Major General (ret.) Elazar Stern served as head of the IDF’s Human Resources Branch, Chief Education Officer and the commander of the Officer’s Academy is a product of the mainstream Religious-Zionist movement. In an op-ed placed alongside news reporting on the latest chapter of the settler-soldier rebellion in the West Bank, he makes an impassioned call to settler-soldiers to cease and desist from sedition. He minces no words in directly attacking the settler and religious leadership for its silence and in some cases support for the phenomenon.

This public will not lend a hand to turning the IDF into an army of Phalangists in which each soldier obeys only his local leader. They won’t permit a fulminating handful of people to drag them and us to that abyss.

The more important reason for why we need to respond to this provocation is that, regrettably, it enjoys a support system. Regrettably, someone who is already past the age of 18 perceives this action to be a form of Zionism, Judaism and a way of protecting the integrity of the Land of Israel.

[...]

But more disturbing for me is the resounding silence of a preponderance of the religious public’s leaders. Perhaps they are not aware of the gravity of the implications of these precedent-setting actions, not only for democracy in Israel but, first and foremost, for their own community.

Note — Stern’s op-ed is part of a two-page spread on the rebellion. Facing it is an analysis piece by Yediot’s senior military analyst, Alex Fishman, who angrily asserts that “with our own [Israeli] two hands, are providing the rope that will be used as a noose for the [Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic] negotiations.”

See below for the full text of Stern’s op-ed.

We must not turn into the Phalangists

Op-ed, Elazar Stern, Yediot, November 17 2009 [page 6]

The author is a major general in reserves and served in the past as the director of the IDF’s Human Resources Branch, chief education officer and the commander of the Officer’s Academy

There are many religious soldiers in the army. The absolute majority of them regard actions as these as an extremist phenomenon that threatens them as well. They are the ones who pay the price for it because they are perceived as potentially insubordinate soldiers. And they have already proven in difficult tests that that is not the case. The absolute majority among them has shown a mature and profound understanding of the army’s duties in a democratic society. Just as they did not disobey orders during disengagement, I am confident that they will not disobey orders in the future as well. This public will not lend a hand to turning the IDF into an army of Phalangists in which each soldier obeys only his local leader. They won’t permit a fulminating handful of people to drag them and us to that abyss.

The more important reason for why we need to respond to this provocation is that, regrettably, it enjoys a support system. Regrettably, someone who is already past the age of 18 perceives this action to be a form of Zionism, Judaism and a way of protecting the integrity of the Land of Israel. He is so confident in the justness of his position that he is not ashamed to give financial rewards to future insubordinate soldiers. Only a disgraceful educational and religious failure could prompt a person bearing the title of rabbi to seduce and to remunerate his flock with money. I hope that the law enforcement authorities have been looking into the question of whether the people who pay soldiers to break the law aren’t breaking it themselves.

But more disturbing for me is the resounding silence of a preponderance of the religious public’s leaders. Perhaps they are not aware of the gravity of the implications of these precedent-setting actions, not only for democracy in Israel but, first and foremost, for their own community.

The very fact that kippa-wearers are responsible for these phenomena has contributed to having the army closed to Judaism. These phenomena prompted, and justly so, army commanders to cancel Sabbath hosting for soldiers by religious families. Those very same commanders are afraid that in the course of those weekends the soldiers will be exposed not only to good old Jewish culture, but also will be urged to disobey orders.

If it becomes evident that the soldiers in question are students of a hesder yeshiva, and if they received the support of their rabbis from that yeshiva, the army’s arrangement with those yeshivas needs to be stopped. If their rabbis do not support the action that was taken by the soldiers, it is incumbent upon them to say so out loud and clearly, and to remove those soldiers from the hesder yeshiva program of their own volition, before the IDF does so. If they fail to take that course of action, that too will serve as a clear statement. Clear and dangerous.

Paradigm Shift

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: This is a must see video for all, especially Americans! – SJH

Israel’s media this morning (November 17, 2009) is in a frenzy of criticism on settlers, settlements and government inaction against them. We’ll put up materials as they become available and wrap at the end of the day.

