Israel: Only Nation that Systematically Arrests, Abuses, Tortures, Rapes, Kills Children

By Mohamed Khodr

(Please do take the time to read this article and view the important Videos and photos included, With our own umanity and future at stake, Ignorance is no longer an option. Thank you)
 
Part of Jewish Morning Prayers:

“Blessed are You, Eternal our God, who has NOT made me a Gentile”

“IN NO OTHER COUNTRY (but Israel) are children systematically tried by juvenile military courts that, by definition, fall short of providing the necessary guarantees to ensure respect for their rights. All children prosecuted for offences they allegedly committed should be treated in accordance with international juvenile justice standards, which provide them with special protection”.

–UNICEF Report, “Children in Israeli Military Detention”, February 2013

“And then I watched the soldiers open fire. And it was I mean, I’ve seen kids shot in Sarajevo. I mean, snipers would shoot kids in Sarajevo. I’ve seen death squads kill families in Algeria or El Salvador. But I’d never seen soldiers (Israeli) bait or taunt (Palestinian) kids like this and then shoot them for sport.”

–Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize Journalist, in; “A Gaza Diary: Scenes from a Palestinian Uprising,” Harper’s magazine (October 2001).

In Israel killing Palestinian, especially Palestinian children, is not only a Talmudic Rabbinical driven duty but it also serves as a sport to relieve boredom and enhance career opportunities. The 3.4 Million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem are simply daily fodder for target practice, testing of new chemical and biological weapons, and as a menace that must be driven out or exterminated from Israel’s property. These human beings simply live as slave labor for Jews or targets for sniper practice.

An IDF soldier in the Occupied Palestinian Territories places the cross-hairs of his rifle on the head of a Palestinian child showcasing the thrill of killing a Palestinian Child on his Instagram account reflecting a political and military culture that condones the killing of innocent Palestinian Children.

Israel is an artificially and illegally created country born out of extreme terrorism, violence, ethnic cleansing, a mass all out destruction of hundreds of historical Palestinian villages, murder, and rape of women and children, unlike every other nation does NOT HAVE.

1. A Constitution.

2. No Geo-Politically defined borders.

3. No internationally recognized capitol.

BUT, in fact it does have a Constitution. It’s called the Babylonian Talmud.

The Babylonian Talmud is not a divinely revealed text but a collection of over 6 Million words of written Rabbinical interpretation of the written law, the Torah, and their own religious edicts (FATWAS) that has by far surpassed the Torah as Judaism’s holiest scripture.

The Babylonian Talmud codifies and indoctrinates the belief that Jews are the sole supremacist and superior race whose very DNA is divine, from God himself, that they are entitled as such to rule and own the world, that all Gentiles exist to only serve the Jews, that Gentiles are animals, impure, flighty, and their sperm begets genetically defective beasts, and just as shocking the Talmud says that a Rabbi debated God and won, if a Jew defies a Rabbi he should be killed, that killing, robbing, cheating, and lying to a Gentile is acceptable, that Rabbis whoring with prostitutes is acceptable, that Rabbis commit pedophilia with girls as young as 3 years and a day or with boys is acceptable, that the Gentile world’s money belongs to the Jews, that Gentile children are subhuman, while declaring that they did kill Jesus whom they describe in the most blasphemous filthy terms, and do the same with the Blessed Virgin Mary, peace be upon them both.

Please Watch this good overview of Judaic history, the Torah, and the racist, bigoted, sexually perverse, and genocidal Babylonian Talmud.

Under “Gentiles” the Jewish Encyclopedia sums up the Pharisee Talmudist
attitude: “The Pharisees held that only Israelites are men . Gentiles
classed not as men but as barbarians.“

You can search this SITE, this SITE, and this SITE, for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

But one does not need to go to the Talmud to find such evil racist genocidal teachings, for here are some examples from Israel today.

“Gentile souls are of a completely different and inferior order. They are totally evil, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.” …If every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA is a part of God”.

—Chabad Lubavitch Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh quoting the founder of the Chabad movement Shneur Zalman of Liadi – Jewish Week – April 26, 1996

“Rabbi calls for annihilation of Arabs”;BBC, April 10, 2001

“It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable….The Lord shall return the Arabs’ deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world”.

