Recognize Palestine, Rabbi Lerner

Why not a win/win for the U.S., Israel and Palestine? We at Tikkun and our Network of Spiritual Progressives have the way to achieve this. We need you to sign the petition plus send a letter to the White House about it (a real letter, not only an emai, to Tom Donilon, President Obama's National Security Advisor, White House, Washington, D.C. and to Hillary Clinton at the U.S. State Dept, Washington, D.C. and to influential Obama advisor Michelle Obama a the White House). It's not too late to influence the outcome in a good way.

If you prefer to read this article on line, you can do so at www.tikkun.org in Rabbi Lerner's Editorials and Actions column. Or you can read it on HuffingtonPost.com.

Obama and UN: Recognize Palestine AND Re-affirm Israel's Right to Exist as a Jewish State by Rabbi MIchael Lerner, editor, Tikkun

American and Israeli diplomats acknowledge that they do not have the votes to prevent the General Assembly of the United Nations from recognizing Palestine and granting it some of the rights of member states. The U.S. can block full membership only by exercising its veto in the Security Council, an act likely to intensify hatred of the U.S. in many countries around the world.

A far wiser strategy is for the U.S. (even better, with Israel) to introduce a resolution to the Security Council providing full membership in the U.N. to Palestine while simultaneously reaffirming Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Both sides win. Israel will feel less isolated, and Palestinians will get full instead of the only partial and largely symbolic membership in the U.N. it could get from the General Assembly once the U.S. vetoes membership in a Security Council resolution.

The resolution should make clear that this recognition is contingent on both Palestine and Israel respecting the rights of all its citizens and offering them equal protection under the law, and not imposing any religious practices on any of its citizens. Calling Israel a Jewish state does not mean sanctioning existing forms of discrimination that currently exist there against Palestinians, or against its own secular majority which currently suffers from religious coercion by the Orthodox minority (which gets its way because it has enough votes in the Knesset for the major parties to need the religious groups in any coaliton government secular parties might hope to put together).

The primary concern that Palestinians have voiced about calling Israel a Jewish state is the fear that this would a. validate the right of Israel to continue to discriminate against its Arab citizens in housing, employment, education and allocations to Israel's municipalities, and b. close the door to the Palestinian "right of return."

The primary concern that the U.S. has voiced about supporting Palestinian membership is that doing so might end any inclination by Palestinians to engage in negotiations with Israel.

The resolution that the U.S. should introduce could deal with these concerns, using the following formulations:

We call upon both Israel and Palestine to give equal rights in protection, employment, voting, housing, education, health, and all other government-supported activities and programs to all their minority citizens.

We call upon Israel and Palestine to negotiate (in a spirit of open-heartedness, generosity and understanding that both sides' well-being is intrinsically tied to the well-being of the other side and the other side's perception that it is being dealt with respectfully and justly) a lasting peace, to affirm each other's right to exist, and, to make territorial swaps of equivalent territory and strategic and economic value -- based on the pre-1967 border of Israel, as part of creating borders agreed upon by both sides.

Once an agreement has been reached between Israel and Palestine, we call upon all other states in the region to recognize and create warm relationships with Israel and Palestine and to take necessary steps toward the creation of a Middle East common market.

Nothing in this resolution is meant to determine the detailed outcome of those negotiations or to take a stand beyond previous U.N. resolutions on how to best deal with the legitimate security needs of Israel or the best way to end the suffering of Palestinian refugees.

Israel was the first affirmative action state, recognized by the United Nations primarily out of a global recognition that the Jewish people had faced extraordinary persecution through much of the past two thousand years, culminating in the Holocaust. Its policy of giving a special right of return and special rights to immigrant housing is a legitimate response to the vulnerability the Jewish people continue to face in light of continuing hatred of Jews based on prejudicial views of who Jews are and what we stand for.

But that affirmative action should not extend to treating Palestinian citizens of Israel in discriminatory ways in any other respect except immigration. Israel can continue to privilege Jewish culture and history, while encouraging its citizens to also learn Arabic and supporting its Muslim and Christian minorities to celebrate their own holidays and teaching their cultures in Israeli schools, as well.

Similarly, the Palestinian state that is now emerging should be recognized as an affirmation action state, recognized by the United Nations before it has control over any territory of its own as a way to alleviate the special suffering of the Palestinian people. It should have a special right of return and special rights to immigrant housing for Palestinians living anywhere in the world in light of the suffering that Palestinian refugees have faced under occupation by Israel and in Arab countries which have often treated Palestinians in harsh and discriminatory ways.

Why not turn this moment into a victory for both the Israeli and Palestinian people, and one in which the U.S. emerges as a hero rather than a villain?

Please sign the petition to Recognize Palestine and Recognize Israel as a Jewish State: click here.

Please ask your friends, co-workers, colleagues, family members, and contacts (including everyone on Facebook or Tweets) to also sign it. They can simply put the following URL in their seach mechanism and they'll get there:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/525/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7064

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine and author of the forthcoming book, Embracing Israel/Palestine: A Strategy for Peace in the Middle East (Random House, November 2011).

A New Wave of Anti-Semitism Sweeping Europe

By Uri Avnery

Aug. 1, 2011

Countries that always seemed to be models of political sanity suddenly produce fascist rabble-rousers.

The atrocity committed this week by the Norwegian neo-Nazi — is it an isolated incident? Right-wing extremists all over Europe and the US are already declaiming in unison: “He does not belong to us! He is just a lone individual with a deranged mind! There are crazy people everywhere! You cannot condemn a whole political camp for the deeds of one single person!”

Sounds familiar. Where did we hear this before?

Of course, after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

There is no connection between the Oslo mass-murder and the assassination in Tel Aviv. Or is there?

During the months leading up to Rabin’s murder, a growing hate campaign was orchestrated against him. Almost all the Israeli right-wing groups were competing among themselves to see who could demonize him most effectively.

In one demonstration, a photo-montage of Rabin in the uniform of an SS officer was paraded around. On the balcony overlooking this demonstration, Benjamin Netanyahu could be seen applauding wildly, while a coffin marked “Rabin” was paraded below. Religious groups staged a medieval, kabbalistic ceremony, in which Rabin was condemned to death. Senior rabbis took part in the campaign. No right-wing or religious voices were raised in warning.

The actual murder was indeed carried out by a single individual, Yigal Amir, a former settler, the student of a religious university. It is generally assumed that before the deed he consulted with at least one senior rabbi. Like Anders Behring Breivik, the Oslo murderer, he planned his deed carefully, over a long time, and executed it cold-bloodedly. He had no accomplices.

Or had he? Were not all the inciters his accomplices? Does not the responsibility rest with all the shameless demagogues, like Netanyahu, who hoped to ride to power on the wave of hatred, fear and prejudice?

As it turned out, their calculations were confirmed. Less than a year after the assassination, Netanyahu came to power. Now the right-wing is ruling Israel, becoming more radical from year to year, and, lately, it seems, from week to week. Outright Fascists now play leading roles in the Knesset.

All this the result of three shots by a single fanatic, for whom the words of the cynical demagogues were deadly serious.

The latest proposal of our fascists, straight from the mouth of Avigdor Lieberman, is to abrogate Rabin’s crowning achievement: The Oslo agreements. So we come back to Oslo.

When I first heard the news about the Oslo outrage, I was afraid that the perpetrators might be some crazy Muslims. The repercussions would have been terrible. Fortunately, the actual mass-murderer surrendered at the scene of the crime. He is the prototype of a Nazi anti-Semite of the new wave. His creed consists of white supremacy, Christian fundamentalism, hatred of democracy and European chauvinism, mixed with a virulent hatred of Muslims.

