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two for the price of one...

ntanntan                                              Neturei Karta is a Jewish group whose controversial solution to the bloodshed in Gaza is to bring about the end of the Israeli state. RT.com spoke to Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, who explained why they think this is necessary.

It’s not often you encounter a Rabbi with a Palestinian flag pinned to their jacket. But then Neturei Karta are anything but conventional.

They are a religious group of Haredi Jews whose name in Aramaic means ‘Protectors of the City’. The city in question is Jerusalem and the group is founded on their refusal to accept or recognise the state of Israel. Confused?

One of their main figures, Rabbi Weiss, explained their position to RT. He said, “Zionism is the transformation of Judaism, from religion, from subservience to God, into a material concept of nationalism. This is unacceptable to the ones who want to serve God. In order to create this nationalism, they are removing God from the equation.

We were warned by the prophets that we would be expelled from the land and that happened with the destruction of the temple [in Jerusalem] 2,000 years ago. We were not to return in mass – it’s a godly decreed exile – and we’re also not to rebel against any nation we reside in. We are to be loyal citizens and pray for the well-being of the land that is our hosts. We also should never make any attempt to end exile.”

For those unfamiliar with the Torah – the central part of the Jewish bible – these sentiments may be fairly revolutionary. Neturei Karta believe they are following their holy book, and that leaving Palestine was an act of God. They also think their religion commands them to publicly protest against what they deem transgressions in the name of Judaism. They particularly want to make people understand there is a fundamental difference between an Israeli and a Jew.

Rabbi Weiss continued, “[Zionists’] goal was to have their material state, and whatever stood in their way didn’t bother them. The Torah says thou shall not steal’ so every concept of Zionism is breaching the Torah. They knew our religion does not call for us to take up arms and take over the land. On the contrary, we are forbidden.”

Israel was formed in 1948 and the following year was admitted into the United Nations. There’s a widely accepted narrative of how Israeli forces seized the land and property of the Palestinians, who were mostly Muslim. This was all done under the premise of creating “a national home for the Jewish people” and the British government had set this in motion during World War I with the Balfour Declaration.

Israel is now a modern country with a formidable army and successful technology industry. However, the way the state has treated the Palestinian people, who have been annexed into Gaza and the West Bank with limited rights, has left it open to criticism.

Rabbi Weiss said, “They mooched the Star of David from us and claim to the world they are doing God’s will, that is to intimidate so that anybody who dares to speak up against them is an anti-Semite. It’s ludicrous, and a tragedy, as they don’t represent our Torah. “

Neturei Karta claims to represent Jewish communities and says Israel has created a fake legitimacy. Although Israel has a Chief Rabbi and a Rabbinate, the Jewish faith also has this structure independently. It’s via this religious doctrine that Israel justifies its continued seizing of Palestinian land, which Israeli settlers then live on – and this process is one of the major flashpoints between the two states. It was an attempt to remove Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah that sparked the recent spate of conflict.

Rabbi Weiss added, “The Zionists constantly try to incorporate the Torah into their monster called the state of Israel. They have a Chief Rabbi, a Rabbinate; it’s all window dressing, they rubber stamp whatever Israel does and create an aura of holiness.

“There are, unfortunately, many college students, most from non-religious families or nominally religious, who fall into the trap of Zionist propaganda and speak with emotion by saying ‘for 2,000 years we’ve been in exile, we’ve suffered and God is giving us back the land’. But that’s ignoring what it says in the Torah.

“People think to be a hero for Judaism they have to go back to Israel and go to the settlements. We’re not condoning violence, but they are inciting it by throwing out the Arab people like they’re doing now in Sheikh Jarrah. An action beings a reaction; what do you expect? That’s why there is bloodshed.” 

But not everyone agrees and there are those who are critical of Neturei Karta’s “willingness to meet with the vilest of extremists.” Group members admit they’ve met the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, both regarded by many countries as terrorist organisations. They’ve also spoken to former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Gaza’s de facto ruler Ismail Haniyeh. And they have even shared a platform with the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.