“Israeli minister vows Palestinian ‘HOLOCAUST”, UK Telegraph, Feb. 29, 2008

“A senior Israeli politician provoked controversy today when he warned that Palestinians firing rockets from Gaza would be punished with a “bigger holocaust” from Israeli armed forces.

Israel’s Orthodox Rabbis: “Palestinians to the Ovens!

–Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam, January 15, 2011 (Nazi slogan: “Jews to the Ovens”)

“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail”.

–Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 [N.Y. Times,

'Gentile sperm leads to barbaric offspring'”; Ynet, Jan. 12, 2011

“According to Rabbi Dov Lior, (senior authority on Jewish Law), a baby born through such an insemination (from Gentile sperm) will have the "negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews."

“IDF apologizes for book claiming non-Jews do not have equal rights in Israel”; (Haaretz, June 6, 2013)

“IDF rabbinate book deals with questions of keeping Jewish law in the army, discusses regulations for affixing mezuzahs on IDF bases; book says concept of equal rights 'goes against the opinion of the Torah”'

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly NO ONE has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial"
---Ariel Sharon; BBC, March 25, 2001

Only pure evil of mind and heart, evil of belief, of ideology, evil of racist supremacy above all gentiles, a believing evil that Jews are above all divine and human laws, above any accountability for evil crimes against humanity, can explain the barbaric, illegal, inhumane, and deliberate murderous policies of the rogue nation of Israel, especially its shocking treatment of Palestinian children under their total control in the Occupied Palestinian territories.

Do you want to see the horror Palestinian children go through when their parents, father or mother, are dragged away by IDF soldiers to an unknown destiny or fate?

It all begins with the Talmud, an open injunction to kill Gentiles, all Gentiles. If instead of Palestinians Israel occupied Americans, Europeans, Latinos, Africans, Asians, Australians, Japanese, New Zealanders, or Canadian, Israel would unleash the same barbaric behavior upon them and their children. All that matters to Talmudic run Israel is one is a Gentile.

Talmudic Genocidal Teaching against Gentiles with full impunity:

Sanhedrin 58b
“If a goy killed a goy or a Jew he is responsible, but if a Jew killed a goy he is not responsible”.

Choshen Ha'mishpat 425:50
“Everyone who sheds the blood of the impious [non-Jews] is as acceptable to God as he who offers a sacrifice to God.”

No where in the world does there exist a systematic widespread and deliberate policy of arresting, imprisoning, torturing, or killing children with total impunity and that violates every International treaty that Israel is a signatory to than in the only democracy in the Middle East – Israel.

On the very day the world celebrated World Refugee Day, June 20; the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a blistering damning report against Israel’s ill humane arrest, imprisonment, torture, deprivation of food, water, and health care of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian territories.

It also slammed Israel for the illegal use of Palestinian children as human shields.

The UNCRC report states that:

“Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, are routinely denied registration of their birth and access to health care, decent schools and clean water”.

“Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to be released”.

Please do watch the Video below made by UK ITV on Israel’s ill treatment of Palestinian Children won the Amnesty International Award in 2007.

This is another Video made by Aljazeera English that documents the horrific physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and torture of Palestinian Childre at the hands of the “most moral army”, the IDF

“Hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed and thousands injured over the reporting period (last 10 years) as a result of the state party military operations, especially in Gaza where the state party proceeded to (conduct) air and naval strikes on densely populated areas with a significant presence of children, thus disregarding the principles of proportionality and distinction”.

“Almost all those using children as human shields and informants have remained unpunished and the soldiers convicted for having forced at gunpoint a nine-year-old child to search bags suspected of containing explosives only received a suspended sentence of three months and were demoted”.

A Palestinian teen, 13, handcuffed and strapped to IDF Jeep as a “Human Shield”. Despite decades of evidence and documentation of this practice by the IDF, Israel continues to lie and deny it.

 

 

An article in Haaretz dated October 11, 2005, states that Israel’s Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is appealing to Israel’s High Court to revere its ban on use of “Human Shields”.Despite the Ban human rights groups says the IDF continues to use the practice in direct violation of International Law.

