerusalem Post:

"Wanneer iemand bekeert tot het orthodoxe jodendom, dan heeft hij het Joodse gen. Als hij niet bekeert tot het orthodoxe jodendom, dan heeft hij het Joodse gen niet. Zo simpel is het."

Hoger IQ

Uit een artikel in de Israëlische krant Haaretz ('Jewish gene' theories make waves in Germany, go unnoticed in Israel) kunnen we opmaken dat het idee dat er een joods gen of joods DNA bestaat vrij algemeen is. Maar bijvoorbeeld ook de ultrarechtse Amerikaanse lobbyclub American Enterprise Institute (de huidige werkgever van Ayaan Hirsi Magan) deelt die mening. De fellow Jon Entine presenteerde daar zijn boek Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People waarin hij o.a. beweert dat het gemiddelde IQ van joden hoger is dan dat van de andere, blijkbaar 'minder begaafde', mensen. Zijn collega Charles Murray, die eerder in The Bell Curve (1994) beweerde dat negers dommer zijn dan blanken, schreef er eerder over in zijn essay Jewish Genius.
» Lees verder over deze AEI presentatie in de washington Post

Albert Einstein’s reactie op een verzoek voor een gelddonatie voor de Stern Gang.

Het ironische is dat artikelen over het vermeende joodse hogere IQ vaak wordt geïllustreerd met een afbeelding van Albert Einstein. Dezelfde Albert Einstein, met zijn superieure intelligentie, stuurde een brief aan de New York Times, samen met Hannah Ahrendt en andere joodse intellectuelen, om de wereld te waarschuwen tegen Menachim Begin in 1948. Begin was leider van de 'Vrijheidspartij' (Tnuat Haherut), zo schreven zij, "a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties." (krantenknipsel pdf) En dat die partij was ontstaan uit de Irgun Zvai Leumi (Etzel), "a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine." Het hoogste IQ ter wereld of niet: de 'joodse suprioriteit' telt waarschijnlijk alleen voor zionisten.

Met een andere joodse intellectueel, Sigmund Freud, onderhield Albert Einstein een briefwisseling (Why War?, 1932, op uitnodiging van de League of Nations, voorloper van de VN) waarin gesproken werd over de oorzaken van oorlog en of er 'genezing' bestaat. Nee, stelde Freud.

Een superieure joodse intelligentie is niet nodig om een kwakje metselspecie in een gat te gooien: minister Yishai legde op 22 juli jl. de eerste steen voor een administratief centrum voor joodse nederzettingen in de West Bank, ten zuiden van Hebron. Nederland, de EU en de internationale gemeenschap zijn uitgesproken tegen deze nederzettingen en tegen uitbreiding ervan. behalve in de praktijk.

» The London Book Club review The invention of the Jewish people – Shlomo Sand

Haaretz: Fascism is already here

If protesters didn't exist, Netanyahu, Livnat and Sa'ar would have to invent them. After all, these figures are the last living proof of a democratic regime in Israel.

Haaretz | By Yossi Sarid | 03.09.10

Israeli democracy is mainly for decoration, like a tree grown for its beauty, not to bear fruit. Few people actually use it or the rights it affords. Many are merely happy that they can vote in the Knesset elections, and even this number is getting smaller.

Does Israel's civic passivity stem from laziness or apathy or despair? That feeling that there's no way they can influence or change anything? And if governments suffice with running countries, this government is adamant about dictating the policies of the opposition - with an opposition comprised of such figures as Tzipi Livni, Shaul Mofaz and Tzachi Hanegbi, this is certainly possible. A democracy that is atrophying, that is not utilized on a daily basis, becomes an unnecessary tool.

Two ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers have altered a photo of Israel's new cabinet, removing two female ministers. Yated Neeman daily newspaper replaced the women with two men in the lower image. (BBC News 2009)

But here we find a paradox: Those who fight against democracy in order to destroy it, to set up an alternative state in its place, are the very people who know how to exploit it to the full. The settlers know, as do the rabbis, who teach their students how their "Jewish state" will look. During the past few months it appears as if fascism has already arrived here and is waiting just behind the wall. And even the genius of our times - for whom everything has been turned inside out - knows, judging by his weekly hot-air emissions. They use democracy in order to toss it out.