This creed is now sprouting offshoots all over Europe. Small radical groups of the ultra-right are turning into dynamic political parties, take their seats in parliaments and even become kingmakers here and there. Countries that always seemed to be models of political sanity suddenly produce fascist rabble-rousers of the most disgusting kind, even worse than the US Tea Party, another offspring of this new Zeitgeist. Lieberman is our contribution to this illustrious worldwide league.

One thing almost all these European and American ultra-rightist groups have in common is their admiration for Israel. In his 1,500 page political manifesto, on which he had been working for a long time, the Oslo murderer devoted an entire section to this. He proposed an alliance of the European extreme right and Israel. For him, Israel is an outpost of Western civilization in the mortal struggle with Islam. (Somewhat reminiscent of Theodor Herzl's promise that the future Jewish state would be an “outpost of Western culture against Asiatic barbarism”?) Part of the professed philo-Zionism of these Islamophobic groups is, of course, pure make-believe, designed to disguise their neo-Nazi character. If you love Jews, or the Jewish state, you can't be a Fascist, right? You bet you can! However, I believe that the major part of this adoration of Israel is entirely sincere.

Right-wing Israelis, who are courted by these groups, argue that it is not their fault that all these hate-mongers are attracted to them. On the face of it, that is of course true. Yet one cannot but ask oneself: Why are they so attracted? Wherein lies this attraction? Does this not warrant some serious soul-searching?

I first became aware of the gravity of the situation when a friend drew my attention to some German anti-Islamic blogs. I was shocked to the core. These outpourings are almost verbatim copies of the diatribes of Joseph Goebbels. The same rabble-rousing slogans. The same base allegations. The same demonization. With one little difference: Instead of Jews, this time it is Arabs who are undermining Western civilization, seducing Christian maids, plotting to dominate the world.

A day after the Oslo events I happened to be watching Aljazeera's English TV network and saw an interesting program. For a whole hour, the reporter interviewed Italian people in the street about Muslims. The answers were shocking.

Mosques should be forbidden. They are places where Muslims plot to commit crimes. Muslims come to Italy to destroy Italian culture. They are parasites, spreading drugs, crime and disease. They must be kicked out, to the last man, woman and child.

I always considered Italians easygoing, lovable people. Even during the Holocaust, they behaved better than most other European peoples. Benito Mussolini became a rabid anti-Semite only during the last stages, when he had become totally dependent on Hitler.

Yet here we are. Barely 66 years after Italian partisans hanged Mussolini's body by his feet in a public place in Milan, a much worse form of anti-Semitism is rampant in the streets of Italy, as in most other European countries.

Europe is in a quandary. They need the “foreigners” — Muslims and all — to work for them, keep their economy going, pay for the pensions of the old people. If all Muslims were to leave Europe tomorrow morning, the fabric of society in Germany, France, Italy and many other countries would break down. Yet many Europeans are dismayed when they see these “foreigners,” with their strange languages, mannerisms and clothes crowding their streets, changing the character of many neighbourhoods, opening shops, marrying their daughters, competing with them in many ways. It hurts. As a German minister once said: “We brought here workers, and found out that we had brought human beings!”

One can understand these Europeans, up to a point. Immigration causes real problems. The migration from the poor South to the rich North is a phenomenon of the 21st century, a result of the crying inequality among nations. It needs an all-European immigration policy, a dialogue with the minorities about integration or multiculturalism. It won't be easy.

But this tidal wave of Islamophobia goes far beyond that. Like a tsunami, it can result in devastation. Many of the Islamophobic parties and groups remind one of the atmosphere of Germany in the early 1920s, when “völkisch” groups and militias were spreading their hateful poison, and an army spy called Adolf Hitler was earning his first laurels as an anti-Semitic orator. They looked unimportant, marginal, and even crazy. Many laughed at this man Hitler, the Chaplinesque moustachioed clown. But the abortive Nazi putsch of 1923 was followed by 1933, when the Nazis took power, and 1939, when Hitler started World War II, and 1942, when the gas chambers were brought into operation.

It is the beginnings which are critical, when political opportunists realize that arousing fear and hatred is the easiest way to fortune and power, when social misfits become nationalist and religious fanatics, when attacking helpless minorities becomes acceptable as legitimate politics, when funny little men turn into monsters.

Source: Arab News

Blind leading the blind

As a supporter of the security needs of Israel and justice to the Palestinians, it’s painful to see the destructive policies of the right-wingers bent on hurting the dreams of founding fathers of Israel; a place for Jews to live without apprehensions.

 Justice to the Palestinians is the only thing that will bring real security and a life free of apprehension to the Jewish people. There is a Chinese saying if you want to remove the enemies, make friends with them, the enemy is gone for good, otherwise both will leave in the fear of the other, no matter how weak or strong one is.

It really pains me to see the blindness of the Rightwing Jewish-Americans and the right-wing Muslims who want to win the wars for their bloody egos and refuse to see another point of view. The voice of reason is vigorously drowned in both the communities and is labeled as self-hating Jew or self-hating Muslim, unless the majority of Jews and Muslims speak up for the good of all, the right wingers continue to rein, they have a gain in it. I have lost a lot of friends (not really) in both the camps, but I'll continue to speak up, hoping that someone among them can see goodness for all.

You cannot be safe and secure when others around you are not. You cannot fathom peace unless it is in you.

There are many Jewish and Muslim voices that need to be considered, I found my own voice in the following article.  It not just Alon Ben-Mier, but Naom Chomsky, Rabbi Lerner, Uri Avnery and a host of Jewish and Muslim intellectuals who want to bring about the change, but they are disowned.

They need your support.

Mike Ghouse committed to cohesive societies.
http://www.mikeghouse.net/

# ##

THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
Alon Ben-Mier

March 28, 2011

It is difficult to be an American Jewish organization advocating support for Israel today. On the one hand, there is the staunch belief that Israel must be defended at all costs, and that any division will expose a weakness in the united Jewish front. On the other, American Jews traditionally advocate progressive policies in domestic and global affairs, which seemingly contradict their hard-line stances in support of an Israeli government that is apt to reject such liberalism. At a time when Israel is led by a government that is steering it toward unending conflict, and whose actions are threatening Israel's Jewish and democratic nature, much of the American Jewish community today is merely echoing the Netanyahu government's talking points. While unity has kept the Jewish world strong throughout the Diaspora, if it is perpetuated through blind support of misguided policies, it could severely undermine Israel's national security in the name of misplaced sense of unity.

The instinct to unify is one that is ingrained in Jews the world over. This heritage of unity goes back not only generations, but millennia. Divisions among the early Israelites are cited as key factors leading to the destruction of the First and Second Temples of ancient Jerusalem. The expulsion of the Hebrews from the Holy Land, and their dispersal throughout the Middle East and Europe, provided the impetus for the elevated importance of Jewish community for centuries. Whether by choice or by force, Jewish communities banded together to survive the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms of Eastern Europe and, of course, the Holocaust and the eventual creation of the Yishuv in what would become the State of Israel. Jewish holidays like Hanukkah and Purim celebrate the success of the Jewish people being saved from the threat of destruction, others like Tisha B'av and Yom Ha'shoah commemorate those periods when Jews failed to do so.