“IDF to ask High Court to review ban on ‘human shield’ practice” (Haaretz, Oct. 11, 2005)

“Defense Minister Mofaz says will present High Court justices with arguments in favor of practice in West Bank”.

Such reports have been issued for many years by United Nations agencies such as the Human Rights Council, UNRWA, UNICEF, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,, Defense for Child International, the International Red Cross, Israeli Human Rights Groups such as B’tselem, Gush Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Breaking the Silence (former IDF soldiers testifying to barbaric policies in the O.T. including cold blooded murder), as well as Palestinian and European Human Rights Organizations; but all to no avail.

Israel is protected by the U.S. and the Babylonian Talmud as it continues its genocide of Palestinians under its military occupation.

The Talmud explains why Israel is allowing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to go on hunger strike while totally ignoring their plight and threat of dying.

“If one bound his neighbor and he died of starvation, he is not liable to execution”.
—Tractate Sanhedrin: Folio 77a

In the Occupied Territories only Military laws and rules apply which gives individual commanders and soldiers wide latitude to commit any crime they deem “necessary” without fear of any accountability. Such protection also applies to the rabid violent Settlers who on a daily basis beat, burn, bomb, kill, and beat Palestinians regardless of age.

UNICEF REPORT: “Children in Israeli Military Detention”, February 2013

“The ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing.

An IDF soldier arresting a young terrorized Palestinian girl for no

other reason than he can and knows no matter what he does to

her he has total immunity. Little girl, the world is too scared to

hear you.

Palestinian children aged 12 to 17, the great majority of them boys, are arrested, interrogated and detained by Israeli army, police and security agents.31 In the past 10 years, an estimated 7,000 children have been detained, interrogated, prosecuted and/or imprisoned within the Israeli military justice system – an average of two children each day.

The pattern of ill-treatment includes the arrests of children at their homes between midnight and 5:00 am by heavily armed soldiers; the practice of blindfolding children and tying their hands with plastic ties; physical and verbal abuse during transfer to an interrogation site, including the use of painful restraints; lack of access to water, food, toilet facilities and medical care; interrogation using physical violence and threats; coerced confessions; and lack of access to lawyers or family members during interrogation.

These practices are in violation of international law that protects all children against ill-treatment when in contact with law enforcement, military and judicial institutions”.

It takes a powerful national army to arrest a Palestinian boy

who is scared to death wondering if he’ll ever see his mother,

father, brothers, sisters, or classmates again, or is he destined

to live and die in an Israeli prison being abused and tortured.

British Report: “Children in Military Custody”; June 2012

The report of a delegation of British lawyers who visited Israel and the Occupied Territories supports the same findings as the two previous reports on the illegal arrest, detention, torture of Palestinian children without charge or access to a lawyer or family members.

However one of its conclusions is frank admission of a Military Prosecutor; such an evil view of innocent Palestinian children and the need to kill them has been advanced in Israel for decades.
They state:

“It may be that much of the reluctance to treat Palestinian children in conformity with international norms stems from a belief, which was advanced to us by a military prosecutor, that every Palestinian child is a “potential terrorist”. Such a stance seems to us to be the starting point of a spiral of injustice, and one which only Israel, as the Occupying Power in the West Bank, can reverse”.

One less potential future Palestinian “terrorist” to worry about. If we can’t kick them out we’ll kill them all gradually so that the world ignores the “holocaust” This is Israel’s version of Population Control.

 Israel uses the military policy of “Administrative Detention” which allows the occupying military in the Palestinian territories to arrest anyone, anyone, for any reason they wish and jail them from 1 – 6 months without charge or court appearance with the ability to renew it indefinitely.

Here are a few examples of crimes that fall under the military jurisdiction in the Occupied Territories.

Military Order 378 serves as the basis of the procedural and criminal codes in force in the military courts, including for the following offenses.