Here and there a few, the few who were lost in the desert, renounce them, but then immediately pounce on them to scare them and shut them up - the government and the rabble alike. And what can a person who wants to protest do when his soul has despaired of those who kill and those who are killed? When his soul is fed up with the occupation, and all he wants is that it should not manage to occupy his desires? Someone seeking salvation for his soul and ours - what is left for him to do?

If he participates in the popular struggle against the separation fence, he will be buried outside the fence of the cemetery; if he demonstrates in Sheikh Jarrah, he will feel the heavy hand of the police; if he is a university lecturer, they'll send the watchdogs after him in the name of Zionism; if he belongs to a theater troupe, someone who can still see the Green Line in his mind's eye, they will threaten the source of his income; if he is a school principal who tries not just to support settlements but to inculcate them, they will look for a different institution for him because that is not how we do things; if he is a judge who dares deny that security is of the utmost importance, they will blame him for bloodshed; if he is a journalist who refuses to join in the chorus, there will be cries to boycott his newspaper; if he is a citizen who wishes to protect a child being threatened with expulsion from the country, he too will be blacklisted as an enemy of the people; and a long list remains.

What a foolish government. If such people hadn't been around to break through the fences and hold their own, Benjamin Netanyahu, Limor Livnat and Gideon Sa'ar would've had to invite them to do so, to find a special clause in the budget to support them. After all, these figures are their alibis and the last living proof of a democratic regime in Israel.

Without them, this government would be left with only the inflated Eli Yishai and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who is constantly letting out hot air but, heaven forbid, should not be denounced as the national skunk. The prime minister pretends he can't hear and all the ministers keep mum just like him. How simple it is to condemn left-wing artists at the start of the cabinet meeting, to threaten to turn out the lights on their stage.

Next week the president will make his annual pilgrimage to the rabbi, to wish him a happy new year, a year in which all his wishes and desires will be fulfilled.

Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence

Princeton University Press | by Elliott Horowitz
Introduction: web or pdf | Google Books

Historical accounts of Jewish violence--particularly against Christians--have long been explosive material. Some historians have distorted these records for anti-Semitic purposes. Others have discounted, dismissed, or simply ignored the evidence, often for apologetic purposes.

In Reckless Rites, Elliott Horowitz takes a new and forthright look at both the history of Jewish violence since late antiquity and the ways in which generations of historians have grappled with that history. In the process, he has written the most wide-ranging book on Jewish violence in any language, and the first to fully acknowledge and address the actual anti-Christian practices that became part of the playful, theatrical violence of the Jewish festival of Purim. He has also examined the different ways in which the book of Esther, upon which the festival is based, was used by Jews and Christians over the centuries--whether as an ancient mirror of modern tribulations or as the scriptural basis for anti-Semitic claims regarding the bloodthirstiness of the Jews. (lees hier verder)

De Morgen: Israëli's op picknick-uitstap naar bombardementen

TV New Zealand reporter Mark Crysell (L) interviews Israeli students Yael Senior (C) and Nofar Kimchi (R) watch the bombardment of Gaza from Horseman's Hill, known locally as Parash Hill, January 13, 2009 near Sderot in southern Israel.

An Israeli Jewish man blows a Shofar , a ram's horn, as smoke rises during the Israeli army operation in Gaza, near Sderot on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009.






Uit de fotogallery van 'Vrienden van Israël' ('René Henoch') op Hyves.

Israeli activists hold Israeli flags and balloons during rally celebrating the anniversary of the war on Gaza, Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009.

Links:
» De Complete Gids voor het Doden van Niet-Joden
» Jonathan Cook: Five Myths That Sanction Israel's War Crimes

Is de Koran een Mein Kampf?

Wereldjournalisten | 2 juli 2010 | P.S. van Koningsveld

Dat de Koran net als Mein Kamp antisemitisch zou zijn, zoals PVV-voorman Wilders suggereert, betwijfelt islamoloog prof. dr. Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld. Lange tijd gold voor Joden juist het 'Pact van Bescherming'. Een pact gebaseerd op de Koran.

