Die Spaltung der Arbeiterpartei Baraks und der Auszug der liberaleren Minister aus der Regierungskoaltition gestern ist das vorläufige Ende einer Entwicklung, die seit Jahren andauert, nun aber in ein Stadium eintritt, das für nichtjüdische, linke oder sonstwie oppositionelle Israelis und deren Nachbarn nur als bedenklich bezeichnet werden kann.
Seit dem Amtsantritt der jetzigen Regierung wurde das Klima im Land immer übler. Dazu gehören Gesetzentwürfe, die auch liberale NGOs betreffen, Familienzusammenführung für Palästinenser verunmöglichen, etc. Darüber hatte ich an anderer Stelle gebloggt.
Dazu gehören auch Aussagen wie diese:
Rabbi Zalman Melamed, a prominent Jewish religious leader in Israel, called Palestinian keenness to reside in „Jewish cities“ in occupied Palestine a „terrorist attempt to crush two thousand year old Jewish dreams“ and a stab at Arabizing Jewish neighborhoods.Dozens of rabbis, touring northern Palestine, announced that Arabs living in 1948-occupied territory are no more than guests. They warned that Arabs there are trying to infringe on Israel’s Jewish identity through calls to make Israel a state for all its citizens.
Daniel Blatmann, selbst vor den Nazis aus Deutschland seinerzeit geflüchtet, sieht im Israel des späten 2010 eine Parallele zu Deutschland 1932:
Haffner chose to leave Germany. If he were to visit the neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, Safed, Jerusalem or Bat Yam in late 2010, he would certainly recall those hard days in his homeland. He would find rabbis who sign racist manifestos against an ethnic minority and call for a policy of apartheid, fiery demonstrations against refugees from Africa, gangs of teens attacking Arabs, legislation promoting separatism and discrimination in racist and ethnic contexts, an oppressive public atmosphere, as well as violence and a lack of compassion toward people who are different and foreign.
Mya Guarnieri beschrieb mehr davon in einem Al-Jazeerah-Artikel im Januar:
We stood to the side. Demonstrators, mistaking us for supporters, handed us leaflets containing shameless propaganda. I read them aloud to my colleague, even though I was ashamed to repeat the words I held in my hands. „The Arabs are taking control of Bat Yam, buying and renting apartments from Jews, taking and ruining girls from Bat Yam! Fifteen-thousand Jewish girls have been taken to Arab villages! Guard our city – we want a Jewish Bat Yam,“ the leaflets said.
The rally came in the wake of a religious edict forbidding Jews from leasing or selling homes or land to Arabs. The proclamation was signed by 50 rabbis, many of whom are state employees, before it was announced publicly several weeks ago. Another 250 have joined since then.
Over 1,000 rabbis have signed a letter against the edict, calling it „a painful distortion of our tradition“ and a „desecration of God’s name“. But these are diaspora rabbis. And although Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has condemned the initial proclamation, the rabbis who signed it remain state employees.
Monday’s rally in Bat Yam was just the first moment of a week that suggested that open racism is spreading through Israel like a wildfire.
Along with the leaflets, there was singing, shouting and speeches, which I translated for my colleague. Several times, I stopped mid-sentence. I could not believe what I had heard. Did that man really say that Jewish women who date Arab men should be sentenced to death? Did that rabbi really say that the Jewish people have „holy blood“?
Dazu gehört auch ein Vorfall, bei dem vier Veteranen der IDF zur Aufgabe ihrer Wohnung in einem Stadtviertel von Tel-Aviv gezwungen werden sollten – sie sind zu dunkelhäutig.
Das letzte nun, nachdem, wie oben zitiert, sich Rabbis gegen diesen Rassismus gewendet haben, ist ein Artikel in einer jüdischen Wochenzeitschrift.Ich habe gesucht, bis ich eine nichtarabische Quelle fand – weil es kaum zu glauben ist:
Back in the days of the Shoah, one of the slogans of the Jew haters was: “Jews to the Ovens.” Now, it causes me anguish to say, we have Israeli Orthodox rabbis saying the same about the Palestinians.
Thanks to Cicero for pointing me to a shocking passage in an Israeli Orthodox “family magazine,” Fountains of Salvation, which suggests that Israel will create death camps for Palestinians in order to wipe them out like Amalek. The article attacks Israeli rabbis who dispute the letter recently circulated from pro-settler extremist rabbis which urged that no Israeli Jew rent apartments or homes to Israeli Palestinians. It chided them for being “politically correct” and refusing to do their jobs and educate the populace in the true path of Torah (which is presumably to hate Palestinians).
The last paragraph (page 4 of the original) though is the whopper:
It will be interesting to see whether they leave the assembly of the Amalekites [Palestinians] in extermination camps to others, or whether they will declare that wiping out Amalek is no longer [historically] relevant. Only time will tell…
A few words of explanation. There is a Biblical command for Jews to wipe out Amalek because of the viciousness with which that people attacked Israelites. Essentially, this is a Jewish call to commit genocide against Amalek. We should note that the Bible records such Jewish campaigns against other tribes as well (Moabites, Jebusites) and no doubt others did the same to their enemies.
Rabbis throughout the ages have allegorized the reference to Amalek to connote any sworn enemy of the Jewish people from Hitler to Barack Obama (yes, prominent American Orthodox Jews wrote such garbage before the last election). But this is the first time I’ve ever read any Orthodox publication calling for committing genocide against Palestinians.
As Cicero pointed out to me, the articulation of this passage doesn’t only refer to Palestinians (though most likely this was specifically who the writer had in mind given the context). It can refer to any enemy of the Jewish people including you or me.
Now a word on who is behind this publication: it is the cream of the crop of the radical right-wing Israeli Orthodox rabbinate. It was founded by the former chief rabbi of Safed, whose son currently holds that position and who circulated the letter I refer to above. Another is the chief rabbi of Ramat Gan and finally Rabbi Avinar, suspected of sexually abusing a troubled woman who approached him for spiritual advice. Each of them holds paid government sinecures, allowing them to spew hate on the dime of the Israeli taxpayer.
This raises the important question: why does the U.S. government allow tax-deductible contributions to Israeli charities like Chabad given their propagation of such genocidal rhetoric?
Wie beschrieben, die Autoren und Unterstützer sind Angestellte des israelischen Staates. Mit der Regierungsänderung schwindet m.M.n. die letzte Hoffnung, dass sie für diese und andere Worte zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden könnten.
Ich sehe eine Fraktion stärker werden, sowohl im Parlament als auch in der Bevölkerung, deren Ziel es ist, alle Nichtjuden aus ganz Palästina zu vertreiben, die Befürworter eines Groß-Israel. Für Frieden spricht das nicht.
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