The psyche of a people with a history under almost constant siege has served as the key unifying agent between Israel and the American Jewish community. The narrative of the Jewish people surrounded by hostile enemies, and needing the constant support and vigilance of its brethren to survive, is indeed a powerful one. Today, when faced with the threat of a nuclear Iran, Israeli and American Jewish leaders are often quick to compare the current period to 1939 in an effort to demonstrate the urgent need to safeguard a Jewish people under the threat of annihilation.

Of course, the State of Israel was supposed to change all this. The Zionist ideology was about Jews not cowering in fear of those who would threaten them, but rather about binding together in strength to create a great nation that would proactively serve to protect and defend the Jewish people. And build a great nation they did. Nearly 63 years after the creation of the modern Jewish state, Israel enjoys one of the world's greatest militaries, strong economy despite the worldwide downturn, most advanced technologically and an unprecedented partnership with the global superpower, the United States. In short, today the Jewish people may be more secure, and better off, than ever before.

But the sense of vulnerability within Israel, and among Jews worldwide, has become so deeply engrained that it is hard to recover. Even dissent against Israeli policies which threaten to upend its remarkable accomplishments is intolerable. Those that do so have often been shunted, sidelined and all but discredited completely within their communities. Rather than face such ‘excommunication,' many Jews choose therefore to be silent when it comes to Israel-but their silence is in turn interpreted as acquiescence and even support. This cycle has, at times, become so out-of-hand that Jewish advocates of Israel have surpassed even Israeli hardliners in their defense of the Jewish state and their support for misguided policies. In the past decade, American Jews have contribute over $200 million to West Bank settlements whose more than 500,000 inhabitants-many with American passports-serve as central obstacles to a two-state solution that would secure Israel's democracy as a Jewish state. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is known to have questioned whether he would obtain support from American Jewish leaders in launching the Oslo peace process in 1993. In the midst of pursuing a peace process with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was met with a proposition by the World Jewish Congress demanding that any negotiations on Jerusalem be approved by the Diaspora Jewish community. And, while American Jews do have a measure of influence in Congress, advocates of the Jewish state vociferously deny the often-inflated extent of their influence, while at the same time using the specter of such power to advance their agenda.

This strategy is backfiring against Israel and the United States. Take the recent United States veto of the United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity. Israel and the Jewish community have considered the veto a major victory for Israel, and for the U.S.-Israel relationship. But in truth, it is a defeat. Had Prime Minster Netanyahu been truly committed to a two-states solution, he could have used the resolution as cover to press forward a new peace agenda, with the support of the United States. Or, American Jews could have promoted that the United States support the resolution but ensure that it would serve to oversee its implementation as step toward jumpstarting the dormant peace process. Instead, Israel-and the United States-is even more isolated than it was before, and the mediation and influence of the United States, Israel's most critical benefactor and ally, is being questioned as never before. Even more, as a result of the veto, the notions of Jewish power and conspiracy have again reached a fever pitch, providing fuel to anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments.

In truth, the U.S. decided to veto the resolution for its own reasons. The Obama Administration recognizes that an Israel on the defensive is one that is unlikely to take courageous steps toward peace. It is also true that the United States vetoed the resolution with an eye toward domestic politics. However, those who point to a supposedly all-powerful Jewish lobby as the key source of the Administration's concerns are mistaken. In a recent Gallup poll, 63 percent of Americans indicted that they sympathized with Israel more than the Palestinians, the highest ratings of support for Israel since 1991. American Jews makeup only 2.2 percent of the United States-support for Israel is an American interest, certainly not strictly a Jewish one.

Even so, American Jews have an important voice, and they are failing to use it effectively. To be sure, while a united Jewish people is important, and even critical for the continued survival and growth of global Jewry and its relationship with Israel, this relationship should be based on a shared vision of the future, not on the vulnerability and fears that have characterized the past. American Jews should use their voice today to communicate a different path for the future of Israel's relations with the United States and the Diaspora-and there is no better time to start than now.

With the Arabs of the Middle East rising up against their corrupt dictators and demanding freedom and opportunity, the Arab world will be increasingly more confident and forward-looking than ever. Israel's neighbors clearly will continue to lag behind the Jewish state for the foreseeable future, but as they regain their footing, they will eventually look again to the continued conflict with Israel. That is why Israel, and its brethren in the Diaspora, should not be caught obsessively preparing for the challenges of the past when it could be grasping the opportunity being presented today by the changes occurring in its neighborhood.

American Jews must open their eyes-and help Israel to do the same-to witness the unpleasant realities of the region and the state, and to recognize that they will not disappear simply because they are wished away. Israel and world Jewry today are acting like a reckless gambler, unnecessarily risking the future even though Israel already has the chips it needs to realize all its dreams-if both sides could only open their eyes and grasp them.

*This piece was originally published in the Jerusalem Post on 3/18/2011, and can be accessed at http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=212614

# # #

Fatal Embrace - book by Braverman

FATAL EMBRACE

Mark Braverman on Israel and Palestine in his book "fatal embrace". The story is same with right winger Jews, Muslims, Christians and Hindus - Their solution to the problem is just annhilating the others and not peace. Peace can be had if the if the moderates speak up. Mark Braverman' take is similar to mine. Their aggre...ssiveness aggravated the problem rather than paves the way for peace.

http://markbraverman.org/fatal-embrace/

All Articles

http://israel-palestine-dialogue.blogspot.com/

August 2010
Book: Israel and Palestine, how it all began

July 2010
Muslim acts of heroism during Holocaust
Obama to placate Israel's right-wing leaders

June 2010
Re: Jews to Hold Memorial For Those Slain in Attac...
Re: Uri Avneri assaulted by Right Wing Zionists af...
Israel's defenders mobilize, threaten

May 2010
Reflections on forgiveness

March 2010
Fatal Embrace by Mark Braverman

February 2010
Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem
Is Harvard Prof Advocating Palestinian Genocide?
Who represents Israelis
Zionism: A Fairy Tale or a Terrifying Nightmare

January 2010
Hamas accepts Israel's right to exist
Israel will live - in peace
Israel Lobby
Press Release, Holocaust and Genocides in Dallas
Lesson To Be Learned from Holocaust
The Jerusalem Syndrome
When Does It Become Genocide?
Obama Appointed Self-Hating Anti-Semitism Czar.

December 2009 (1)
The Gaza March

October 2009 (2)
Democrats’ Attacks on Goldstone
Gaza Children to Learn about Holocaust

September 2009 (4)
Israel Is Not for the Jews
Obama, the time has come
Obama caves in to Netanyahu
Solutions for Israel and Palestine

July 2009 (1)
Israel and Saudi Cohorts Now?

June 2009 (10)
Peres leaves for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan
Israel Won't Freeze Settlements
Time for a Common Vision?
Uri Avnery on Obama Speech
OBAMA: Chomsky's Opinion
Moderates support Obama
Pursuing the two-State Solution
Obama's "interference" in Israeli politics
Israel could learn from Sorry Day
Harsh Turn against Israel

May 2009 (3)
Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism
Obama and Netanyahu Meet
Israel and Iran

April 2009 (1)
Bad leadership

March 2009
Moment in History

Feburuary 2009
Israel - 60 Minutes
Myths-or-Facts-001
Holocaust-Genocides
Jerusalem Report
A dialogue on peace
Israel and Palestine

January 2009
Rabbis sign for peace
A dialogue for peace
PR on Second Annual “Reflections on Holocaust and ...
HR 34 : Are we pleasing the lobbyists or the peopl...
Gaza Petitions to stop Killing

December 2008
A few evil men, some Jews some Muslims
Gaza Solutions
List of Articles
Scream Bloody Murder, reflections on Holocaust and...