Bij de vroegste expansie van de macht van de islam naar buiten het Arabische schiereiland - in de nadagen van Mohammeds optreden als religieus en staatkundig leider - werd een beleid geformuleerd over christelijke en joodse gemeenschappen in het veroverd gebied. Dit beleid vormde de grondslag voor de latere betrekkingen tussen de islamitische overheid enerzijds en haar christelijke en joodse onderdanen anderzijds.
De kern van dit beleid wordt vertolkt door een vers in de Koran IX: 29: ´Bestrijdt, onder hen aan wie het Boek gegeven is, degenen die niet geloven in Allah, noch in de Laatste Dag, die niet verbieden wat Allah en Zijn Boodschapper hebben verboden en die de religie van de Waarheid niet volgen, totdat zij de hoofdelijke belasting betalen uit erkenning van superioriteit en zij in een staat van onderwerping verkeren.´

Pact van Bescherming

Dit vers was voor islamitische juristen het centrale gegeven op basis waarvan zij, door de geschiedenis van de islam heen, de doctrine van het ´Pact van Bescherming´ ontwikkelden, dat tussen de islamitische autoriteiten en de onderworpen christelijke en joodse gemeenschappen werd geacht te bestaan. Het vers - en zijn doorwerking in het islamitische recht - vormde tegelijkertijd het meest kardinale verschil ten opzichte van de juridische positie van joden onder christelijk bestuur, welke namelijk, zoals bekend, op geen enkel vers uit het Nieuwe Testament kon worden gebaseerd. Integendeel. In zijn vergelijkend-historische studie over de positie van joden onder islamitisch en christelijk bestuur, ziet Mark Cohen hierin de belangrijkste oorzaak van de relatief gunstiger lotgevallen van joden in de islamitische ten opzichte van de christelijke wereld. Joden (trouwens ook christenen) werden, daar waar de islamitische Wet heerste, beschermd door een duidelijke bepaling ontleend aan de Koran zelf.

Kalief Umar

Nadere bepalingen die aan het voornoemde richting gaven en onder sommige omstandigheden ook een inbreuk op hun positie konden meebrengen, werden op basis van bronnen buiten de Koran ontwikkeld. Daar waren allereerst de Stipulaties van Umar, een lijst van voorwaarden die de tweede opvolger van Mohammed, Kalief Umar, aan verdragen met onderworpen voor niet-islamitische gemeenschappen zou hebben verbonden. Deze Stipulaties zouden, als uitwerkingen en toevoegingen aan de koranische grondgedachte van de hoofdelijke belasting en het bijbehorende Pact, een belangrijke rol in het islamitisch recht spelen. De Stipulaties omvatten bijvoorbeeld specifieke regels voor kleding van niet-moslims, restricties op het manifesteren van niet-islamitische rituelen en symbolen in de openbare ruimte, evenals op de restauratie en nieuwbouw van kerken en synagogen.



Jemenitische juristen

Daarnaast werd in sommige concrete gevallen teruggegrepen op uitspraken die Mohammed kort voor zijn overlijden zou hebben gedaan (die ook niet in de Koran voorkomen), waarin hij zou hebben gesteld: ‘Op het Arabische Schiereiland mag slechts één godsdienst voortbestaan.’ Hiermee zou hij hebben aangegeven, dat het koranische stelsel van hoofdelijke belasting en Pact alleen buiten het Arabische Schiereiland mocht gelden, hetgeen het bestaansrecht van christelijke en joodse gemeenschappen ter plaatse dreigde aan te tasten. In dit licht is het te begrijpen dat islamitische juristen in Jemen door de eeuwen een discussie hebben gevoerd over de vraag of , in het licht van de aangehaalde aan Mohammed toegeschreven uitspraak, de belangrijke joodse gemeenschap ter plaats niet uit Jemen moest worden verdreven. Een poging daartoe werd in de 17de eeuw zelfs ondernomen, met steun van sommige juristen, terwijl andere godsdienstgeleerden zich hiertegen verzetten.