• Destruction of Israeli Army property, which carries a maximum sentence of life. (But demolishing tens of thousands of Palestinian homes is OK)

• Insulting a soldier or attacking his honor and status as a soldier, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

• Throwing a stone at a moving car with a view to damaging it or harming its passengers, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Throwing a stone is the most widespread offense leading to prison. In 2009, according to D.C.I., 117 out of 192, or 61 per cent, were due to stone throwing. (DCI: Defense Children International)

Killing Palestinian children is a way for Israel to contain the “demographic” threat of a rapidly growing Palestinian population.

Like all things to do with Israel, nothing will happen, nothing will change, and certainly nothing will stop this thirsty vengeful blood thirsty country for seeking to unleash its revenge politically, economically, or militarily against the entire Gentile world for what it believes is thousands of years of Gentile abuse and persecution against them.

Despite Israel’s most powerful and fourth largest army in the world they are the most cowardly, afraid of every Palestinian child they see, afraid of every boy and girl with the ultimate courage to throw a stone against the world’s largest tanks, yes, stones that will ultimately bring this evil nation to its knees, a nation that depends on the latest technological weapons and satellites to fight from afar because they fear for their cowardly lives to face men, women, boys, and girls in the streets of Gaza, Beirut, or Tehran.

God will always give victory to the oppressed against the oppressor and like every evil nation or empire Israel will crumble at the feet of Palestinian children.

Fared Odeh, 14, possesses a world of courage and conviction that

he must fight the illegal occupation that stole his homeland, his life,

his family’s life, and the lives of millions of Palestinians. Tragically he

was shot and killed by these cowardly soldiers who despite their tank

feared a stone.

A Palestinian teen, Faris Odeh, 14, has the courage, conviction, and strong will to stand up to the brutal occupying military of his homeland without fear of heavily armed soldiers facing him down with an enormously large and terrifying tank. Before the cowardly soldiers shot him dead he did throw the stone of freedom for his homeland and people.

Israel fears these children more than it fears any nation. There are millions of these most courageous of children and tens of millions of stones that will sooner or later bring this evil arrogant empire to its knees.
You are in heaven Faris, a brave martyr, while these cowardly soldiers will fry in hell as is the destiny of all who oppress and kill God’s creations.



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Israel’s new political face on Palestinian refugees: ‘we have been waiting… for more and more of them to die’

An announcement for Adi Koll's J Street event in Philadelphia. (Image: J Street)

On Tuesday, June 25th Israeli Knesset member Adi Koll spoke at the Jewish Community Services Building at an event hosted by the Philadelphia chapter of J Street. Koll is a member of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party and perhaps best known for a recent Facebook post where she wrote, “There is nothing normal about life in Ramallah, and there is nothing normal about us letting this happen," following a trip to the occupied territories.

Logic and prior experience could have suggested that there is very little new or unexpected to be gained from going to such an event. But finally having the luxury of time in the summer, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to hear from the MK who stirred up controversy over Facebook, and I’m glad I didn’t.

The newly-elected MK Koll started by telling us to lean in closer because the members of her party Yesh Atid “have a spark in the eye.” She proceeded to give the audience a short history of her new party and imparted some juicy gossip about the founder, Yair Lapid, and his daily beauty regimen. She talked about her involvement in the social “justice” movements sweeping Israel, concerned with everything from education to the cost of apartments in Tel Aviv, but strangely never their neighbors, the Palestinian people, living under Israel’s system of apartheid. She did reiterate that Israelis now just “ignore the Palestinian issue,” even as she claimed that 80% of them support the two-state solution.

As she finally moved to what we had all had come to hear her talk about, I could not help but begin to wonder what exactly that "spark" she mentioned actually was. As she described her recent trip to Ramallah, she told us that the Palestinians she saw in refugee camps around Ramallah do not want to go back to their homes. They would just be happy with a new apartment, she claimed, an escape from the desolation that she was so struck by.

In regards to the right of return-- which she apparently thinks her Ph.D. in law from Columbia University gives her a right to adjudicate on behalf of the Palestinians to whom it is owed-- she had this to say about the fact that Palestinian refugees in Ramallah now have children and grandchildren: “This is what we have been waiting for, for more and more of them to die.” My jaw almost hit the ground as I furiously recorded this statement in my notebook. I know that Israelis do not now even make an attempt to hide this kind of thinking, revealing Israel’s real intention to rid Palestine/Israel of Palestinians. I was not, however, expecting to hear something like this from someone who claims to be on the Left, even as distorted and farcical of a label we know that is in Israel. Looking around, it appeared that no one else was even perturbed by this statement.

