Liberal Rabbi: Calling for End of Jewish State Not Antisemitic

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/liberal-judaism-and-the-s...

The EUMC doesn't exist any more, and its "working definition" is dead since it was never adopted. Israel through its expansionist policies is leading towards a one-state solution, so what's anti-Semitic about it, unless you, and Jonathan, think Israel is anti-Semitic?

Just read your blog, Rich, and assuming it's an accurate account of what Halper said, why was it so wrong?
Where is this inaccurate?

“There’s only one government in Israel and Palestine which is an Israeli government. There’s only one army, one electrical system, one highway system and one water system. Israel has made that, now we can’t blame the Arabs for that. They accepted the two-state solution publicly in 1988. We made this a binational state and we have to accept responsibility for what we do. We made our bed and we have to lie in it, which means a one-state solution which is either binational or a democratic unitary state. I’m not advocating it. I think a one-state solution is a challenge, I think it’s just, I would like to go that way. You can’t keep advocating for a two-state solution when Israel has eliminated the two state solution.”

All the rest of your blog is indirect quotes and therefore open to interpretation. But If you take off your blinkers again it seems a pretty sanguine assessment of the situation, one Halper sees every day because he lives in Israel.

I am an LJ member and Danny Rich does not speak in my name

Yes, Moshe. It was another articulate assessment, of course. One I have heard from Pappe, Kasrils, White, Matar etc.

But it is the constant disingenuousness of it all that is so ubiquitous. The constant criticism of Israel dressed up as human rights when you and I know that these guys are just out and out anti-Zionists who want to see the end of Israel as it is constituted even after the settlements have gone and there is a Palestinian state.

Is that what you support also?

And then there's his calling for BDS on top.

"The EUMC doesn't exist any more"

Time Waster

The EUMC is now called the Fundamental Rights Agency. The Definition was approved by representatives of all the member states. It is recognised by the UK and US governments, among many others.

Rich, I don't see anything in the direct quote you brought with which I cannot agree. It's all so despairingly true. It's so very easy to claim that all criticism of Israel is anti-Zionism or anti-Semitism because it absolves those who claim as such from perhaps looking at Israel's policies.

Moshe,

And the human rights cover let's you off the hook at looking more closely at what the likes of Halper are really wanting; the creation of a Palestein.

I would actually have more empathy with him if he didn't twist Zionism and also pretend that Israel is the only "religious" state when every western country is based on religion in some way, shape or form.

I wonder if outraged Liberal Judaism members, Sooty, Sweep and Soo, will comment on Danny Rich. Basil Brush will no doubt have something to say too: Boom-boom.

Looking at it lucidly, Rich, isn't the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories in Israel's best interests? Also, which Western country is based on religion? In most, there is a strict separation of state and religion, even in the most catholic. And here in the UK, although the monarch is also head of the established church, no one really takes that seriously, not even the CofE.

Halper signed this petition to reinstate Tonge:

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/bring-baroness-tonge-back-now/sign...

I am a member of a Liberal Jewish congregation. Rabbi Rich, if correctly reported, does not speak in my name. Perhaps he should consider joining the Unitarians ...

Perhaps, Yvetta, you are a member of probably the wrong synagogal group. Have you considered another one?

Yes, Moshe. Masorti.

Knowing several of Masorti's rabbis, I think you'll find that their views on Israel differ little from those of Reform or Liberal.

"You don't even know enough Hebrew or enough about Israel to see what Halper said was essentially correct."

Ad hominem insults - the last resort of the scoundrel, the charlatan and the imposter

"the vast majority of Jews never accepted that Jews were a nation"

I could equally say that the vast majority of Jews did accept that Jews were a nation. Prove otherwise.

"ultra-Orthodox Jews are all anti-Zionist".

Again, easy generalisation impossible to prove, impossible to disprove.

"Zionists say Judaism is ethnic"

I'm a Zionist. I don't say that. Therefore it's a specious generalisation.

"Zionists say you are living in exile, there is no such thing as the Diaspora"

Again, which Zionists? There are millions upon millions of us. Another ingenuous generalisation.

"Zionists made Diapora Jews be voyeuristic"

Well this just makes no rational sense whatsoever.

"Israel is putting Jews in jeopardy"

No, people that hate Jews put Jews in jeopardy. Nothing any Israeli does or doesn't do will change that. The worst kind of defeatism, and utter nonsense invented by your enemies to intimidate you into not supporting Israel.

Get a bloody grip, we are all in danger from these people - not just Jews, not just Israelis, but anyone who loves freedom and civilisation.

I apologise if you think that was an ad hominem, Jonathan,but quite frankly you obviously don't know enough Hebrew or have enough understanding of Israel for that matter to show where Halper is wrong. Because he isn't.

See my comments to Jonathan, Matt, as to how easy it is to discredit his claims. But thanks for trying at least to dismiss rationally what Halper claims But one question; How is good is your Hebrew?

Comment on Richard Millett's blog:

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/liberal-judaism-and-the-s...

Ketzele // March 23, 2010 at 12:59 am | Reply

Halper states that ‘What Zionism did to the Jewish people is terrible’.