November 2008
Jewish-Muslim dialogue, a necessity

August 2008
Where Jews and Arabs get along

June 2008
Exploiting the Muslim- Jewish divide
Is It Pandering to Jews?

May 2008
Bush - An enemy of Israel
Israel at 60; a Land of Hope
Who are the Neocons?

APRIL 2008 (4)
AJ Congress on Carter initiative
Carter: Hamas is willing
Carter Peace initiatives
Palestinians versus Tibetans

MARCH 2008 (3)
Bloodbath in Jerusalem
Kill 100 Turks and Rest
Yes we can, peace to Gaza

FEBRUARY 2008 (1)
A Rabbi speaks the truth!

JANUARY 2008 (2)
Israel's false friends
If Americans Knew Israel

DECEMBER 2007 (1)
Happiness for Sale

NOVEMBER 2007 (21)
Annapolis - Include Hamas
Annapolis - the Iran factor
Annapolis - Jewish Question
Annapolis - Syria's place
Annapolis - A Joke
Cease-Fire With Hamas now
Annapolis: Jewish support?
Annapolis : Morton Klein
The last refuge:Uri Avnery
Israel : No right to exist?
Annapolis - Turbulent winds
Annapolis: Naomi and Rafi
Gaza: the final solution
Annapolis - Rabbinic support
Cut Israel off
Annapolis peace conference
Punishing Gaza
Jewish youth and Israel
Is Israel a Jewish State
Anti-Israel Stooges
Peace in Israel & Palestine

Israel will live - in peace

Article by Paul Goldstein follows my comments

Dear Paul, thanks for sharing another point of view to the view of Runderheim. Every one has to strive to be honest when writing about two populations and be open to different points of view. I laud you for bringing your point of view to the fore. Good Job!

Peace is attainable and we should not give up on it. The Jews deserve security and the Palestinians the hope. Peace hinges on hopes for the Palestinians and security for the Israelis, anything short of justice will not produce sustainable peace"

I am yet to see a conference where they invite known radicals, liberals and moderates from both sides. No one has to support anothr point of view, but must be willing to see and acknowledge it. It will extinguish some of the fire when some one is heard. Until we put all our cards on the table, our dialogue remains partial and does not contribute to peace making significantly.

Mike Ghouse
~~~~~~~~~~~

This is an article of mine that was published (in Norwegian) in "Hallingdølen", the newspaper of the Hallingdal region of Norway, in the issue of Jan. 21, 2010. [This was in response to an anti-Israel article of similar length that appeared in the paper the previous week.]
An online link to the published article and the Norwegian text can be found by scrolling down.

ISRAEL WILL LIVE – IN PEACE
by Paul Goldstein

In his piece attacking the State of Israel and Jewish nationhood, Bjarte Runderheim relies on numerous distortions and inaccuracies, as well as ignoring the many relevant facts that would contradict his claims. It does no service to the cause of peace, which requires building two-sided trust, to distort facts in bashing one of the sides to a conflict.

His denial of the legitimacy of a Jewish national homeland ignores the facts of history. Jews have lived in what is now Israel for 4000 years, in an unbroken continuous existence. After their first two states in Palestine were destroyed, a Jewish community (historically called the “Yishuv”) continued to thrive in the land under a series of successive conquering powers.

The Arab population in what is now Israel has its original roots in the Muslim conquest of the region in the 7th century. Jews and Arabs from that point lived together uneasily in the region under differing foreign powers and empires. There was no independent state in Palestine, either Jewish or Arab, from the time of the destruction of the Second Temple (in the year 70) until 1948.

By the time of the 400-year rule of the Ottoman Empire (1517 to 1917), both the Jewish and Arab populations had diminished sharply. The author Mark Twain, travelling through what is now Israel in the mid-19th century, reported the region was mostly a desolate wasteland and sparsely inhabited.

The Yishuv, though, began to grow in that century. By the 1850’s the western part of Jerusalem had a Jewish majority. Spurred by anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia and other areas, European Jews began arriving in 1882, joining the long-standing Yishuv, a people who by that time had been stateless for nearly 2000 years.

As the British took control of the region in 1917 under a League of Nations mandate, the Balfour Declaration was issued, promising the restoration of a Jewish national homeland in part of Palestine. During the British rule of Palestine (1917-1948), Jewish immigration was sharply restricted – even during those years when Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust desperately searched for a safe haven. However, during the British Mandate there was a substantial increase in the area’s Arab population from neighboring lands, an immigration quietly encouraged by the British authorities.

The enormity of the Holocaust, during which countries around the world firmly closed their doors to Jewish refugees and allowed millions of people to be slaughtered, demonstrated the urgent need of a restored Jewish national homeland. The United Nations in 1947, over the objections of Arab countries, authorized the rebirth of Israel, fulfilling a 2000-year-old dream – though only after a third of all the world’s Jews had been murdered.
After the British left on May 14, 1948, the surrounding Arab countries wasted no time in trying to destroy the new Jewish state, co-ordinating a massive attack the following morning.

The years of 1947-1949 were ones of great upheaval in the region, and a massive two-sided population shift took place. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from surrounding Arab countries, fleeing greatly increased persecution, poured into the new Jewish state. At the same time hundreds of thousands of Arab residents of western Palestine fled into neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

As a result of the enormous exodus into Israel of Jews of Arab lands, a majority of Israel’s Jewish population was of Middle Eastern origin (Sephardic or Mizrachi Jews) until the great influx of Soviet Jews at the beginning of the 1990’s. The founding Jewish population of Israel was mostly indigenous to the region with Middle Eastern roots going back thousands of years; European (Ashkenazi) Jews were a 40% minority. Together they created a nation in a land that had never seen any independent state other than a Jewish one.

From the beginning the Arab minority was granted full voting rights and citizenship rights in the new state, and there have always been Arab members in the Knesset [parliament]. Arab citizens of Israel have enjoyed a higher quality of life – in education, literacy, health care, longevity, and financial conditions – than Arabs in the surrounding nations. Relations between Jews and Arabs within Israel have always been relatively peaceful. Nearly all the hostilities have been between Israelis and Arabs living outside the country’s boundaries. Any assessment of Israeli treatment of Palestinians needs to take these facts into account (which Runderheim does not).

What came to be known as the “occupied territories” were a direct result of the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel defeated a co-ordinated effort from the surrounding Arab countries to destroy the Jewish nation. Most of this land has since been returned to Arab control. But plans to withdraw from the West Bank under the Oslo treaties were derailed by an increase in violence and terrorism. Israel withdrew entirely from the Gaza in 2005, but that did not stop terrorist attacks from Hamas, which continues to control the region.

The often-heard rhetorical comparisons to South African apartheid (a word which Runderheim uses several times) have no basis in reality. In the old South Africa three million whites ruled over 20 million blacks, who were denied all voting rights. Blacks were required to live in designated areas, and there was strictly enforced segregation in restaurants, public transportation, and places of recreation such as parks and beaches. In contrast, the Israeli Arab minority has full voting rights, and there is absolutely no segregation or enforced separation. Jews and Arabs mingle freely together in all public facilities.

The “wall” that Runderheim refers to is the security barrier, which for 95% of its length, is fence, not wall. It was designed not for any “apartheid” or separation, but to reduce the instances of terror attacks. In this respect the barrier has “worked”. However, it is most unfortunate that it needed to be erected. Undoubtedly it will come down as a result of resumed peace negotiations.

One-sided bashing in this complex conflict, as Runderheim does, is of no help to anyone. What is needed is a recognition of the national rights of both Jews and Palestinians, and a long-term mutually acceptable peaceful solution borne in negotiation and compromise. One such comprehensive framework already exists – the unofficial 2003 Geneva agreement. It remains only for dedicated and visionary leaders on both sides to put it into effect.

- Paul Goldstein
(published in Norwegian, in “Hallingdølen”, January 21, 2010)
http://www.hallingdolen.no/meiningar/lesarbrev/article112119.ece
~~~~~

The Jerusalem Syndrome

I have always admired the journalists whose integrity remains intact, like that of the writer, she writes, "six Indian journalists were guests of the Israeli government " and yest, in the next para she exercise her freedom, "that was part of Jordan till 1967 and is now under illegal occupation of Israel," I was surprised that they were the guest of Israel government, but appreciated the crtique the next moment.