Yediot’s senior military analyst, Alex Fishman, who is also chairman of the Israeli Military Correspondents Chamber and hardly a bleeding heart, is appalled. In an analysis piece placed alongside news reporting on the latest chapter of the settler soldier rebellion (more on that soon), he rails

What is the greatest chutzpah? To establish, in an illegal settlement, an illegal factory that produces temporary structures for more illegal settlements. And to do so openly, in the light of day, under the nose of the government and with the knowledge of the law enforcement agencies. In fact, this is not just chutzpah. This is anarchy.

[...]

we, with our own two hands, are providing the rope that will be used as a noose for the [Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic] negotiations.

Full text of the article is below, note that also contains a wealth of previously unreported details on the issue.

Stop the anarchy

Analysis, Alex Fishman, Yediot, November 17 2009 [page 7]

What is the greatest chutzpah? To establish, in an illegal settlement, an illegal factory that produces temporary structures for more illegal settlements. And to do so openly, in the light of day, under the nose of the government and with the knowledge of the law enforcement agencies. In fact, this is not just chutzpah. This is anarchy.

Such an illegal factory for trailers exists, for example, in Havat Gilad in the southern Hebron hills. There are two other such anonymous factories in the West Bank, and this is no coincidence. It is much safer and convenient there. The law enforcement agencies are liable to stop trailers that are manufactured inside the Green Line at the crossings, or at least monitor their passage into the West Bank. To drive trailers from inside the Green Line to the West Bank, you need permits, whereas in the West Bank, you don’t need any permission from anyone.

Moreover, the trailers produced have amazing qualities: they are capable of merging into the scenery, and then suddenly popping up, like mushrooms after rain, on these or those hills. In the settlements of Kochav Yaakov and Eli, for example, 12 trailers suddenly popped up to house new immigrants from France. Straight from the plane to the trailer. And how do they get water and electricity? The head of the local authority, who receives a salary from the Interior Ministry, approves it, the regional engineer signs, and everything is legal.

This is what the settlers call “natural growth,” and they expect, that using this argument, the State of Israel will face the Americans with clean hands. The prime minister and defense minister persuaded envoy Mitchell that there is childbirth in the territories, and indeed there is “childbirth.” Including new immigrants from France. Everyone seems to think that the Americans are idiots and that they can be sold a bill of goods forever. Then they’re insulted that Obama makes faces at Netanyahu and doesn’t believe him.

It doesn’t need to be mentioned that the prime minister and the ministers know very well about these tricks, but they prefer to close their eyes. There is no law, no judge, and nobody enforces any law in the territories. So is it any wonder that this anarchy has trickled down into the army as well? Why not, what will they do to them? Nobody should be surprised if the displays of protest in the army against the evacuation of buildings and settlements only continue and gain momentum. After all, these soldiers receive a few days in the stockade—as if they’d committed a traffic violation—and become, automatically, heroes.

Today the protest is by means of signs, tomorrow the protest will be expressed in acts, in disobeying orders, in sedition. The army is paying a price for the fact that there is no law in the territories, that everyone does as they see fit. The chief of staff will have no choice but to come to the defense of the army that is beginning to slide down the steep slope of politicization and put an end to this, even in a brutal fashion. Because there is already a smell of political mutiny in the air.

And what was the soldier’s protest about yesterday? About two illegal buildings that were demolished in the settlement of Negohot. An observer from the side might have thought for a moment that the State of Israel had decided to stop illegal construction in order to create an appropriate atmosphere to make a renewal of the negotiations with the Palestinians possible. But the building demolition in Negohot is a joke. In the last few months there has been a momentum of construction taking place in the territories, of hundreds of buildings in dozens of settlements. Ever since the American demand was raised to completely freeze construction in the settlements, and ever since Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech about two states for two peoples, there has been a race taking place on the ground: to squeeze in as much as possible. Along with the illegal construction taking place, old construction permits suddenly show up that have not been implemented for many years. Every concrete base ever poured and then frozen has come back to life and sprouted walls.