In response to my question/comment (as an increasingly frequent moderator of Q & A sessions myself, I will admit that I skirted that edge) of how exactly this whole negotiation thing is supposed to work, given the fact that the Palestinian Authority is Israel’s puppet and Palestinians view it as an institution of their oppression, she didn’t have much to say.

I brought up the Nelson Mandela quote that you can probably find in many places along Israel’s Apartheid Wall: “Only free men can negotiate.” To that she responded with a rhetorical question of whether any of us are really free. She asked why the Palestinians don’t have something like Yesh Atid, why they aren’t doing anything to change their system. And this is where I had to detach myself.

For me, the event was yet another confirmation that a just peace will not come from inside Israel. The small minority of Jewish Israelis who stand in true solidarity with the Palestinian people will be crucial allies in helping this change come about, to be sure. But it will not come from inside Israel, no matter how many testimonies Breaking the Silence can collect. Koll is supposedly touring the U.S. as a representative of a new generation of Israeli leaders focused on the two-state solution, but Koll's own comments make clear that there is no room in the Israeli political class for acknowledging and honoring Palestinian human rights. In addition, listening to Koll talk it is clear that Israel will continue to have zero accountability for anything that they do to Palestinians, even from the majority of the Israeli left. That’s the reality. That’s why Palestinian society is calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel. That’s why we need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians on BDS.

Before I went to Palestine/Israel with 33 other Americans with Interfaith Peace-Builders a few weeks ago, I would have been intimidated in that audience and probably would have lost my nerve to ask my question in the first place and call her out, rather than to raise my hand and keep it raised as soon as she finished her talk. I would have assumed that this would be a hostile audience and that I wouldn’t be prepared or able to back myself up. I would have left somehow feeling-- however irrationally-- single-handedly responsible for my fellow audience members leaving with their opinions and views on this unchanged. But that night, I left feeling pretty secure in knowing that the world is awakening to the fact that Palestinians are doing what they need to be doing by living, by existing and by asking the world to join them in solidarity in boycotting, divesting and sanctioning Israel.

Palestinians have been doing this for a pretty long time, too. And the world is finally beginning to listen. After the Israeli consulate official whisked MK Koll away, I stayed to give a young man working with a program that takes college students to the South to learn about Jewish solidarity with the Civil Rights movement info on how he could look up what the Dorothy Cotton Institute is doing.  He asked about black solidarity with Palestinians.

In the middle of that, a J Streeter came up to me to ask for my email address to meet up when I’m in Ramallah in the fall and he on a visit to Israel. He said he didn’t want to take a J Street tour of the South Hebron Hills but rather to meet and hear from Palestinians (He certainly shouldn’t have to visit me to do this, but it’s better than not meeting any Palestinians at all, I suppose.). If this was my experience at a random J Street event, allies in the struggle for justice and peace for Palestinians might be in the making all around us, in pretty unexpected places.

About Clarissa O'Conor

Clarissa O'Conor grew up in Lititz, Pennsylvania. She is now an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, where she focuses on Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies and Modern Middle East Studies and recently started working as a birth and abortion doula. She will be traveling in Palestine/Israel in the fall, where she hopes to continue working in solidarity with Palestinians.

View all posts by Clarissa O'Conor →

 

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“We Destroyed Arab Villages To Create Our State”, Retired General Said

The proud ethnic cleansing demon Yitzhak Pondak

by Saed Bannoura

A retired Israeli military general told the Israeli Army Radio on his 100 birthday that the Israeli army destroyed and depopulated hundreds of Arab villages in order to establishment the state of Israel in 1948, and added that “he feels good about it.”

“I can sleep with clear mind”, Yitzhak Pondak, told the Israeli Army Radio [Galei Tzahal] last week, “otherwise the number of Arabs in Israel would have been a million more than their number now”.

Pondak headed Platoon #53 of the Givati Brigade, and served as Israel’s ambassador in Tanzania.