Opstand of verraad

Een andere mogelijkheid tot aantasting van de bescherming die met het Pact gegeven was, hing samen met de gedachte van onderwerping, die aan het Pact ten grondslag lag. Bij opstand of verraad, bijvoorbeeld door collaboratie met een vijandige macht, kon tot verbreking van het Pact worden geconcludeerd. Onder die omstandigheden, die zich incidenteel hebben voorgedaan, verviel het recht op belijdenis van de niet-islamitische godsdienst, op bescherming van lijf en goederen en restte vlucht of bekering tot de islam. Dit was bijvoorbeeld het geval in de vroege periode van de Almohadenheerschappij in het Iberisch schiereiland en Noord-Afrika, de tijd waarin onder anderen de befaamde joodse godsdienstgeleerde Maimonides uit Al-Andalus via Marokko een veilig heenkomen zocht in Cairo.

Aanvalsoorlog Israël

De strijd tegen Israël funderen islamitische godsdienstgeleerden mede in de Koran. Een van de vroegste verzen die moslims toestond te strijden, luidt als volgt: ‘Bestrijdt voor de zaak van Allah degenen die u bestrijden, maar valt hen niet eerst aan. Allah houdt niet van aanvallers’ (soera 2:190). Dit vers beschouwen de meest gezaghebbende geleerden vandaag de dag als grondslag van de islamitische regel dat aanvalsoorlogen zijn verboden, maar gewapende strijd ter zelfverdediging niet alleen geoorloofd is, maar zelfs verplicht. De oorlog tegen Israël wordt gezien als strijd tegen een agressor en bezetter; deze geldt als collectieve plicht voor alle moslims om tot die aIs die strijd te kwalificeren als antisemitisch? In zijn recente tweedelige werk over de jihad heeft Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, meest gezaghebbende hedendaagse godsdienstgeleerde van de Soennitische islam, deze vraag om 2 redenen verworpen. Ten eerste zijn Arabieren zelf ook semieten en als nakomelingen van Abraham via Ismail zelfs neven van hen als nakomelingen van Jacob. Sterker nog: de Koran beschouwt alle moslims als nakomelingen van Abraham. De tweede reden is dat moslims humanistische wereldburgers zijn krachtens hun religieuze en intellectuele vorming en dus niet zijn gekant tegen welk ras of welke afkomst dan ook. Hun godsdienst leert hen dat de gehele mensheid één grote familie is, die wordt verenigd door aanbidding van God en afstamming van Adam.

Jodendom is geen nationaliteit

Al-Qaradawi wijst er overigens op, dat niet alle joden heden ten dage semieten zijn, ‘zoals zij wel menen’, omdat velen van hen afstammen van volkeren en groepen die ooit tot het jodendom van buitenaf zijn bekeerd, zoals de joden van het koninkrijk van de Khazaren, de joden uit Jemen, Oost-Afrika, Egypte, de Maghrib, hetgeen in de aard der zaak ligt, omdat het jodendom, aldus Qaradawi, ‘geen nationaliteit is maar een godsdienst’. Ik teken aan dat Al-Qaradawi heel dicht staat bij de argumentatie van de Israëlische hoogleraar geschiedenis, Shlomo Sand in zijn recente boek The invention of the Jewish people, waarin een scherpe aanval op de zionistische ideologie en zijn onheilzame uitwerking op het geschiedenisbeeld is gedaan.

De strijd ter bevrijding van Palestina wordt evenmin gevoerd, omdat Israël joods is. Van het respect dat het jodendom als godsdienst van islamitische zijde geniet, is op verschillende plaatsten van de Koran sprake, aldus Al-Qaradawi, de joden staan zelfs dichter bij de islam dan de christenen. De gedachte dat het bij de jihad tegen Israël om een strijd tegen het joodse geloof zou gaan, die men soms zelfs aantreft bij godsdienstgeleerden van de islam, is een zeer ernstig misverstand. De joden behoren tot de Lieden van het Boek, moslims mogen zich met hen verzwageren en hun voedsel met hen delen. Toen de christelijke wereld hen verwierp, vonden ze een veilig toevluchtsoord in het Gebied van de Islam.
Weliswaar hebben de joden zich in de beginperiode van de islam afwijzend en vijandig ten opzichte van de boodschap opgesteld. ‘Er is echter maar één enkele reden voor onze strijd met de joden: dat zij ons land hebben overmeesterd, het land van de islam, het land van Palestina, dat ze onze mensen hebben verjaagd, de oorspronkelijke bewoners van het land, en hun aanwezigheid als binnendringers hebben opgelegd met ijzer, vuur, geweld en bloed.'