Rabbi Weiss said, “The leadership of Hamas say they have nothing against Jews and want to live together. Both Hamas and Hezbollah want a peaceful dismantlement of the state; we also want that. We understand the core issue is not Hamas, the problem is in 1948 they ratified a monster called the Zionist state of Israel that came and occupied another people. Everything that is happening is only a reaction to this terrible injustice.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/524455-neturei-karta-rabbi-weiss-israel/

 

 

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let's hope peace lasts...

 Why has Netanyahu allowed for a Palestinian uprising? 

 

Lehava, the extremist settler group that organised the racist demonstration weeks ago, is headed by a man named Bentzi Gopstein. Although the group would previously have been allowed no legitimacy by the Israeli government, Gopstein’s lawyer, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a member of the Knesset and a close ally of Israeli PM Netanyahu. Ben-Gvir heads the Jewish Power party (Otzma Yehudit), which falls under the Religious Zionism slate led by Bezalel Smotrich. It’s no surprise, then, that Lehava feels they have been accorded a sense of legitimacy, when they witness Israeli members of the Knesset and allies of the prime minister standing beside them in Jerusalem. 

Israel just had its fourth round of elections since 2019, in which Netanyahu’s Likud won the most seats of any party. But Likud’s, combined with the seats of their natural allies, still fell short of the 61-seat threshold required to form a government. The Religious Zionism slate forms part of Netanyahu’s backbone when it comes to his political survival, so any decision by the Israeli premier to abandon them could hurt him politically.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/523639-netanyahu-settler-extremists-jerusalem-war/

 

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zionist facebum...

 

FACEBOOK’S SECRET INTERNAL rules for moderating the term “Zionist” let the social network suppress criticism of Israel amid an ongoing wave of Israeli abuses and violence, according to people who reviewed the policies.

The rules appear to have been in place since 2019, seeming to contradict a claim by the company in March that no decision had been made on whether to treat the term “Zionist” as a proxy for “Jew” when determining whether it was deployed as “hate speech.” The policies, obtained by The Intercept, govern the use of “Zionist” in posts not only on Facebook but across its subsidiary apps, including Instagram.

Both Facebook and Instagram are facing allegations of censorship following the erratic, widespread removal of recent posts from pro-Palestinian users critical of the Israeli government, including those who documented instances of Israeli state violence.

Mass violence has gripped Israel and Gaza since last week. Tensions kicked off amid Palestinian protests against planned evictions in occupied East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers. Eventually, Israeli security forces stormed the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s old city, one of the holiest sites in Islam. The Palestinian militant group Hamas responded with rocket fire aimed at Israel. Israel, in turn, unleashed massive aerial bombardments and artillery attacks against the occupied Palestinian Gaza Strip, reportedly leaving more than 120 people, including 20 children, dead. At least 900 Palestinians have been injured since Monday. Reports said that in Israel, seven people, including a soldier and a child, had died as a result of the violence, with more than 500 injured.

“Facebook claims that their policy on the word ‘Zionist’ is about Jewish safety,” Dani Noble, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace who reviewed the rules, told The Intercept. “But, according to their content policy excerpt, it seems Facebook decision-makers are more concerned with shielding Zionist Israeli settlers and the Israeli government from accountability for these crimes.”

 

Read more:

https://theintercept.com/2021/05/14/facebook-israel-zionist-moderation/

 

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mothed-myth...

 

 

From James O’Neill

 

One of the world’s great enduring myths, persisted in by multiple political leaders, is the two-state solution in Israel – Palestine. The State of Israel was created in 1948, not least as a form of compensation for what had happened to the Jewish people in World War II.

At the time of its creation, the bulk of the land in what became Israel was Palestinian. Since then, there has been a steady expansion of Israeli territory with a corresponding diminution of the land occupied and controlled by the Palestinians. The current out surge of violence in the region was precipitated by continuing Israeli occupation, or perhaps theft would be a better word, of Palestinian land.