“Under my command, soldiers destroyed Arab villages”, he said, “We did what we needed to do, otherwise the number of Arabs now would have been a million more”. 

Responding to a question regarding lectures he gives to Israeli soldiers, Pondak said that “the Israel is still facing the same dangers it faced when it was created in 1948”, and added “Should the Jews fail to fight the same way they fought back then, our state will be in real danger”.

He also claimed that should a war break out now, “the Jews will be able to sacrifice the same way they did in 1948”, according to the retired general.

“Wars unite the ranks of the Jewish people”, he added, “after wars, Jews form parties and become divided”.

He also said that he is sorry for the death of 145 Israeli soldiers under his command throughout his years of service, and added that “should those soldiers miraculously come back to life now, and witness the current divisions in the Israeli Jewish society, they would run back to their graves”.

Pondak also served as the Israeli Military Commander of the Gaza Strip in the early seventies of last century. He said that the credit former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, got for “stopping Arab terrorism in 1971 is overrated”.

“Sharon was harsh without a reason”, he said, “Sharon once told senior military generals that he will give a bottle of Champaign to every soldier who kills an enemy fighter, and will give a soda to every soldier who captures a wounded enemy”.


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Zionism is not Judaism? Take it from the Rabbi's mouth

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon


Every so often we come across a secular Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist’  who argues that Zionism is not Judaism and vice versa. Interestingly enough, I have just come across an invaluable text that illuminates this question from a rabbinical perspective. Apparently back in 1942, 757 American Rabbis added their names to a public pronouncement titled ‘Zionism an Affirmation of Judaism’. This Rabbinical rally for Zionism was declared at the time “the largest public pronouncement in all Jewish history.”

Today, we tend to believe that world Jewry’s transition towards support for Israel followed the 1967 war though some might  argue that already in 1948, American Jews manifested a growing support for Zionism. However, this rabbinical pronouncement proves that as early as 1942, the American Jewish religious establishment was already deeply Zionist. And if this is not enough, the rabbis also regarded Zionism as the ‘implementation’ of Judaism. Seemingly, already then, the peak of World War two, the overwhelming majority of American Rabbis regarded Zionism, not only as fully consistent with Judaism, but as a “logical expression and implementation of it.”

In spite of the fact that early Zionist leaders were largely secular and the East European Jewish settler waves were driven by Jewish socialist ideology, the rabbis contend that “Zionism is not a secularist movement. It has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism.

Those rabbis were not a bunch of ignoramuses. They were patriotic and nationalistic and they grasped that “universalism is not a contradiction of nationalism.” The rabbis tried to differentiate between contemporaneous German Nationalism and other national movements and they definitely wanted to believe that Zionism was categorically different to Nazism. “Nationalism as such, whether it be English, French, American or Jewish, is not in itself evil. It is only militaristic and chauvinistic nationalism, that nationalism which shamelessly flouts all mandates of international morality, which is evil.” But as we know, just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz the new Jewish State launched a devastating racially driven ethnic-cleansing campaign. Zionism has proven to be militaristic and chauvinistic.

Shockingly enough, back in 1942 as many as 757 American rabbis were able to predict the outcome of the war and they realised that the suffering of European Jewry would be translated into a Jewish State . “We are not so bold as to predict the nature of the international order which will emerge from the present war. It is altogether likely, and indeed it may be desirable, that all sovereign states shall under the coming peace surrender some of their sovereignty to achieve a just and peaceful world society (a Jewish State).”

Some American patriots today are concerned with Israeli-American dual nationality and the dual aspirations of American Jews. Apparently our rabbis addressed this topic too. According to them, there is no such conflict whatsoever. All American Jews are American patriots and all American decision makers are Zionists. “Every fair-minded American knows that American Jews have only one political allegiance--and that is to America. There is nothing in Zionism to impair this loyalty.

Zionism has been endorsed in our generation by every President from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and has been approved by the Congress of the United States. The noblest spirits in American life, statesmen, scholars, writers, ministers and leaders of labor and industry, have lent their sympathy and encouragement to the movement.”