The prime minister and defense minister managed to reach a compromise with the Americans making it possible to complete the construction of about 3,000 units already in various stages of construction, all in order to buy industrial quiet with the settlers and appease them and their supporters in the government. 3,000? They’re laughing. Nobody, including in the government, has any idea how many legal and illegal construction starts there are on the ground today.

It’s not that the Palestinians are saints and constantly seeking ways to return to the negotiations. But we, with our own two hands, are providing the rope that will be used as a noose for the negotiations.

A responsible government can stop this anarchy. Even if there are no negotiations with the Palestinians, it must instruct the OC Central Command to issue a military order to freeze all construction in the territories—with or without a permit—until further notice. Every construction will be discussed separately. With no winking. When the army realizes that the political echelon is serious, that will help it instate order in its ranks.

ABC News reports that Palestinian leaders are going to ask the United Nations to endorse an independent state without Israel’s consent because of their frustration at the stalled peace process. Palestinian leaders say they want formal recognition of an independent state based on the pre-1967 borders with Israel, which would give them Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem as their capital.

But the move appears to be largely symbolic, as a similar declaration was made in 1988 and won the support of dozens of countries but was never implemented on the ground. But could it work? Max Fisher shares some opinions:
Palestinian Self-Declaration In Haaretz, prominent Israeli commentator and politician Yossi Sarid calls this “our only chance for an end to the occupation in our time.” He explains, “Conditions were no less foggy and circumstances were no more certain when Israel founder David Ben-Gurion declared Israeli independence in 1948.”

Wouldn’t Change Anything Jerusalem Post’s Haviv Rettig Gur shakes his head. “In principle, little would change. The Palestinian Authority would have real control over barely 40 percent of the land it hopes to gain in negotiations, representing major Palestinian population centers in the West Bank but little beyond that. Meanwhile, nothing would be solved on the thorny issues that face negotiators, such as Jerusalem, refugees, Palestinian disarmament and borders.”

It’s Now Or Never Juan Cole insists that the opportunity for a Palestinian state is fading. “Since the Netanyahu government has secret plans to thousands of further Israeli houses on Palestinian land in the next few years, time is short. If it has not already happened, the likelihood is that a Palestinian state will become impossible very shortly simply because the West Bank looks like Swiss cheese because of all the Israeli colonies on it,” he writes.

Historical Precedent Truthdig’s Chris Hedges puts it in context. “It worked in Kosovo. It worked in Georgia. And it will work in Palestine. There are 192 member states in the United Nations and as many as 150 would recognize the state of Palestine, creating a diplomatic nightmare for Israel and its lonely ally the United States. Israel will face worldwide censure if it attempts to crush the independent state by force and very likely be subjected to the kind of divestment campaigns and boycotts that brought down the apartheid government of South Africa,” he writes.

British police are investigating a London scout after its members shouted death threats and anti-Semitic abuse at Jewish Second World War veterans during a remembrance parade.

The Spirit of Nazism did not die with Hitler. Its back in Europe to hunt for Jews.

According to the report, the explorer scouts, who were taking part in Remembrance Sunday service in Romford, Essex were heard to repeatedly shout
«Let’s kill the Jews» at the former soldiers.

The head of the scouts in the area has issued a full apology for the incident, which was witnessed by a senior policeman standing a few feet away.

A Metropolitan police spokesman was quoted as saying that London police were investigating two allegations of «racially aggravated harassment» involving more than one member of the Romford explorer scout unit. He reportedly would not say how many scouts were involved.

The Rev Lee Sunderland, who was taking part in the service, expressed shock after hearing the scouts shout: «Here come the Jews, let’s kill the Jews».

Paul Freedman, an 84-year-old Jewish former RAF pilot who laid a wreath at the service, reportedly challenged the scouts.

«I was absolutely fuming… I told them I was a Jew and I’d spent four and a half years in the RAF during the second world war, and that Jewish people had sacrificed so much for freedom», he told the British paper, Evening Standard.

