The Rabbi of hate

The Rabbi of hate
By Khalid Amayreh

“So I believe that I act in the spirit of the Almighty God. By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1924

“A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail” - Dov Lior, Rabbi of Kiryat Arba

“We will carry out a greater holocaust against the Palestinians,” - Matan Vilnai, Deputy Defense Minister, 1 March, 2006

Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, which represents Jews from the Middle East, has urged Jews around the world to pray for Israeli soldiers, not only on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, but also on Mondays and Thursdays.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, Yosef told his followers that Israeli soldiers need to be blessed by the Almighty for killing and maiming hundreds of Palestinians, mostly innocent civilians, in the past few days.

“Had it not been for them, would we have time to study the Torah? To turn the books,” Yosef was quoted as saying Saturday night during his weekly sermon in Jerusalem.

It is really lamentable that Yosef thinks that it is only through murder and genocide of Palestinians that Jews can sit down and study the Torah.

Jews, after all, have been studying the Torah for many centuries without “Jewish soldiers” engaging themselves in mass murder, mass terror and mass oppression. Does the rabbi think that linking Torah studies to mass murder in Gaza brings honor to the Torah and to Judaism?

Yosef, who on several occasions called Palestinians “rats,” is considered by many in Israel as one of the greatest living sages of the Torah. However, his enthusiastic support for ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinians caricatures a sinister man who quotes ancient texts to justify every conceivable crime against humanity and every abomination against God and man.

Yosef is not unaware of the Nazi-like atrocities the soldiers he is blessing have committed and are committing in Gaza.

He knows too well that an army that murders innocent civilians, including babies in their mothers’ laps, is not an army of righteous soldiers, but rather an army of thugs and criminals, not unlike the Gestapo and SS and wehrmacht.

I understand that some Zionist rabbis tend to believe in the horrible idea that in war time, there is no such a thing as “innocent civilians of the enemy.” In other words, “All’s fair in love and war.”

But this is a stunningly immoral concept that degrades man to cannibalistic savagery. Because then every mass murderer from Adolph Hitler, to Joseph Stalin, to Ariel Sharon, to Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak could justify the mass murder of civilians on the ground that in wartime, no holds are barred. Indeed, this would be the most comfortable justification for all the holocausts, genocides, pogroms and inquisitions in the world since Adam and Eve.

Well, I really wonder how these rabbis of evil, people such Yosef, Dov Lior, David Batsri, and many many others, would react if a Nazi apologist argued that the mass killings of Jews during the holocaust was a perfectly justified and legitimate act “since we viewed European Jewry as our number-1 enemy, and we were at war, and in wartime there is no such a thing as innocent civilians of the enemy.”

Now, what is the difference between a rabbi praying for and blessing an army that has just murdered and maimed hundreds of innocent people in Gaza, and a German Nazi priest praying for and blessed Nazi killers who had just carried out one of those pacification raids in central or Eastern Europe?

Does the rabbi think that a holocaust by Jews is kosher? Does he think that non-Jewish children and women and men are un-human, or lesser humans? What kind of Torah is he studying? Does he think that the Torah prohibition against murder covers only “Jews”?

Rabbi Yosef is more than just an unenlightened old man; he is actually an evil man. He is evil because in the name of the Torah and in the name of Judaism, he tries to make evil look good, ugliness look fair and cardinal sins against God and man look as great acts of charity.

It is really hypocritical that while many Zionists don’t stop denouncing Catholic religious leaders for supporting the Third Reich and for keeping silent in the face of the Holocaust, rabbis, even prominent rabbis, such as Yosef, are more or less indulging in the same evil behavior they are denouncing.

Yosef may be a learned man in matter of Jewish theology. But he seems to be a dwarf in understanding the moral messages of the Torah. Because if he were truly faithful to the true spirit of Judaism, he should realize that murdering innocent people-non-Jews as well as Jews- is the greatest crime under the sun.