Spoken like a Judenrat Jew! How dare he!
As a holocaust survivor from Poland, I’ll tell you what it did for our nation – it restored our honour and pride after the humiliation of the Shoah. This would not have happened had there been a Jewish state. Jews today can no longer be killed with impunity – that’s what Israel has done for us!

You ask the millions who found asylum there, including the remnant of my family, when no country wanted them or had had enough of being pushed around and only wanted to live in their own land.

To an ‘Ersatz Jew’ like him, short on spine, it matters not if Israel were to lose its Jewish identity and character in a One State Solution that those like him advocate. It could end in another Final Solution. He is welcome to offer his neck, but there will be no lambs to the slaughter this time….

More lies from Halper last night:

- Petraeus never said that Israel is 'preventing any kind of accommodation between the West and the Muslim world"

- Lie: "the vast majority of Jews never accepted that Jews were a nation"

- Lie: "ultra-Orthodox Jews are all anti-Zionist". Only Neturei Karta and Satmar are - a small minority.

- Lie: "Zionists say Judaism is ethnic"

- Lie: "Zionists say you are living in exile, there is no such thing as the Diaspora"

- Lie: "what Zionists did to the Jewish people was terrible"

- Lie "Zionists made Diapora Jews be voyeuristic"

- Lie "Israel is putting Jews in jeopardy"

Jonathan, it's very easy to jump up and down, shout "lies", be an arbiter of who's a Jew (who appointed you, anyway?) and throw about Holocaust imagery against fellow Jews (it's called sinaat chinam). But you have absolutely no basis for your claims. Perhaps you'll be more careful before you shout fire (oops, sorry, liar). Let's have some light instead of noise.
-- Actually, that's what Petraeus did say, even without reading between the lines.
-- When did the "vast majority of Jews" accept that Jews were a nation? Are the "vast majority" living in Israel? Is even a majority living in Israel? And most of those living in Israel, are they there through choice or because they had to go there? Let's face it, given the choice, like South African Jews were when apartheid collapsed, the majority chose Australia, the US and South Hampstead, not Israel. And when the Argentine economy collapsed, was there a mass emigration of Jews to Israel? No, about 3000 out of 300,000 upped and left. France? There are so many empty French-owned apartments in Netanya and Ashdod that there is a glut on the market.
-- Satmar is the largest ultra-Orthodox grouping by some way. Add to them the Gerrer and the
Belzers who are at best non-Zionist but don't believe in a Jewish state before the coming of the messiah and you don't even need the Neturei Karta to see that he is right about that.
-- Don't Zionists say that Judaism is ethnic? If not, how do you explain that according to my and 5.5 million other Jewish Israelis' ID Card (teudat zehut), our nationality/ethnicity is down as "Jewish".
--- What's the Hebrew for where you and I live, Jonathan? It's galut, from the root GLH, meaning to be exiled. That is, we are living in exile. The Hebrew for Diaspora is Tifzoret, a term which is rarely if ever used in Israel to describe Jews abroad.
-- It could be argued that some of the Zionists' actions were indeed terrible,. Have you heard of the bombings of the synagogues in Baghdad and Morocco in order to instil fear? Or the attempts by certain Zionist leaders to do deals with Eichmann over trucks for Hungarian Jews? Or perhaps Lechi's (the Stern Gang's) attempts to help the Nazis remove the British from Palestine?
-- And finally, Ehud Olmert himself noted last year that Israel's actions were having a detrimental effect on Jews abroad. Do you dispute that every time Israel takes action against the palestinians, justified or not, there's a spike in anti-Semitism? So the last point is unfortunately and depressingly correct, too.
-- Are you sure he said "Zionists made Diapora Jews be voyeuristic"? Apart from the typographic errer, what's that mean? That we watch Big Brother?

Come on, Jonathan, prove what Halper said was wrong or a lie. You can't can you? No amount of Bicom briefings or Danny Ayalon crib sheets can help you on this. And don't forget, there are Holocaust survivors who would disagree with "ketzele". But you don't like them, do you?

Interesting as well that the date on Moshe's comments keeps changing to show them as the last post.

If you look at others' posts, Matt mate, you'll see their dates change too. Sauce for the goose and all that.

When I first visited the JC I was amazed by the vibrant and honest discussions that took place here. People were respectful of each others views and there was an atmosphere of cooperation and friendliness.

Now all I see under every blog is repeated berating from moshetzarfati2. It's a real shame, and is suppressing normal discussion of these issues.

Or is it just me?

(PS two can play at this game)

When people started throwing around ad hominems, and calling for those they disagreed with to be killed (Quislings, Haw-Haw, etc), what do you expect, Matt? I told you, show me where I have been abusive and I'll change my ways. Until then, tho, I'll answer the ad hominems and calls for murder with truth, however much it hurts those who hurl abuse.

It's called standing up to fascists and bullies, Matt. You know, fighting against the Nazi NF in Lewisham in the 1970s, or against their Holocaust-denying kissing cousins in the BNP more recently. It is what I was taught by my father who fought against Moseley's blackshirts on Cable Street and was a member of the 43 Group.