Source: The UK newspaper The Guardian and Israeli paper Haaretz.

My comment:

Jew-hate is again on the rise. Many Jews in Europe has testified that there is not much difference between the build up to World War II in Nazi-Germany, and what is going on inside the European Union.

This is the fruit of several European Government`s systematic being sponsors of Islamic organizations that have an agenda of destroying the Jewish state of Israel.

The truth about the conflict in the Middle East has been sacrificed by men that wants to become popular in the Islamic World. Men like Tony Blair, Carl Bildt and Javier Solana. To bring peace without truth will be a false peace, just the next step on the way to kill the Jews. Very soon we will se looting and arson of Jewish properties in Europe and even in the US. Just wait and watch.

Obama green-lights Arab land grab
But Israel threatens retaliation if U.N. approves Palestinian state

Article: World Net Daily

A top Palestinian Authority official told WND that the PA reached an understanding with the Obama administration regarding a Palestinian threat to unilaterally ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state outside of negotiations with Israel.

Ahmed Qurei, former PA prime minister and member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee, said in an interview that the PA “reached an understanding with important elements within the administration” to possibly bring to the U.N. Security Council a resolution to unilaterally create a Palestinian state.

Asked to which “elements” he was referring, Qurei would only say they were from the Obama administration.

A top PA negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, named the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, and National Security Council member Samantha Power as among the Obama administration officials who were involved with the Palestinians’ U.N. threat.

Despite widespread assumptions the U.S. would veto any such U.N. Security Council resolution, the PA negotiator said that in initial discussions, the Obama administration did not threaten to veto their conceptual unilateral resolution.

“The U.S. told us that they prefer a negotiated settlement with Israel, but if we (Palestinians) insist on a resolution, the Americans will not necessarily reject it,“ the PA negotiator said.

WRONG. We AMERICANS absolutely reject it. BHussein and his cronies do; and they do NOT count as Americans. They stand for NOTHING that America represents. They stand for hate, fraud, deceit, lies, and destroying the fundamental elements of our country.

“The U.S. has a history of never before vetoing any U.N. move to create a new state,” the negotiator pointed out.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday the Palestinians had decided to turn to the U.N. Security Council to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

YOU can’t expect ANYONE in the world to expect the Israelis to give JERUSALEM over to the fucking shitstain Palestinians. Jerusalem was given to Israel by GOD. Nobody has the power to force Israel to give up Jerusalem – LET ALONE any other bit of their land. FUCK that noise.

Separately, the negotiator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Obama administration is “totally on board” with a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to create a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

WND first reported in September that according to a top PA official, the Obama administration has largely adopted the positions of the Palestinian West Bank leadership to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

The PA negotiator WND spoke with yesterday said that his authority’s primary goal now is to secure a letter of support from the Obama administration affirming the U.S. commitment to a pre-1967 Palestinian state within two years.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday hit back at the PA plan to unilaterally declare a state, warning such a move will be met by “one-sided Israeli measures.” He did not elaborate.

That’s RIGHT. Because Netanyahu is a MAN. A true man. A great leader who cares about the people he serves. I wish WE had a Netanyahu. But no, we have a shitball.

“There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral attempts outside that framework will unravel the existing agreements between us and could entail unilateral steps by Israel,” Netanyahu told a high-level gathering of Israeli and American policy makers at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu stressed that in order to achieve peace, “negotiations must resume immediately.” He affirmed Israel was prepared to begin talks “with a generous spirit.”

“I want to stress that we are willing to take steps that will help in advancing the peace process, but it must begin, there is no reason to waste time,” said the Israeli leader.

While negotiations were not easy, Netanyahu said, “there is no other way to bring about change.”

In September, a senior PA official told WND that aside from supporting a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders, the Obama administration also had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley.

“We understand from the U.S. that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years,” the PA official said.

The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider “sanctions” against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the U.S. government it would consider sanctions.

The PA official claimed Obama can make a “headache” for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state.