Why did she choose to call Norman Finkelstein "the radical American scholar"?. The Neocon Jews call him that, but not sure whose language she was using.

Mike Ghouse
~~~~~~~~~~~

The Jerusalem Syndrome
By Neena VyasShare

''Myth-making and demographic cleansing are central to Israel’s legitimisation of its illegal occupation of the Palestinian half of this holy city. ''

The air in Jerusalem is thick with religiosity. Competing claims based on the three great Religions of the Book — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — cry out for the suspension of all disbelief. You are invited to walk several hundred centuries into the past to revisit the conflicts that in many ways are at the root of the 60-year-old crisis in the Middle East today.

No wonder tourists, visitors and even residents are awe-struck by the holiness of the place and some are taken in by the Jerusalem Syndrome — waiting for Christ to return; or the advent of the Jewish Messiah, the Redeemer, son of King David, who will usher in an era of peace; or look in wonder at the Al Aqsa Mosque from where Prophet Muhammad ascended the golden stairs to the Seventh Heaven.

“Jerusalem is a bubble,” said writer Shifra Horn over dinner. As we ate a delicious kosher meal in the city just a few days before Christmas — six Indian journalists were guests of the Israeli government — Ms. Horn talked about the Jerusalem Syndrome. “Haven’t you come across people waiting for the Second Coming of Christ? The Crusaders called it the Jerusalem fever… after a visit here people fantasise about the city for the rest of their lives.”

Here is where myth blends into history, fiction and legend are presented as a melodramatic reality play, and history cannot be separated from mythology and legend without offending someone’s religious sensitivity. But most of all, Jerusalem and the legends associated with it are an intrinsic part of the political plan to legitimise the presence of a Zionist state in the midst of predominantly Muslim Arab nations.

In the old walled city of Jerusalem — that was part of Jordan till 1967 and is now under illegal occupation of Israel — Jewish people from all over the world come to the Western Wall (popularly known as the Wailing Wall) to grieve over the two lost temples by which they define their nationhood. The old Wall, we were told, is what remains of the temple complex, marking the compound where the Biblical King Solomon’s temple stood, never mind the fact that the grand old Al Aqsa Mosque has been standing at the spot since the eighth century A.D. And as if this was not enough to make us tremble under the weight of the old conflicts, a few metres away Stations of the Cross mark the path Jesus took to Crucifixion. And the Church of the Holy Sepulchre marks the empty grave from where Jesus miraculously rose from the dead three days after his death.

Myth and legend dating back some 3,000 years are an inseparable part of Zionism. This is the Biblical “promised land” and Jerusalem is central to it. The now non-existent Jewish temples on this Temple Mount are crucial to the Israelis’ claim that this is their ancient land.

In 2002, Yasser Arafat had challenged Israelis to find a “single stone from the Temple of Solomon.” They have been digging around for 34 years without finding even one, he pointed out.

Undoing the intervening centuries since King Solomon and pushing under the carpet the atrocities inflicted on Palestinians and Arabs has been an official Israeli project from the start. In a lengthy article “An Introduction to the Israeli-Palestine Conflict,” the radical American scholar Norman Finkelstein quotes the first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, to make the point that “settlement” was the weapon used by the Zionist movement “to establish a great Jewish fact” in Israel.

The “great Jewish fact,” it would seem, is being established by not only presenting religious beliefs as history, but by engineering the demography of the walled city.

A Moroccan quarter was cleaned out to make way for the compound in front of the Wailing Wall; after the 1967 “capture” of East Jerusalem by Israel, thousands of Muslim Arabs left or were forced to leave. Israeli law prevents them from returning to claim their properties. We saw refurbished modern apartments housing ultra-orthodox Jews that have come up exactly across the compound.

It seems the process is slow but never-ending. A CNN report said in 2008 that more than 4,500 residency permits of Muslim Arabs were withdrawn and more than 8,500 were “cleansed out” in the previous years. Mr. Finkelstein quotes British Labour MP Richard Crossman as saying in the 1940s: “Zionism is… the attempt by the European Jew to build his national life on the soil of Palestine…” and the Arab must “go down before the march of progress”.

The former Israeli Foreign Minister, Moshe Dayan (whose incognito visit to India in the 1970s led to India eventually establishing diplomatic ties with Israel) had admitted that Israelis were “a generation of settlers, and without the combat helmet and the barrel of a gun, we will not be able to plant a tree or build a house.”

He might as well have added that without U.S. aid of some $3 billion a year and German guilt money totalling some €64 billion (including sums paid to private entities) the Israeli economic miracle of $24,000 per capita income, a war machine like no other, and lush fruits and vegetables in greenhouses in the middle of the desert may not have been possible.

“There is a longing for peace... but in 1967 war was imposed on us [by the Arabs],” continued Ms. Horn over dinner. “Yes, we took advantage of that war to take and keep a bigger Israel [including the walled city of Jerusalem],” she admitted. “We are the survivors of the Holocaust… everywhere we lived as minorities… now we are settled here; for us this country is a shelter…”

But what about the Palestinians, whose home this was? “I’m very, very sad we cannot live like in a normal country…we believe our [Muslim Arabs and Jews] DNA is similar… Palestinians were Jews converted to Christianity or Islam…”

The script was familiar to Indians. After all, have we not heard the Hindu Right fanatics declare their love for Muslims (and Christians), for after all, were they not Hindus not so long ago?

As Jewish settlers from around the world were invited to return to “the promised land” to resolve what some European scholars have described as Europe’s “Jewish problem,” the price of European anti-semitism and Hitler’s genocide began to be paid by the Arabs. Edward Said put it briefly: what the Holocaust was to the Jews, the Naqba (the day of disaster when Israel was created in 1948) is to the Palestinians.

Just 20 months ago when Israel celebrated its 60th birth anniversary, some 100 Jewish intellectuals wrote a letter to The Guardian explaining why they would not celebrate the event. Even as Israel was born, Plan Dalet was put into operation, authorising the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expulsion of its people, they said. Some 400 villages were wiped off the map. In all 7,50,000 Palestinians became refugees. They will not celebrate Israel’s birth.

The question of refugees popped up during a conversation with an Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry official. “Yes,” he said, “there were refugees, but the total number was small. Instead of keeping them in camps, why couldn’t Lebanon and other Arab countries absorb this population? They want to keep the problem alive…” Of course, the question of Israel absorbing them did not arise, we supposed. Israeli law does not allow Muslim Arabs who have left their homes, for whatever reason, to return.

Through myth-making or an act of faith, the repeated attempt is to prove that Jews have been here since Biblical times and that this land belongs to them. Arab presence is simply an inconvenient fact.

It is the same theme everywhere. “Sixty years ago we were given this land to set up kibbutz Ein Gedi,” said Ron Meir as we were shown around the botanical gardens maintained by the kibbutz, situated not far from Jerusalem. “We were just 3 km from the Jordanian border. The idea was to establish a Jewish presence in this desert…”

But the young in Israel may be changing; at least that is the hope, said film producer Sylvain Biegeleisen. “Hundreds of films have been made about the conflict… I made a series of giving cameras to children on both sides…when Rabin and Arafat shook hands I made a film on what people felt… on both sides they want peace… Yes, there is a censor, but few films have been banned...”

There are strong, dissenting voices within Israel — even among the young who are forced to do military duty. But reports suggest that there is a renewed attempt by the Israeli government to muzzle all voices that question its militarist policies.

Something needs to be done. “Israelis need to integrate with the Middle East. We cannot forever remain like some strange European bodies in the middle of the desert,” said foodie Janna Gur, noting the Lebanese, the Moroccan and the Palestinian influences on what goes as Israeli cuisine.

When will peace come to the Middle East, pocked by conflict for 60 years? Why does Israel have to respond with such ferocity to every hostile act by Hamas even when that has not caused much damage or injury? David Goldfarb in the South Asia Department of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, who attempted an answer, was, perhaps, looking for a Second Coming of a different kind: “For that to happen we would need two Gandhis, one on our side and another on the other side.”
~~~~