Vreedzame coëxistentie

Uit het voorgaande is in voldoende mate naar voren gekomen, dat in de geschiedenis van de islam, inclusief de hedendaagse tijd, in de regel geen sprake was van antisemitisme in directe samenhang met de interpretatie van een of meer passages uit de Koran. Incidentele vervolgingen van joodse minderheden onder islamitisch bestuur hebben plaats gevonden, vooral in perioden van crises. Antisemitisch geschreeuw klinkt geregeld op, ook van Arabische en islamitische zijde, helaas ook wel in Nederland.
Zo presenteert een docent van de Islamitische Universiteit van Europa in een leerboek voor zijn studenten het beruchte antisemitische schotschrift van de ‘Protocollen van de Wijzen van Zion’ als derde hoofdbron voor de kennis van het jodendom, naast het Oude Testament en de Talmud als de eerste 2 bronnen.
Maar het door de Koran gelegde grondpatroon was en is uitdrukkelijk dat van vreedzame coëxistentie. De moderne beredenering binnen de main stream-Islam van de jihad tegen Israël als religieuze plicht, kan niet als antisemitisme worden afgedaan. Het gaat om een authentiek politiek conflict, dat nog steeds niet met de daartoe uitsluitend adequate, dat wil zeggen politieke, middelen is opgelost.

Prof. Dr. P.S. van Koningsveld, emeritus-hoogleraar islamologie

Dit is een deel uit het artikel Koran en Mein Kamp van prof. dr. P.S. van Koningsveld dat verscheen in het tijdschrift Openbaar Bestuur, jrg. 20, nr. 5 (mei 2010), p.2-7

Klik hier voor het (deel)artikel inclusief het notenapparaat.

American Jews Who Reject Zionism Say Events Aid Cause

The New York Times | Samuel G. Freedman | June 25, 2010

"We are Americans by nationality and Jews by religion"

"We don't go to synagogue to pray to a flag," Mr. Naman, 63, recalled having said in a recent telephone interview.

That rabbi acceded to the request. So, after being transferred to North Carolina and joining a temple there six or seven years later, Mr. Naman asked its rabbi to remove the Israeli flag. This time, the reaction was more predictable.

"The rabbi said that would be terrible," recounted Mr. Naman, a retired paper company executive who now lives outside Jacksonville, Fla., "and that he'd be embarrassed to be rabbi of such a congregation."

As shocking as Mr. Naman's insistence on taking Israel out of Judaism may seem, it actually adheres to a consistent strain within Jewish debate. Whether one calls it anti-Zionism or non-Zionism — and all these terms are contested and loaded — the effort to separate the Jewish state from Jewish identity has centuries-old roots.

For the past 68 years, that stance has been the official platform of the group Mr. Naman serves as president of, the American Council for Judaism. And while the establishment of Israel and its centrality to American Jews consigned the council to irrelevancy for decades, the intense criticism of Israel now growing among a number of American Jews has made Mr. Naman's group look significant, or even prophetic.

It is not that members are flocking to the council. The group's mailing list is only in the low thousands, and its Web site received a modest 10,000 unique visitors in the last year. Its budget is a mere $55,000. As Mr. Naman acknowledges, the council's history of opposition to Zionism renders it "radioactive" for even liberal American Jewish groups, like J Street and Peace Now.

Yet the arguments that the council has consistently levied against Zionism and Israel have shot back into prominence over the last decade, with the collapse of the Oslo peace process, Israel's wars in Lebanon and Gaza, and most recently the fatal attack on a flotilla seeking to breach the naval blockade of the Hamas regime. One need not agree with any of the council's positions to admit that, for a certain faction of American Jews, they have come back into style.

"My sense is that they believe that events are proving they were right all along," Jonathan D. Sarna, a historian at Brandeis University and author of the seminal book "American Judaism," said in a telephone interview. "Everything they prophesied — dual loyalty, nationalism being evil — has come to pass."