FUCK you, Barack Hussein Obama. I don’t care WHERE you stand, but I stand behind Israel. Sure, I’m just one small person. Just little ol’ me… but I understand the importance and significance of our relationship with Israel. They are not only our allies POLITICALLY – but they are also our brothers. Our brothers in Christ.

By Hesham Tillawi Ph.d.

more about “Israel killed John F. Kennedy“, posted with vodpod

JFK and RFK died trying to stop the Zionists from controling America

Dr. Hesham Tillawi

Dr. Hesham Tillawi has a Ph.D. in International Relations. He is a Palestinian American writer, Political Analyst and a TV and Radio Talk Show Host. His program Current issues with Hesham Tillawi can be viewed Live every Thursday evening at 6:30PM Central Standard Time on Cox Cable system Channel 15 in Louisiana, Nationwide on Bridges TV, and Worldwide on Amazonas Satellite, as well as Live on the Internet at http://www.currentissues.tv

He can be contacted at tillawi@currentissues.tv Interviews then archived for on demand viewing at www.currentissues.tv Radio show broadcast on RBN www.republicbroadcasting.org every Saturday at 4-6 PM Central Time

With the Name of God, The Source of all Grace, The Source of all Mercy,

Peace and greetings, everyone. The last video I made entitled “Boycott “Without You” album and Boycott Awakening Records, too!!!” did not give due attention to the “Without You” album being fake. Therefore, I made another video concentrating exclusivly on the “Without You” album. Here it is:

I urge all of you to not buy the fake “Without You” album and to urge others not to buy it, either. God bless y’all and take care.

Samir R. Elneser

Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America

By Alan Hart

November 15, 2009

There is a case for saying that those leaders of the discredited PNA (Palestine National Authority) who are proposing to unilaterally declare an independent state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and seek to get UN Security Council backing for it are being clever.

What they would be doing in effect is asking the Security Council not only to re-affirm its commitment to Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967 but, far more important, to confront that resolution’s fatal flaw on the matter of land for peace.

Yes, 242 did emphasize “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”. But its call was for “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”. The original draft of the resolution contained the definitive article the, so it read “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied in the recent conflict”.

If 242 had stated that Israel’s withdrawal from “the territories” was required, the meaning, with no ambiguity and no wiggle room for Zionism, would have been that, in exchange for recognition and legitimacy, Israel was required to withdraw from all the territories it occupied in the 1967 war. But that was not on so far as Zionism was concerned. It wanted the freedom to be the one, and the only one, who would determine (on a take it or leave basis backed by brute force) the extent of any Israeli withdrawals. Resolution 242 in its final form gave Zionism that freedom.

Many of the diplomats who were engaged behind closed doors in the months of wrangling about the wording of the resolution were privately shocked and publicly embarrassed by the dropping of “the” in the final text. They saw it for what it was – a Johnson administration surrender to the Zionist state and its awesomely powerful lobby. Some came up with words to give the impression that 242 was not a disaster for all who were working for a just and lasting peace. “The full and true meaning of the resolution,” they said, “is in both its letter and spirit.” That was not a point Zionism was ever going to take because it is congenitally incapable of negotiating in good faith.

As events were to prove, 242 effectively gave Israel a power of veto over any peace process.

There’s a case for saying the prospects of overcoming that veto could be improved if the Security Council unanimously backed a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (as they were on 4 June 1967). On the ground nothing would be changed by such a declaration, but if the Security Council backed it, legal and moral pressure on Israel to end its 42-year-old occupation world surely intensify.

That, it seems, is the calculation of those Palestinian leaders who are proposing a unilateral declaration of independence as the only alternative to surrendering to Zionism’s will and accepting crumbs from its table. (The crumbs being two or three Bantustans which the Palestinians could call a state if they wished).

But what if the U.S., unwilling for a showdown with Zionism, blocked moves in the Security Council for a statement which, by recognizing the unilaterally declared Palestinian state, would effectively be a demand (242-plus) for Israel to end its occupation in return for a full peace with the whole Arab and wider Muslim world?