Gaza Children to Learn about Holocaust

A new initiative by the United Nations.

I have been writing about this topic for nearly twenty five years, that a few basics need to be addressed and understood by all the parties in the conflict.

Neither Israeli nor the Palestinian leadership has focused on the human aspect or even the religious aspect of the conflict. The majorities on both sides want peace, unfortunately the one's running the show are revenge seekers and perhaps believe that peace comes after revenging is done. I hope the new breed of leaders emerge who are equipped with a heart to see the endlessness to revenge and a mind to see the wisdom in peace making that brings security and prosperity to the next generation.

Jews have a need to be understood and be acknowledged for their eternal security needs, not the military, but mental security where they can put their guards down and live their life in peace.

Palestinians have a need to be understood. They have suffered immeasurably; no human should be stripped of his or her hope and dignity; hopes to have a family, work and own a house and call a place their homeland.

The following initiative by the United Nations must be lauded. The Palestinians need to understand the suffering of the Jews and I hope a similar initiative is taken where the Israelis watch the conditions of hopelessness that the people of Palestine endure. Peace is in the interest of both people and these initiatives must be encouraged where the sleeping empathies are awakened.

Mike Ghouse

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/teach-gaza-children-about-holocaust-un-tells-hamas-1797763.html

Teach Gaza children about Holocaust, UN tells Hamas,
Donald Macintyre reveals controversial plans to include a Jewish tragedy in lessons for Palestinian children

Monday, 5 October 2009

Palestinian schoolchildren should learn about the Nazis' slaughter of Europe's Jewish population during the Second World War as part of a curriculum component based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNRWA says

The United Nations' refugee agency is planning to include the Holocaust in a new human-rights curriculum for Gaza's secondary-school pupils, despite strident opposition to the idea from within Hamas.

John Ging, the UN Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) director of operations in Gaza, told The Independent that he was "confident and determined" that the Holocaust would feature for the first time in a wide-ranging curriculum that is being drafted.

Mr Ging, a passionate advocate for Palestinian civilians in Gaza who has recently faced increasingly personal criticism and even threats by elements in the Islamic faction, added: "No human-rights curriculum is complete without the inclusion of the facts of the Holocaust, and its lessons."

The draft, to be completed within weeks and then put out for consultation with parents and the public, is built on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was agreed by the UN General Assembly in 1948 in the shadow of what it called the "barbarous acts" committed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

The one-time Irish Army officer has long been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy towards Gaza, including the conduct of last winter's lethal military offensive and what he described more than once in his interview as the "illegal siege".

Mr Ging said the curriculum would explain the genesis, and "inculcate the values" of the Universal Declaration which stipulates that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". He pointed out that the UN General Assembly in 2005 unanimously urged "all countries to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to children so that we learn from history, so that we don't repeat history".

Although the UNRWA director strongly emphasised that the de facto Hamas government had not sought to interfere with the agency =96 which is responsible for the welfare of some 1 million Gaza refugees =96 other figures in the movement have angrily condemned the idea of including the Holocaust in any part of the curriculum. Yunis al Astal, a religious leader and a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said last month that it would be "marketing a lie" and a "war crime" to do so.

Mr Ging said the new curriculum would also include "tangible examples"
of other "blights and stains in human history". He added: "We want to succeed with the active support of the civilian population who want their children to be part of the civilised world and who have no interest in challenging globally accepted facts; no more than ... they start challenging whether the earth goes round the sun, or Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or the ethnic cleansing of the Balkans, or the genocide in Rwanda, or apartheid in South Africa; or, for that matter, the Nakba." The last event on his list was the Palestinians' "day of catastrophe", the flight or forced expulsion of some 700,000 refugees in the 1948 war which saw the foundation of Israel.

He continued: "This is also part of the frustration here. There are so many global tragedies and travesties that are learned worldwide. Who learns about the Nakba? Again [that is] a very reasonable and legitimate demand but it's not 'either/or'; it's both."

Mr Ging added that UNRWA wanted to teach children that "those who fight for justice must fight with justice =96 lawful actions are the only way to prevail". "The children of Gaza need this more than children elsewhere, because their daily experience is not giving them the example they need to have," he said. He cited the struggles led by such figures as Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela who "eventually prevailed".

"We also want to teach them what he did when he prevailed," he explained. "He didn't seek retribution. He fought for human rights for all South Africans not just for black South Africans."
He added that the curriculum would also seek to demonstrate that war crimes, such as those in Rwanda and in the Balkans, can be punished by international law. "We are not seeking to transform the value system of the people of Gaza. We're seeking to protect the value system of the people of Gaza, and that's why the community will support us."

He argued that tackling the issue "would be so simple if we didn't have the illegality of the [Israeli-imposed] siege ... and the war and all the other illegalities that are the daily life of Palestinians here in Gaza", such as, "the fishermen not being allowed out to fish, sanitation not working, water being undrinkable, the private sector having lost all of the jobs and the dignity of work, students not being able to travel out of Gaza, sick people being trapped in Gaza.

"[It] is a seemingly endless list of travesty and injustice but we can't wait for those to be righted before we also do more to counter the effect of all that." Mr Ging said that the human-rights component in the existing curriculum had not been adequate to tackle topics of concern in Gaza, including the illegality of firing rockets, the issue of what constituted lawful resistance, and the effect of propaganda and "anti-Semitic rhetoric".

Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan last night declined to comment.
#

Israel Is Not for the Jews

Mr. Spencer writes that the problems and conflicts have begun since the Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948 and grudgingly acknowledges that the problem between Jews and Arabs is a phenomenon of 20th century and not in the past.

The conflict is about land and must be dealt as such. Those who have an interest in keeping the conflict going as it may ensure their existence, keep injecting religion into it? The problem is between the Arabs and Israelis and it should be handled based on justice, security and long terms sustainable peace for all.