This has been an enduring action since at least 1948. The 1967 war between Palestinian and Israeli forces resulted in a major land grab by Israel. Not only did they take vast quantities of Palestinian land, they also occupied the Syrian territory of the Golan Heights.

It is a fundamental principle of international law that land seized in warfare may not be retained by the occupying power once the conflict is over. This has been completely ignored by Israel, that shows no intention of ever vacating Syrian land that they seized in the war.

One does not have to look very far to find the reasons for the Israeli recalcitrance. It is the support that the United States provides to Tel-Aviv, as it has done throughout the entire existence of the State of Israel, and unqualified support for each and every action by that government. The United States has never been reluctant to use it veto power in the United Nations Security Council to prevent any effective action against Israel, regardless of the actions of the latter.

The current war provides a perfect example of history repeating itself. Some largely ineffective Palestinian rockets fired at Israel have been met with a massive response. More than 200 Palestinian schools for example have been destroyed, with the standard Israeli response to criticism being that the buildings were actually used as bases by the Hamas protesters.

The likelihood of these schools ever being rebuilt is virtually zero. A lack of educational opportunities can be added to the list of indignities and disadvantages these children now face and that will deleteriously affect their future.

The response in the West has been uniformly the same. On the one hand its leaders call for calm and a cessation of the fighting. That is a pointless plea as the fighting will never stop in any lasting sense as long as the destruction of Palestinian buildings continues, as does the continuation of the theft of Palestinian territory.

The other repeated claim by Western leaders is for the “two State” solution to be given effect. This is one of the great lies perpetrated by the West. The Israeli’s have no intention of ever allowing a two-state solution. That has been blindingly obvious since at least the 1967 war. Every time the topic is raised in international forums, the plea is always the same: the solution is the two-state state solution.

If that were ever remotely true, steps would have been taken in recent decades. Instead, what has happened? Not a day goes by without Israeli settlers taking possession of yet more Palestinian land and homes. There has been a relentless repetition of this process for several decades. Still the world’s political leaders refer to the two-state solution as being the answer.

One seriously wonders what planet they are living on. Are they incapable of seeing what is happening before their very eyes? Do decades of theft of Palestinian land not pass a message to the world? That message is unmistakably clear. Israel will continue to steal Palestinian land. In that they have the political and moral support of the United States and with that support assured there is absolutely no incentive for the Israelis to ever change or modify their behaviour.

The pattern of Israeli conduct has long been obvious. Apart from the continual theft of Palestinian territories and the unlawful occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, Israel for many years occupied a significant portion of Lebanese territory. The retreat from Lebanon in 2000, having occupied its territory since the war in 1982 was a rare and thus far unmatched retreat from occupied territory.

Even in the parts that are still occupied by the Palestinians, there are severe restrictions on the ability of the occupants to lead normal lives. They are subject to constant restrictions by the Israelis, including the right to fish in the waters off their coast. These restrictions have also continued for many years, with barely a word of protest from the West.

It would be totally unrealistic to expect any two-state solution coming to fruition in the foreseeable future, the constant comments by the world’s political leaders notwithstanding. What then is the solution? It is frankly impossible to see any viable solution emerging in the foreseeable future. Israeli behaviour is not going to change as long as they have the political support of the Americans, and one cannot see an end to that support.

There is no other land that the Palestinians could occupy and call their own, and why would they seek such a solution? The Palestinian people occupied Palestine for hundreds of years before the State of Israel was imposed upon them. If there is to be a solution to the problem it will have to commence with the withdrawal of western support for the State of Israel. That withdrawal will have to include the cessation of the several billion dollars a year in financial support, and a similar cessation in the political support extended to them in the United Nations and elsewhere.

Frankly, it is difficult to see the West taking any such actions. The trauma of the Palestinians will therefore continue, representing one of the great failures of Western politics in modern times. The Palestinians deserve better. They are unlikely to get it.

 

James O’Neill, an Australian-based former Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

 

 

Read more:

https://journal-neo.org/2021/05/18/the-suffering-of-the-palestinians-continues-and-the-world-simply-watches/

 

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apartheid...