The short answer is that the Palestinian initiative would be in the same boat as President Obama’s current attempt to re-start the peace process – going nowhere. (That the U.S. would be more fully exposed as a client state of Israel on matters to do with ending the conflict is not the point).

So the clever initiative is at best a gamble. (The reason for taking it was put into words by Ghassan Khatib, head of the PNA’s media centre. “I honestly think there is no future for the peace camp in Palestine if this is not going to work.” He spoke those words to Donald Macintyre, the Independent’s correspondent in Jerusalem).

But this latest (proposed) Palestinian initiative could also be stupid.

It could tempt Netanyahu to go for broke and say to the Palestinians something like the following. “Okay. You’ve declared your state. We don’t accept its borders as defined by you, but we will recognize it inside borders defined by us (the two or three Bantustans). Now shut up. The game is over. The file is closed. And there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it.”

And he, Netanyahu, would probably think but not say, “If you give us any trouble, we’ll have the lot of you removed to Jordan or wherever”.

Alan Hart

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

See also:

President Obama’s opportunity to speak truth to power: Part 1

Open Letter to President Obama: Change the Rules of the Game

An Appeal to the American People

Zionism’s Jewish Enemy

For decades, a unique collection of historic photographs of the Orient lay forgotten at the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology. Now, the stock of 18,000 pictures has been catalogued and made accessible to the public in the form of an exhibition. Nimet Seker reports

Unique and rare glimpse into the world of Kazakh nomads around 1900: on his 1899 scientific expedition Samuil Martinovič Dudin (1863–1929) travelled Kazakhstan, Russia, China and Mongolia

A huge store of historic photographs from the Islamic world accumulated at the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology over generations, and although it is difficult to believe, for decades, it was entirely disregarded by museum staff.

It wasn’t until 2004 that a group of scientists – with the support of the ZEIT Foundation Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius – began the process of categorizing, digitalizing and reconditioning the collection of 18,000 photographs. This was a detailed and scholarly undertaking lasting a number of years, and the results can be seen today in the form of a richly illustrated catalogue of more than 700 pages, published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition “Mit Kamel und Kamera” (With Camera and Camel).

Read full article at source

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La pornografia come veicolo di pace. Altro che Road Map. È il sesso l’unico vero processo di coabitazione tra israeliani e palestinesi. Ne è convinto il 49enne Avi Levy. Israeliano, cicciottello. E pornografo. Di professione.

Il mercato si sa, è saturo. Ma questo signore di Umm-Al-Fahm – una delle città a maggioranza araba – ha trovato la sua nicchia. Redditizia. E, ne è convinto, utile. Offrire un sito web a luci rosse destinato al pubblico di tutta l’area. Nessuno escluso. “Qui non c’è soltanto la guerra”, dice a chi gli chiede perchè. “Israeliani e palestinesi vivono insieme, mangiano insieme, lavorano insieme. C’è qualcuno che può negare che facciano pure sesso?”.

Così, nel 2001, ha fondato il sito web – porno – “Parpar 1” (evitiamo il link per evidenti ragioni). Significa “farfalla” in ebraico. Ma anche “scambismo”. Ed ecco quindi i filmati e le foto. Amatoriali. “I protagonisti sono persone normali – continua Levy – segretarie, dottori, ingegneri”. Non si sa quanti clienti abbia. Ma a colpi di tette, falli e eccitazioni sotto sotto spera di dare il suo contributo al processo di pace.

From yesterday’s Ha’artez:

The Israel Defense Forces’ chief rabbi told students in a pre-army yeshiva program last week that soldiers who “show mercy” toward the enemy in wartime will be “damned.”

Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki also told the yeshiva students that religious individuals made better combat troops.  Speaking Thursday at the Hesder yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron, Rontzki referred to Maimonides’ discourse on the laws of war. That text quotes a passage from the Book of Jeremiah stating: “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord with a slack hand, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”

In Rontzki’s words, “In times of war, whoever doesn’t fight with all his heart and soul is damned – if he keeps his sword from bloodshed, if he shows mercy toward his enemy when no mercy should be shown.”