To blame Islam or Judaism will not take any one further. Mr. Spencer, quit using the religion to aggravate the situation, instead find the scriptures to justify co-existence. Both the scriptures say to save a life is to save the whole humanity. Do Jews and Muslims believe in this? They do, it is the extremist Jews and Muslims that are the problem.

I hope we spend time on mitigating the conflicts and nurturing goodwill rather than aggravating it.

Mike Ghouse beleives peace makers are mitigators of conflicts and nurturers of goodwill. His views are listed on several blogs, which are all listed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/
# # #


The Qur'an: Israel Is Not for the Jews

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200909236546/global-terrorism/the-quran-israel-is-not-for-the-jews.html


Written by Robert Spencer - JihadWatch.org
WEDNESDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2009 02:47

Editors' preface: Who has rights to the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River? Zionists cite biblical passages in which God awarded them Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, in perpetuity in his covenant with the children of Israel. Muslims make a counter-claim based in part on verses of the Qur'an that describe the Jews in terms of contempt and in part on rulings in Muslim law that reject Muslims relinquishing rule over a territory under Muslim rule to nonbelievers. But other Muslims cite different Qur'anic verses in support of the Jewish claim. The conflict has a religious quality that makes it the more difficult to resolve.

The Middle East Quarterly commissioned two essays presenting different views of the Qur'an and its passages dealing with the Holy Land and Jews. The first author, Robert Spencer, argues that Islamic law has not recognized and will never recognize Jewish rights to this territory. In a second essay, Muhammad Al-Hussaini, a Muslim scholar, understands the text of the Qur'an to award the Holy Land to the Jews for all time, and he holds that Muslims can be convinced of this interpretation.

The status of Israel has become a pivotal issue in all talks about the Middle East. Israel's legitimacy rests, not just on United Nations resolutions or Zionist aspirations, but, for many, on Biblical narratives and the historical connections of Jews with the Holy Land. A minority of Muslims find justification for the Zionist enterprise equally in the Bible and the Qur'an and believe that the Qur'an offers divine sanction for the establishment of a Jewish state in southern Syria. However, the majority cite other Qur'anic verses and passages from the Hadith (purported records of the Prophet Muhammad's actions and sayings), stating the exact opposite. This second, negative attitude toward Jews is expressed in sacred texts and in the body of Shari'a (Islamic law) where Jews, like all non-Muslims, are assigned a status that does not permit their becoming rulers over Muslims or over Muslim territory.

Traditionally, this has not been an issue. Under the different Muslim empires, Jews were kept firmly in their place and represented no sort of threat to the ruling order. It is only in the modern period that this has become a burning issue. Thus, the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the British Mandate to modern Israel has been as much a religious as a political clash. The Arab onslaught of 1948 was religiously motivated, as is modern opposition to Israel by Islamist groups.

The Hamas charter asserts that "the Islamic Resistance Movement [i.e. Hamas] regards Palestine as an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future generations until Judgment Day." A waqf is a religious endowment bestowed by God. Consequently, "neither it, nor any part of it, should be squandered: Neither it, nor any part of it, should be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgment Day."[1]

The charter is not unique: It represents a mainstream view among Muslims today. In contrast, several Muslim spokesmen have recently claimed that the Qur'an promises Israel to the Jews and that the claims of Hamas, Hezbollah, and allied groups are illegitimate on Islamic grounds. [2]

This is a comforting message, which some of these spokesmen have taken to Jewish audiences, reinforcing the idea that the Islamic jihad imperative against Israel is simply the province of a tiny minority of extremists and that the voices of reason, moderation, and Qur'anic authenticity will eventually prevail.

Muhammad al-Hussaini's Liberal Stance

Among these scholars is British-based imam Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hussaini, who asserts that early Muslim intellectuals recognized that Israel belonged to the Jews. "You will find very clearly that the traditional commentators from the eighth and ninth century onwards have uniformly interpreted the Koran to say explicitly that Eretz Yisrael [Heb. The Land of Israel] has been given by God to the Jewish people as a perpetual convenant [sic]. There is no Islamic counterclaim to the Land anywhere in the traditional corpus of commentary."[3]

Although an extremely comforting message to supporters of Israel, it is not true and is based on a partial and inaccurate reading of the Qur'an.

Hussaini bases his argument primarily upon Qur'an 5:21 in which Moses declares: "O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has prescribed for you, and turn not back in your traces, to turn about losers." [4] He then cites the classic Qur'an commentator Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (838-923), who explains that this statement is "a narrative from God ... concerning the saying of Moses ... to his community from among the children of Israel and his order to them according to the order of God to him, ordering them to enter the holy land."[5]

Tabari is not unique in this. Another respected Muslim exegete, Ibn Kathir (1301-73), says about Qur'an 5:21 that the Jews "were the best among the people of their time. ... God states next that Moses encouraged the children of Israel to perform jihad and enter Jerusalem, which was under their control during the time of their father Jacob. Jacob and his children later moved with his household to Egypt during the time of Prophet Joseph. His offspring remained in Egypt until their exodus with Moses. They found a mighty, strong people in Jerusalem who had previously taken it over. Moses, God's Messenger, ordered the children of Israel to enter Jerusalem and fight their enemy, and he promised them victory and triumph over the mighty people if they did so."[6]

But that is not the end of the story. Ibn Kathir then says that the Jews "declined, rebelled, and defied his order and were punished for forty years by being lost, wandering in the land, uncertain of where they should go. This was their punishment for defying God's command." In contrast, "The Muslim Ummah [community] is more respected and honored before God, and has a more perfect legislative code and system of life, it has the most honorable Prophet, the larger kingdom, more provisions, wealth and children, a larger domain and more lasting glory than the children of Israel."[7]

The idea that the "glory" of the children of Israel was not lasting explains why Hussaini's exegesis is incomplete. He quotes Tabari, saying that God wanted the children of Israel to enter the Holy Land but stops short at the rest of what the Qur'an says about them. But he argues that this promise is lasting, basing his comments on the nature of the Qur'an itself as understood in traditional Islamic theology: "It was never the case during the early period of Islam ... that there was any kind of sacerdotal attachment to Jerusalem as a territorial claim. Jerusalem is holy but Mount Sinai is more holy. Sinai is mentioned far more often, and Jerusalem isn't actually mentioned [in the Qur'an] by name."[8]

If this exegesis is correct, why does the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia manifest such hostility to Israel? Why have so few Muslims noticed that God wants the Jews to possess the Holy Land? One answer is that Hussaini's primary authority, Tabari, has more to say about the Jews. Qur'an 2:61 says of some Jews who rebelled against Moses that "abasement and poverty were pitched upon them, and they were laden with the burden of God's anger; that, because they had disbelieved the signs of God and slain the Prophets unrightfully; that, because they disobeyed, and were transgressors." Qur'an 9:29 directs Muslims to "[f]ight those who believe not in God and the Last Day and do not forbid what God and His Messenger have forbidden-such men as practice not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled." "Those who have been given the Book" is the Qur'anic term for Jews and Christians, and the tribute (jizya) is a poll tax levied upon the People of the Book in an Islamic state. Tabari discusses 2:61 in the context of 9:29, emphasizing that this tax was meant to be humiliating:

Abasement and poverty were imposed and laid down upon them, as when someone says "the imam imposed the poll tax (jizya) ... on non-Muslim subjects," or "The man imposed land tax on his slave," meaning thereby that he obliged him [to pay] it ... God commanded His believing servants not to give them [i.e., non-Muslims] security-as long as they continued to disbelieve in Him and his Messenger-unless they pay the poll tax to them.[9]