Doesn’t he read “Thou Shall not murder”? Doesn’t he read “thou shall not oppress?” Is this his way of making “Tikkun Ha’olam,” or fixing the world, by blessing and encouraging child killers and mass murderers?

It is sad how men of religion who think they are hallowing the name of God are actually doing Satan’s work.

And we wonder why the world is in such a mess!

– Khalid Amayreh resides in the West Bank

Merchants of Lethal Deceit

Merchants of Lethal Deceit
Tariq A. Al-Maeena, talmaeena@aol.com

Five years into the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, US President George Bush claims it’s been worth the haul. And although he claims he sheds tears for every one of the 4,000 soldiers he has sent to their death, little or no mention is made of an estimated one million or more innocent Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives as a result of his grand adventure.

Remember the proponents of the aggression then? One of the strongest, Tony Blair of UK, is now keeping himself as far away from Bush as possible, and privately conceding that this adventure was a “horrible mistake”. Was he led into this deceitful adventure by the smooth-talking neocons of the Bush administration and the gentle prodding by Bush himself?

Whatever happened to Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Donald Rumsfeld, those active cheerleaders of a murderous and unlawful invasion of countries that harbored no ill will toward the United States or the American people?

Now facts have proven that this carnage was built on an orchestrated deception, first among Bush’s constituents through selective manipulation of the media, and later by presenting false evidence to the world community, the United Nations.

These past five years will remain embedded in the minds of those who had lost their loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan with pain and anguish. For it was under the US commander in chief’s instructions that US soldiers used their most brutal practices among the prisoners by systematic acts of rape, sodomy and torture. They dehumanized their captives. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have become synonyms for gross human rights violations.

This continued and sustained assault on these two countries is a violation that has for the most part remained unchecked. Most nations are noticeably quiet on US transgressions in the region. It has not, however, failed to create deep chasms of animosity and suspicion of Bush’s intentions. His talk of “spreading democracy in the Middle East” is now met with derision.

For poll after poll has proven that the inhabitants of Afghanistan and Iraq see themselves as worse off today than before the acts of aggression began. And really, what was it that Bush was after?

There were no weapons of mass destruction. Nor was there any sign of ill will in either country toward the United States. Was it the oil? Well maybe, but there was always the specter of an Israeli lobby dictating terms and manipulating things.

Many of those smooth-talking neocons who convinced their constituents of a doomsday situation if Iraq was not invaded are not around today parading in front of the world’s media with their false assertions. Perhaps they are keeping a low profile for fear of being charged for these crimes against humanity in some tribunal sometimes in the future.

For, if you strip away all irrational rhetoric, what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan is indeed a crime. A war crime to match the Israeli aggression and occupation of Palestine! How closely were the two operations orchestrated with Bush and Sharon in power?

And while one languishes in a vegetative state, the other is free to continue his acts of violence unchecked and unfettered.

And not satisfied with the amount of innocent blood already spilled, he is now pushing for another bloody adventure, this time against Iran.

Iran is an Islamic state, and Bush should think long and hard before contemplating any such moves. He lacks credibility when he talks about Iran’s threat to the region and his evidence is dismissed as a joke.

The people in this region have seen and heard enough. The real threat has never been Iran. The real threat has been the willingness of some to believe what Bush says.

While Bush and his remaining neocons work covertly with the Israelis in an effort to convince the world body of the threat Iran poses, such alarmist talk has indeed been falling on deaf ears in the region.

As for the tears Bush says he sheds for the fallen, everyone knows they are as fake as the evidence he presented to justify his wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Terrorism — Compare and Contrast

Terrorism — Compare and Contrast
Tanya Hsu, tanyahsu@mindspring.com

Last week in Arab News, columnist Fatin Bundagji wrote of a letter from an American, rather typical of the refrain we have heard for the past five years. Accusing Ms. Bundagji of “conveniently” forgetting that Arab terrorists attacked the US, the writer implied that America has every right to retaliate against anybody, an individual or nation, it considers an enemy. Thus the rightful invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, neither state having had anything to do with 9/11 whatsoever.