Israel is one of the strangest countries in the world. Its supporters say that it’s the only democracy in the Middle East, a beacon of liberal values in a repressive and superstitious region. It’s a place where even the military are queer-friendly and pro-vegan, a country founded by the inheritors of Europe’s socialist traditions. But those same international supporters include many of the world’s most prominent right-wing authoritarians, from former US President Donald Trump to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the British fascist Tommy Robinson. (I’ll never forget attending a small protest in Melbourne against Trump’s move of the US embassy to Jerusalem; across the road, a little fascist mob waved a sea of blue-and-white Trump and Israeli flags.) Israelis themselves are broadly on the world’s extreme right: 70 percent of them supported Trump’s re-election, according to a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute. Yet support for Israel is, in most Western countries, something like a consensus in mainstream politics, expressed not just by the Donald Trumps of the world, but equally by the Joe Bidens.

What kind of country is this? How can its conduct, its internal politics and its international supporters all so flagrantly contradict its self-representation as an enlightened democracy? Labelling Israel is a difficult and controversial issue: is it apartheid, settler colonialism or something else entirely? And what do those labels mean for the struggle to liberate Palestinians?

 

Read more:

https://redflag.org.au/article/democracy-apartheid-settler-colonialism-what-israel

 

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Palestinacide?...

Australian Broadcaster ABC has announced that they will not allow the use of the word ‘apartheid’ in their coverage of Israel and Palestine in an effort to “be as objective as possible.”

The network has also noted the term’s “specific meaning in South African history” as part of its reasoning for the move, according to an “internal advisory note” reported in the Australian. 

While some of the network’s coverage has managed to stay away from using the word, it has still made its way onto the airwaves, recently on ‘Q+A’ when Palestine advocate Randa Abdel-Fattah accused Israel of being based “on a racial apartheid system,” leading to a fiery debate during which the word was used multiple times. 

ABC head David Anderson has said the network is closely monitoring its coverage and insists reporters try to remain neutral on social media.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/525290-abc-bans-apartheid-israel/

 

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I suppose we can't call it segregation either because this is US specific.... What about Holocaust? No?... So it will have to be "Arababusationtheidcaust" Or Arabatheid? Or victimacaust? Persecutheid? Genocide? Palestinacide... Hum, valid enough...

 

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bye bye bibi?...

 Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett have put together a governing coalition to oust PM Benjamin Netanyahu, just minutes before time ran out. For the first time in history, an Arab-Israeli party will be on board.

Lapid, who leads the Yesh Atid party, informed President Reuven Rivlin shortly before midnight on Wednesday that he has “succeeded in forming a government” and that his coalition partner Bennett of Yamina “will serve as prime minister first.” Lapid will take over as PM after two years, under the terms of the agreement.

As the clock ticked closer to the statutory deadline to form a new government or face yet another general election, the tipping point seemed to be the coalition agreement with Mansour Abbas of the United Arab Party (Ra’am).

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/525517-israel-new-government-formed/

 

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bibi gone?...

From Voltaire Network...

 

The United States and Russia have come to an agreement on Israel ahead of the Geneva summit, Yalta II.

Russia had lobbied Moldovan-born Avigdor Liberman for two years to unseat revisionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But he [Bibi] continued to be backed up by the United States.

Netanyahu is the son of the private secretary of Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Party, ancestor of the Likud. According to his doctrine, Palestine is "a land without a people, for a people without a land". The native populations are therefore of negligible value as were the Indians in the United States.

However, in recent years, Netanyahu has played a skillful game between Washington and Moscow, going to Russia more often than to the United States. In the end, he made himself unbearable to both sides. Ultimately, the Biden administration seized on Israel’s fourth general election in two years to get rid of its old ally. All he had to do was encourage an opposition alliance he had opposed for two years.

A government was sworn in by the Knesset on 13 June centered around the new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, and Yaïr Lapid on a nationalist platform.

“The Decolonization of Israel has Begun”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 26 May 2020.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article213390.html

 

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