Whatever else we might think about Maimonides’ (or Jeremiah’s) words, we are certainly free to debate their academic meaning. But when they are uttered by the Chief Rabbi of the IDF to future Israeli soldiers, words such as these are much, much more than merely academic.

You may remember that Rabbi Rontzki (above) was in the news following Israel’s military operation in Gaza, when soldiers alleged that he gave them a religious booklet entitled “Go Fight My Fight.”  This publication was written by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of  Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in Jerusalem, who wrote that Palestinians were the equivalent of the Biblical Philistines and that cruelty can sometimes be a “good attribute.”

You may also remember that Israeli soldiers from the organization Shovrim Shtika (“Breaking the Silence”) brought this issue to light following the war in Gaza.  Though they have been attacked mercilessly by the Israeli political establishment, these young soldiers have continued to speak out. Last September, Gal Einav and Shamir Yeger, two reserve infantry soldiers who fought in Gaza wrote a powerful editorial in the Israeli press about what they considered to be an unwelcome “messianic” religious influence into the IDF:

There is a problem with the growing tendency to provide religious elements with a monopoly on values and fighting spirit, and particularly with the legitimacy granted to organizations with a missionary and messianic character to operate amongst the soldiers. Most of the commanders in our division are religious, yet up until the last war there was complete separation between their private world and their military position.

If we fail to clearly draw the line right now, in a few years we shall find ourselves shifting from wars of choice or no-choice to holy wars.

In a September BBC report, Reserve General Nehemia Dagan had this to say about the issue:

We (soldiers) used to be able to put aside our own ideas in order to do what we had to do. It didn’t matter if we were religious or from a kibbutz. But that’s not the case anymore.

The morals of the battlefield cannot come from a religious authority. Once it does, it’s Jihad. I know people will not like that word but that’s what it is, Holy War. And once it’s Holy War there are no limits.

What explains the growth of this right-wing religious influence in the IDF? I tend to agree with blogger Zachary Goelman, who points out an larger demographic trend in Israeli society:

With conscription rates dropping annually, especially among secular Jews, and a simultaneous increase in the country’s religious population, Yeger and Einav are part of a shrinking minority. No doubt they know many who ducked their conscription call. If they have draft-age children, they’ve certainly heard them discuss the myriad ways of obtaining a deferral.

This trend is reversed in the dati-le’umi sector, the category of Israeli Jews broadly classified as “national religious.” In one way or another the men and women woven from this cloth see military and national service as a form of religious duty, and their ranks in uniform and civil society will increase in the coming decades. Coupled with the consistent growth of ultra-orthodox families, secular Israel may be in the final throes of its götterdämmerung.

Whatever the explanation, I personally find the implications of this trend to be beyond troubling. How will we, as Jews, respond to the potential growth of Jewish Holy War ideology within the ranks of the Israeli military?  How do we  feel about Israeli military generals holding forth on the religious laws of warfare? Most Americans would likely agree that in general, mixing religion and war is a profoundly perilous endeavor.  Should we really be so surprised that things are now coming to this?

I do not ask these questions out of a desire to be inflammatory. I ask them only because I believe we need to discuss them honestly and openly – and because these kinds of painful questions have for too long been dismissed and marginalized by the “mainstream” Jewish establishment.

For myself at least – as a Jew and as a rabbi – I will take this opportunity to register my personal offense at statements such as those made last week by Rabbi Rontzki.

I can’t exactly remember the last time I took a unilateral decision. It was probably something regarding the ever-regular debate on whether to pay my rent on time and the unilateral decision I made, this is, without the consent or advice of my landlord, proved to be extremely damaging and taught me a lesson my father would have been proud to make himself. This said, I haven’t had my own apartment taken away from me by excessive force nor have I had been under constant oppression for over sixty years, so I can’t really compare the decision Palestine might be taking – unilaterally – to proclaim itself a state, without the consent or advice of Israel.

Yasser Arafat: he had a dream...