Conversion or Submission of Jews

The principle that Muslims must not give the Jews security unless they convert to Islam or pay the jizya directly contradicts Hussaini's assertion that they were to possess the land forever. A people that may never have security unless it converts or submits to the rule of others cannot have a land to rule by itself. The idea that "good Jews" are those who convert to Islam is deeply rooted in Islamic tradition. In the 1970s, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, currently the grand sheikh of Cairo's Al-Azhar University and the leading authority for Sunni Muslims today, wrote a 700-page treatise, Jews in the Qur'an and the Traditions, in which he concluded:
[The] Qur'an describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah, corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people's wealth frivolously, refusing to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness ... only a minority of the Jews keep their word. ... [A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims, the bad ones do not.[10]

The Jews and Christians who do not believe in Muhammad as a prophet will find that "shame is pitched over them (like a tent) wherever they are found, except when under a covenant (of protection) from Allah and from men." [11] This probably refers to the dhimma, the contract of protection under which Jews and Christians live as subject peoples under Islamic rule. However, even if one understands it to refer to the covenant that God made with the Jews to give them the Land of Israel, the Qur'an also says that they broke their contract:

So for their breaking their compact we cursed them and made their hearts hard, they perverted words from their meanings; and they have forgotten a portion of that they were reminded of; and thou wilt never cease to light upon some act of treachery on their part, except a few of them. Yet pardon them, and forgive; surely God loves the good-doers.[12]

Being thus accursed, the Jews are not the legitimate heirs of the promise made in Qur'an 5:21. The true heirs are those who have remained faithful to God (i.e., the Muslims), not those whom he has cursed (i.e., the Jews). Even this is not the full extent of Qur'anic anti-Semitism. The Muslim holy book contains many passages that form the foundation for hatred of Jews that exists independently of the actions of contemporary Jews or the State of Israel. The Qur'an portrays the Jews as the craftiest, most persistent, and most implacable enemies of the Muslims.
The Qur'an is supplemented by the Hadith, purported records of the Prophet Muhammad's actions and sayings. Some hadith predict that at the end of the world, in the words of Ibn Kathir, "the Jews will support the Dajjal (false messiah), and the Muslims, along with 'Isa [Jesus], son of Mary, will kill the Jews." [13] The idea that the end times will be marked by Muslims killing Jews comes from Muhammad himself, who said, according to a hadith, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say: 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.'"[14]

This hadith is a favorite motif among contemporary jihadists. On March 30, 2007, Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan said on Palestinian Authority television:

The Hour [resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, and the rock and the tree will say: "Oh, Muslim, servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, kill him!

Continuation of Qur'anic Anti-Semitism

A vivid illustration of the Qur'an's enmity toward the Jews and how contemporary Islamic spokesmen echo it, came in 2004 from Islam Online, a website founded by the internationally influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Although Qaradawi has won praise from Islamic studies professor John Esposito for engaging in a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism, and human rights," that reformist impulse does not carry over to Qaradawi's view of Jews (he has justified suicide bombings against Israeli civilians), or the anti-Semitism he has allowed to be published on Islam Online.[15]

In 2004, the site posted an article entitled, "Jews as Depicted in the Qur'an," in which Sheikh 'Atiyah Saqr, former head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar University and Seminary in Cairo, depicts Jews in a chillingly negative light, illustrated with quotations from the Qur'an. [16] Among other charges he levels at the Jews, Saqr says that they "used to fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to God"; they "love to listen to lies"; they disobey God and ignore his commands; they wish "evil for people" and try to "mislead them"; and they "feel pain to see others in happiness and are gleeful when others are afflicted with a calamity."[17]

Though he offers many examples of the alleged evil traits of the Jews supported by the Qur'an, Saqr does not mention the notorious Qur'anic passages that depict an angry God transforming Jews into apes and pigs. The first of these depicts God telling the Jews who "transgressed the Sabbath ... Be you apes, miserably slinking!" It goes on to say that these accursed ones serve "as a punishment exemplary for all the former times and for the latter."[18]

The implication is that today's Jews are bestial in character and are the enemies of God, just as the Sabbath-breakers were. Tantawi has called Jews "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs." [19] Saudi sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudayyis, imam of the principal mosque in the holiest city in Islam, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, has said in a sermon that Jews are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs."[20]

Yet Hussaini actually asserts that the Muslims who oppose his perspective have no Qur'anic case, asserting that "no fundamentalist, no matter how hard they try, can overrule the existing tradition to say there is, in fact, an Islamic counterclaim to Eretz Yisrael." [21] The Qur'anic evidence above explains why mainstream Muslim voices and prominent Muslim leaders never invoke Qur'an 5:21 to argue that Muslims ought not to be waging jihad against Israel. This is simply not a mainstream view or one that most of those who are familiar with the totality of the Qur'an would ever advance. It gives Jews and all supporters of Israel hope, yes, but only a false hope.

Muslims can get beyond anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism only by forthrightly acknowledging that the Qur'an and Sunna do, indeed, teach that the Jews are accursed and are to be warred against. Muslims must explicitly formulate theological frameworks that reject literalism in this regard. To deny that the Qur'anic evidence actually says what it does, however, is only to allow the endemic and pandemic problem of Islamic anti-Semitism to continue unchallenged.
------------------------
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery, 2005) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery, 2006).
[1] "The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)," Aug. 18, 1988.
[2] See, for example, Abdul Hadi Palazzi, "What the Qur'an Really Says," Viewpoint, Winter 1998; Jamie Glazov, "The Koran and the Jews," interview with Khaleel Mohammed, FrontPageMagazine.com, June 3, 2004.
[3] Simon Rocker, "What the Koran Says about the Land of Israel," The Jewish Chronicle, Mar. 19, 2009.
[4] All translations of the Qur'an from A.J. Arberry, ed., The Koran (London: Allen and Unwin, 1955, subsequently Oxford University Press).
[5] Rocker, "What the Koran Says about the Land of Israel."
[6] Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged), vol. 3 (London: Darussalam, 2000), pp. 142-3.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Rocker, "What the Koran Says about the Land of Israel."
[9] Andrew Bostom, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2008), p. 35.
[10] Ibid., p. 33.
[11] Qur'an 3:112.
[12] Qur'an 5:13.
[13] Muhammed Ibn Ismaiel al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari: The Translation of the Meanings, vol. 4, book 56, Muhammad M. Khan, trans. (Houston: Darussalam, 1997), no. 2925.
[14] Ibid.
[15] John Esposito, "Practice and Theory: A Response to 'Islam and the Challenge of Democracy,'" Boston Review, Apr./May 2003; "Al-Qaradawi full transcript," BBC News, July 8, 2004.
[16] Qur'an 3:75; 5:64; 3:181; 5:41; 5:13; 2:109; 3:120; 2:61; 2:74; 2:100; 59:13-4; 2:96; 2:79.
[17] Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch, no. 691, Apr. 6, 2004.
[18] Qur'an 2:63-6; 5:59-60; 7:166.
[19] MEMRI, Special Report, no. 11, Nov. 1, 2002.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Rocker, "What the Koran Says about the Land of Israel."
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This article republished by gracious permission of The Middle East Quarterly
Author:
Robert Spencer
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2009, pp. 3-8
The Middle East Forum
http://www.meforum.org/2462/the-quran-israel-not-for-jews