It is fallacious logic. One cannot compare apples to oranges.

No Arab nation has ever attacked the United States. The same cannot be said of the West, who has for the past century been invading the Middle East repeatedly in its quest for control of the region’s resources. Instead, the argument should be made with all elements being equal.

The 9/11 attacks were terrorist acts, to be certain, but not by an Arab state. One must compare a terrorist to a terrorist, and contrast the results. An example of an American terrorist who did attack Arabs on their own soil would be Baruch Goldstein.

Born and bred in Brooklyn, New York, Goldstein walked into the Cave of the Patriarchs in Jerusalem on Feb. 25, 1994, at 5.20 a.m., opening fire on 500 Palestinian Muslims at a Friday-morning prayer in Ramadan. Spraying the worshippers with his automatic rifle, he emptied 110 bullets in less than a minute and a half. Thirty Palestinians were killed immediately, and three were trampled to death in the ensuing panic. Those who fought back beat Goldstein to death. More than 20 further Palestinians were killed the same day in retaliation for Goldstein’s death, including fiver killed by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Deaths of Arab civilians at the hands of this American terrorist amounted to 1/500ths of a percent of the total Arab population in Israel. The 9/11 attacks resulted in the deaths of 1/1000ths of a percent of the total American population. In other words, comparing terrorist act to terrorist act, one man alone, Goldstein, massacred twice as many Arabs in a single incident as per capita deaths on 9/11. If one includes all Israelis, Muslim and Jewish citizens alike, Goldstein still murdered half as many per capita as those who were killed in the US on 9/11.

Yet not one Arab state launched a retaliatory attack on Israel. No one invaded Israel; not a single Arab nation decided that the Israeli people should pay the collective price for a massive act of civilian terrorism. In fact, Israel and America barely raised an eyebrow, and Goldstein was praised in New York by the Jewish extremist organization Kahane Kach. Instead, Baruch Goldstein was buried as a martyr and hero in Israel.

Today pilgrims visit Goldstein’s gravesite daily, his burial plaque reading: “Here lies the saint, Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous and holy man, may the Lord avenge his blood, who devoted his soul to the Jews, Jewish religion and Jewish land. His hands are innocent and his heart is pure. He was killed as a martyr…”

Meanwhile, the US continues to cite 9/11 to justify a war resulting in the death of over one million Iraqis (according to the British Opinion Research Business report in 2007).

As for US troop casualties, the Pentagon releases only death reports for troops killed on the field, from bullets or bombs (4,000). They do not include deaths sustained “not in direct combat”, e.g. those who die during evacuation, Humvee accidents, hospital deaths, those killed off duty, or private contractors (as many in Iraq as US troops). Also not included are suicides: 120 traumatized veterans kill themselves per week, according to a CBS 2007 investigation.

Thousands will die of cancer or kidney toxicology from depleted uranium exposure; thousands more have been infected with “Sandfly Disease” that can be fatal. Little wonder that the Pentagon bans the publication of photos of caskets flown home under cover of darkness.

If sheer statistics account for a sound argument, more than a million have paid the price for 9/11. How many more before the US is satisfied? As Dick Cheney himself said after the 1991 Gulf War (146 US troops killed), as to why the US left Iraq: “How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?…not very many”. George W. Bush this week announced that it “makes no sense” for the US to retreat from Iraq, and suggestions to the contrary are unpatriotic. But his vice president said in 1991, “I do not think the United States wants to have US military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all.” If the US did that, Cheney prophesied in 1991, it would cause the US to be “involved in a civil war inside Iraq (that) would literally be a quagmire.”

Neither Iraq, Afghanistan, nor Saudi Arabia was responsible for 9/11, in the same way that America was not responsible for the Goldstein massacre. One must compare military state action to military state action, not terrorist to nation state.

The equation seems simple:

Arab kills Americans = mass retaliatory military force required in revenge that is morally justifiable.

American kills Arabs = hero.

— Tanya Cariina Hsu is a political analyst originally from London. She lives in Riyadh.