The question of recognizing, legally and politically, regionally and internationally, Palestine as a state – with its own government, its own Constitution, its own set of laws and by-laws, and, most importantly and perhaps most decisively, a preset territory, has been at the heart of every potentially successful peace process to be made in the region. There is no possibility to discuss a two-state solution of only one of the parties is actually a State. There is no negotiation to be made between heads of State if only one of the two parties is indeed a diplomatically recognized head of State. There is no legitimacy to be claimed over a territory if there is no State to organize nationwide democratic elections. Moreover, there is no population without a State, as the Palestinians can not claim national protections. Whose and which nationals are they, exactly? Which force is there to protect them from oppression and guarantee them freedom and labour, and if a force stands up and claims it will, how legitimate can it be? The situation of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West’s heated debate over whether or not this is a legitimate government or a terrorist organization such as Hezbollah is adding fuel to the pan and destroying every embryo of a negotiation. For as long as there is no such thing as a Palestinian state, Palestinians are nothing but Israel’s political prisoners, collateral damage of a forceful sionism that was not even entirely supported by a Jewish community already saturated by the hate and violence they endured.

In short: Palestine wants to be recognized as a State. Israel refuses. The issue of whether the land between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will be attributed to either of the parties is at stake and Israel has much to gain in maintaining a status quo. But after the much criticized Goldstone report, a decision regarding the region has to be reached. The United States, for the first time in a very long time, is pushing towards a two-state solution. This seems to be the only solution. No matter how hard the right-wing Israeli parties are dragging their feet, this is the only outcome. Except that Mahmoud Abbas, currently the leader of the Palestinian authorities, for lack of a better expression, has declared he might take upon himself to do what Yasser Arafat himself did not do – claim a Palestinian state, following the borders created by the 1967 agreement.

Liebermann, currently Prime Minister of Israel, has replied to this claim with as much of a negative answer one could come up with without resorting to weapons of russian manufacture; and President Shimon Peres himself called to a cooling off of the situation, saying that “anger in Palestine must not be turned into a political agenda.” With negotiations at a standstill, and Hamas struggling to maintain a pseudo-democratic facade, how long will Palestine sustain a relative peaceful and downlow demeanour without access to their demands? The White House and the European Union having hurt a wall during their mediation sessions with Israel last summer, Liebermann being strictly opposed to a two-state solution and even refused to freeze Israeli settlements in the West Bank, can a unilateral action, the very opposite of diplomatic action, can be endorsed? What kind of response are we to expect from Israel, if not an armed force one, justified by the fact that their own borders have been unilaterally claimed frioom one side without the consent of the other?

And what will become of the East Jerusalem Palestinians, Jewish Arabs, citizens with no state and residents with no territory, temporary living heads on borrowed time, allowed by a reluctant authority to cultivate the land they have had for millenia? What will become of the brand new settlers, forced to retract backwards, and not knowing which authority to turn to? Should a third party be named and called upon this issue in order to make the decision neither Israel nor Palestine is willing to do without force? What would even happen to a brand new Palestinian state if the decision brings back the painful memories of the blood-spilling power struggle between Fatah and Hamas? Is Palestine capable of running its own people democratically, peacefully, in full cooperation with its reluctant neighbor, and liberating the Gaza Strip without those collateral damages we have become a little too acquainted with?

This is one simple decision, but raising a plethora of questions no one is quite ready to address yet. Unilateral decisions are never favored on the diplomatic scene, for the simple reason they always rile up the party that has not been consulted, like in any divorce, any conflictual relationship, any divided, segregated area. But what if finally standing up to the test and making the decision everyone has been waiting for and hedging one’s bets was the only solution left for the Middle East? What if Palestine had to take their chances?

BBC just made an article showing the graffitis on the Separation wall in Palestine that had the strongest message!

Between artists like Banksy or Blu, is Maria Imaginário!

This graffiti represents the non violent resitance of the palestinian people against house demilitions by the Israeli army, created in 2008 while she was in Palestine helping rebuilding houses on the West Bank in a project from ICAHD…

check this cool news on BBC!