Back in 1942 our American rabbis were bold enough to state that defeating Hitler was far from sufficient. For them, a full solution of the Jewish question could only take place in Palestine. “Jews, and all non-Jews who are sympathetically interested in the plight of Jewry, should bear in mind that the defeat of Hitler will not of itself normalize Jewish life in Europe. “

But there was one thing the American rabbis failed to mention – the Palestinian people. For some reason, those rabbis who knew much about ‘universalism’ and in particular Jewish ‘universalism’ showed very little concern to the people of the land. I guess that after all, chosennss is a form of blindness and rabbis probably know more about this than anyone else.

Zionism: An Affirmation of Judaism

http://zionistsout.blogspot.com/2008/03/zionism-affirmation-of-judaism.html

ZIONISM
AN AFFIRMATION
OF JUDAISM

A Reply by 757 Orthodox, Conservative and Reform
Rabbis of America to a Statement Issued by Ninety
Members of the Reform Rabbinate Charging That
Zionism Is Incompatible with the Teachings of Judaism

THE SUBJOINED REPLY was prepared at the initiative of the following Rabbis who submitted it to their colleagues throughout the country for signature: Philip S. Bernstein, Barnett R. Brickner, Israel Goldstein, James G. Heller, Mordecai M. Kaplan, B. L. Levinthal, Israel H. Levinthal, Louis M. Levitsky, Joshua Loth Liebman, Joseph H. Lookstein, Jacob R. Marcus, Abraham A. Neuman, Louis I. Newman, David de Sola Pool, Abba Hillel Silver, Milton Steinberg, and Stephen S. Wise.

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED RABBIS of all elements in American Jewish religious life, have noted with concern a statement by ninety of our colleagues in which they repudiate Zionism on the ground that it is inconsistent with Jewish religious and moral doctrine. This statement misrepresents Zionism and misinterprets historic Jewish religious teaching, and we should be derelict in our duty if we did not correct the misapprehensions which it is likely to foster. 

We call attention in the first place to the fact that the signatories to this statement, for whom as fellow-Rabbis we have a high regard, represent no more than a very small fraction of the American rabbinate. They constitute a minority even of the rabbinate of Reform Judaism with which they are associated. The overwhelming majority of American Rabbis regard Zionism not only as fully consistent with Judaism but as a logical expression and implementation of it. 

Our colleagues concede the need for Jewish immigration into Palestine as contributing towards a solution of the vast tragedy of Jewish homelessness. They profess themselves ready to encourage such settlement. They are aware of the important achievements, social and spiritual, of the Palestinian Jewish community and they pledge to it their unstinted support. And yet, subscribing to every practical accomplishment of Zionism, they have embarked upon a public criticism of it. In explanation of their opposition they advance the consideration that Zionism is nationalistic and secularistic. On both scores they maintain it is incompatible with the Jewish religion and its universalistic outlook. They protest against the political emphasis which, they say, is now paramount in the Zionist program and which, according to them, tends to confuse both Jews and Christians as to the place and function of the Jewish group in American society. They appeal to the prophets of ancient Israel for substantiation of their views.

TREASURING the doctrines and moral principles of our faith no less than they, devoted equally to America and its democratic processes and spirit, we nonetheless find every one of their contentions totally without foundation. 

Zionism is not a secularist movement. It has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism. Scripture and rabbinical literature alike are replete with the promise of the restoration of Israel to its ancestral home. Anti-Zionism, not Zionism, is a departure from the Jewish religion. Nothing in the entire pronouncement of our colleagues is more painful than their appeal to the prophets of Israel—to those very prophets whose inspired and recorded words of national rebirth and restoration nurtured and sustained the hope of Israel throughout the ages.

Nor is Zionism a denial of the universalistic teachings of Judaism. Universalism is not a contradiction of nationalism. Nationalism as such, whether it be English, French, American or Jewish, is not in itself evil. It is only militaristic and chauvinistic nationalism, that nationalism which shamelessly flouts all mandates of international morality, which is evil. The prophets of Israel looked forward to the time not when all national entities would be obliterated, but when all nations would walk in the light of the Lord, live by His law and learn war no more.