"I would be surprised if vast numbers of people moved over to the A.C.J. as an organization because of its reputation," he continued. "But it's certainly the case that if the Holocaust underscored the problems of Jewish life in the diaspora, recent years have highlighted the point that Zionism is no panacea."

Mr. Naman grew up in a Texas family deeply involved in the council, and as a result he has lived through the swings of the political pendulum.

"We were ostracized and maligned," he said. "But we felt back then, and we feel now, that our positions are credible. They've been justified and substantiated by what has occurred."

On that matter, to put it mildly, there is disagreement. If American Zionists who oppose the West Bank occupation face withering criticism from the conservative part of American Jewry, which has tended to dominate the major communal and lobbying groups, then the unapologetic foes of Zionism in the council are met with apoplexy and indignation.

The rejection of Zion, though, goes back to the Torah itself, with its accounts of the Hebrews' rebelling against Moses on the journey toward the Promised Land and pleading to return to Egypt. Until Theodore Herzl created the modern Zionist movement early in the 20th century, the biblical injunction to return to Israel was widely understood as a theological construct rather than a pragmatic instruction.

Most Orthodox Jewish leaders before the Holocaust rejected Zionism, saying the exile was a divine punishment and Israel could be restored only in the messianic age. The Reform movement maintained that Judaism is a religion, not a nationality.

"This country is our Palestine," a Reform rabbi in Charleston, S.C., put it in 1841, "this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our temple." The Reform movement's 1885 platform dismissed a "return to Palestine" as a relic akin to animal sacrifice.

Only when the Reform leadership, on the eve of World War II, reversed course did its anti-Zionist faction break away, ultimately forming the council in 1942. Its discourse was simultaneously idealistic and contemptuous — a proposed curriculum in 1952 described Zionism as racist, self-segregated and non-American — and for a time it boasted leaders like Lessing J. Rosenwald, heir to the Sears fortune, and a membership of 14,000.

If the 1967 and 1973 wars shoved the council toward obsolescence, then Israel's controversial wars since 2000 have brought it back from the grave. One hears echoes of its positions in Tony Judt, the historian who has called for a binational state in Palestine; in Tony Kushner, whose screenplay for the film "Munich" portrayed an Israeli's true home as America; in Michael Chabon, whose novel "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" parodied Zionism; and in the emerging disengagement from Israel on the part of young, non-Orthodox Jews, as Peter Beinart noted recently in an essay in The New York Review of Books.

What is numerically true, thus not open to debate, is that only a tiny proportion of American Jews have ever rejected exile here to emigrate to Israel.

"I think we represent a silent majority," said Allan C. Brownfeld, a longtime member of the council and editor of its magazines, Issues and Special Interest Report. "We are Americans by nationality and Jews by religion. And while we wish Israel well, we don't view it as our homeland."

E-mail: sgf1@columbia.edu

De Complete Gids voor het Doden van Niet-Joden

November 18, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- It is rather impossible to grasp the magnitude of the crimes against humanity performed by the Jewish state in the name of the Jewish people unless one elaborates on Jewish culture in the light of Judaic teaching.

Zionism was founded as a secular movement. It was there to provide the emancipated Diaspora Jew with a ‘national home land’ of his or her own. However, Zionism was rather effective in transforming the Old Testament from a spiritual text into a land registry. As the truth of Israeli barbarism is unfolding a devastating continuum is being established between Israeli murderous policies and Judaic Goy hating.

It would be fair to argue that Judaic teaching is not monolithic. As we know, one of the only Jewish collectives that stands along the Palestinians call themselves the Torah Jews (Neturei Karta), a Jewish orthodox sect. In other words, the Torah must have a humanist side to it.

The following is a review of Torat ha-Melekh, a “kind of guide for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew”. It was published by Ma’ariv Israel's second biggest paper. It is a must read. I would assume that those American and British corrupted politicians who are happy to take donations from Israeli Tycoons and other ‘Friends of Israel’ better start to understand once and for all what kind of Ideology they are aligning themselves with.

Here is a full translation of an article in the Maariv newspaper of Israel.