Our colleagues find themselves unable to subscribe to the political emphasis "now paramount in the Zionist program." We fail to perceive what it is to which they object. Is it to the fact that there are a regularly constituted Zionist organization and a Jewish Agency which deal with the mandatory government, the Colonial office, the League of Nations and other recognized political bodies? But obviously, even immigration and colonization are practical matters which require political action. The settlement of a half million Jews in Palestine since the last war was made possible by political action which culminated in the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate. There can be little hope of opening the doors of Palestine for mass Jewish immigration after the war without effective political action. Or is it that they object to the ultimate achievement by the Jewish community of Palestine of some form of Jewish statehood? We are not so bold as to predict the nature of the international order which will emerge from the present war. It is altogether likely, and indeed it may be desirable, that all sovereign states shall under the coming peace surrender some of their sovereignty to achieve a just and peaceful world society. 

Certainly our colleagues will allow to the Jews of Palestine the same rights that are allowed to all other peoples resident on their own land. If Jews should ultimately come to constitute a majority of the population of Palestine, would our colleagues suggest that all other peoples in the post-war world shall be entitled to political self-determination, whatever form that may take, but the Jewish people in Palestine shall not have such a right? Or do they mean to suggest that the Jews in Palestine shall forever remain a minority in order not to achieve such political self-determination? 

PROTESTING their sympathy both for the homeless Jews of the world and for their brethren in Palestine, our colleagues have by their pronouncement done all these a grave disservice. It may well be that to the degree to which their efforts arc at all effective, Jews who might otherwise have found a haven in Palestine will be denied one. The enemies of the Jewish homeland will be strengthened in their propaganda as a result of the aid which these Rabbis have given them. To the Jews of Palestine, facing the gravest danger in their history and fighting hard to maintain morale and hope in the teeth of the totalitarian menace, this pronouncement comes as a cruel blow.

We do not mean to imply that our colleagues intended it as such. We have no doubt that they are earnest about their fine spun theoretical objections to Zionism. We hold, however, that these objections have no merit, and further that voicing them at this time has been unwise and unkind. 

We have not the least fear that our fellow Americans will be led to misconstrue the attitudes of American Jews to America because of their interest in Zionism. Every fair-minded American knows that American Jews have only one political allegiance--and that is to America. There is nothing in Zionism to impair this loyalty. Zionism has been endorsed in our generation by every President from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and has been approved by the Congress of the United States. The noblest spirits in American life, statesmen, scholars, writers, ministers and leaders of labor and industry, have lent their sympathy and encouragement to the movement. 

Jews, and all non-Jews who are sympathetically interested in the plight of Jewry, should bear in mind that the defeat of Hitler will not of itself normalize Jewish life in Europe.

An Allied peace which will not frankly face the problem of the national homelessness of the Jewish people will leave the age-old tragic status of European Jewry unchanged. The Jewish people is in danger of emerging from this war not only more torn and broken than any other people, but also without any prospects of a better and more secure future and without the hope that such tragedies will not recur again, and again. Following an Allied victory, the Jews of Europe, we are confident, will be restored to their political rights and to equality of citizenship. But they possessed these rights after the last war and yet the past twenty-five years have witnessed a rapid and appalling deterioration in their position. In any case, even after peace is restored Europe will be so ravaged and war-torn that large masses of Jews will elect migration to Palestine as a solution of their personal problems.

 Indeed, for most of these there may be no other substantial hope of economic, social and spiritual rehabilitation.

THE freedom which, we have faith, will come to all men and nations after this war, must come not only to Jews as individuals wherever they live, permitting them to share freedom on a plane of equality with all other men, but also to the Jewish people, as such, restored in its homeland, where at long last it will be a free people within a world federation of free peoples.
  Of the 757 Rabbis listed below, 214 are members of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform); 247 are members of the Rabbinical Assembly of America (Conservative); and the rest are affiliated with the Rabbinical Council of America (Orthodox) or the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. The total represents the largest number of rabbis whose signatures are attached to a public pronouncement in all Jewish history.

To see the scanned image in PDF format with the list of signers, click here
  Note: A version of the above statement was released to the press on November 20, 1942. By that time 818 rabbis had signed on. It appears in Samuel Halperin's The Political World of American Zionism. (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1961) 333.

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