Israel

Ben Yisrael


Plenty more where that came from here.
***

After all that has been said about the “religious” and pseudo-religious and even halakhic reasons for maintaining Jewish rule over the territories and their Arab inhabitants, and for the annexation of the territories to the state of Israel, I have nothing to add to what already appeared in the Scriptures, the same Scriptures to which national religious fools appeal for support of their lust for conquest. Two thousand six hundred years ago, the prophet Ezekiel foresaw Gush Emunim and the arguments of its rabbis and leaders. His words read as though he knew in advance the words and terms they would use, and he already gave them a reply which penetrates to the heart of the matter.

Then the word of God came to me saying, Son of man, They that inhabit these waste places of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one man and yet he inherited the land, but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance. Therefore say to them, thus says the Lord God: You eat with the blood and lift up your eyes towards your idols, and shed blood; and shall you possess the land? You stand upon your sword, you carry out disgusting deeds, and you defile every man his neighbor’s wife; and shall you possess the land?

These words were not meant for Ezekiel’s own generation only. He said them to all generations, and especially to the generation of the “liberators of the Holy Land” in our time. The Jewish people has legitimate claims to this country. But these claims have no “religious cover.” To speak of the divine promise to Abraham and his issue as a gratuitous gift, to ignore the conditions of the promise, and to disregard the obligations it confers on the receivers is a degradation and desecration of religious faith.
—Yeshayahu Leibowitz

31 thoughts on “Ben Yisrael

  1. Wow! Ok not even going to go into how I felt watching this just now.
    It was rally hard to tell but was the British voice that Louis guy form the BBC and was he filming this? It sounded it like it might be and he has done similar stuff like this and this.
    If it was him he is a Jew which obviously those two kids didn’t get.
    I don’t know what to say other than wow

  2. Oops.. Sorry Louis ( if that is him) may not be a Jew after all. I got him confused with Mark Collett who has similar documentaries.
    And I think Mobius is 100% percent right, nothing justifies that!

  3. Almost, nothing justifies the behaviour. But, some context might help explain if these are angry, inarticulate, hormonal, teenage boys or something more serious.

  4. I just watched several of the tapes: I saw Jewish youths engaging in typical unruly teen behavior (including comparable words and actions) that occurs daily in every urban public high school in America; I saw pompous English intruders egging on that behavior; I saw Israeli policemen keeping calm, not overreacting. I saw Jewish youth who know that at any given moment a Muslim terrorist might murder them and/or their friends and family going out of control. And my heart went out to those brethren of mine. That’s just my view.

  5. “I saw Jewish youths engaging in typical unruly teen behavior”
    a distinct and holy nation if ever there was one
    jewish children throwing stones and shouting “fuck you” and “i will kill you” within earshot of avraham avienu’s kever
    my heart goes out to them as well; it weeps for what has become of the jewish people

  6. At one point the kid says “Shabbat Shalom” and it looks like he’s holding a half-empty bottle of wine or liquor. My guess is that this is a couple of settler kids out in the olive grove getting trashed on Shabbos schnapps. Along comes a group of British “peace” volunteers, and the kids decide to drunkenly assert their settlerhood through quoting the masterworks they hold most sacred, such as the movies “Kids” and “Boys in the Hood” (with a little Complete Works of Meir Kahane tossed in).
    Of course that doesn’t excuse what appears to be trespassing on Palestinian land and rude and obnoxious behavior. But it certainly helps explain it a bit.
    If nothing else, someone should send the video to their parents to rat them out for drinking. Then again the parents are probably so thoroughly convinced of their victimhood that they’ll blame the kids’ drinking on the Arabs (or British, or whomever), too.

  7. “What has become of the jewish people”? Jews are human with rude, obnoxious children too.
    This is the crux of your problem: “a distinct and holy nation if ever there was one.” No, we are not holy or unique or chosen–we are simply people. I was mortified by their behavior but it is not surprising, given what Jewish fundamentalists are taught about the land being given to us by G-d.
    You cannot handle that Jews are just like everyone else…

  8. Chris, G-d forbid but I agree with Mobius on this issue – we are suppose to be a light unto the nations, more is expected of us both by G-d and our fellow man, we are correctly held to a higher standard – that’s the burden and joy of being a Jew.

  9. There’s a difference between saying that a group of Jews were acting in an unjewish way and claiming that their behaviour represents the entire Jewish people. I think that Mobius’ display of disgust is a little too melodramatic.

  10. These are not just kids at the movies in Tel Aviv. Those who have posted such comments here cannot escape so easily.
    These are “youth” who dress in the garb of a certain Jewish religio-nationalist ideology and who are behaving this way on camera (“We killed Jesus…Fuck you”) at the flashpoints of an important, even life-or death conflict.
    It’s disgusting. Why will the real religious authorities (not the settler “rabbis’) not stand up and disown this type of behavior once and for all?

  11. You cannot handle that Jews are just like everyone else
    And they said unto him: ‘Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways; now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.’
    […]
    And the LORD said unto Samuel: ‘Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not be king over them.
    http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08a08.htm
    chris, here is the jewish national charter — ie., that which gives us peoplehood and that which constitutes our historic identity as a people (or, at least, did until the haskalah and the ascent of fakakta tzionut).
    Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.
    http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0219.htm

  12. mark your calendars. I agree with Mobius.
    That said, it is lamentable that members of our family have to sin publicly in such a manner, because it only gives out enemies (in this case, the British “peacenik”) opportunities to call for our destruction.

  13. come off it – these are just a bunch of spoiled brats – Israel is a land of extremes it will eat you up! and to be honest the camera crew needed a good beating – for just being there – i don’t understand how this is news – i’ve got scallies (hooded youth) in my era (manchester/salford) who fire bomb the cars of people they don’t like in a min – at least these kids don’t have guns – then we’d be talking some real NEWS!

  14. Like I said, the idiotic “boys will be boys” excuse does not work here. This is not Manchester, not Tel Aviv, and these are not random kids in a random place.

  15. it makes me so proud to hear these enlightened jewish souls and their Anglo accents – to think that N.American Jewry makes such a contribution to Israel – perhaps we should stay where we are … here ! in the Galut !!

  16. Sorry folks, I hear similar, yet more refined, sentiment from ADULTS at shabbos tables from Vancouver to Calgary to Montreal to Jerusalem. I’ve heard a chabad rabbi compare the palestinians to nazis…jews refer to arabs as scum…
    It disgusts me. Having worked with teens for many years, their ideas don’t fall from the sky.

  17. mobius:
    thou art a “mecharcher riv” and an asshole to boot.
    always looking to bashmutz the orthodox.
    i dont care if they’re right or wrong.
    go to hell.

  18. Why does the first word seem so like an answer.
    Just what, and for how long were the camera people harassing them?
    Did they try to walk away from the confrontation only to have the camera crew follow them?
    What they are saying are things they should not be saying. They are deliberately inflammatory.
    But like Toaff declaring that Blood Libel is true
    Or Rav Shmuel proclaiming “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are True,” (albeit it in a delightful, tongue-in-cheek way)
    I cannot help but wonder – are we like the abused spouse who, recponizing that the period of “nice” following the Holocaust is coming to an end, and knowing that the next battering is on the horizon, does things to goad the abuser just so it can happen and be done with? It’s the only sense I can make of these kids saying “We killed Jesus, and we’re proud of it,” of Toaff saying “Yeah, some Jews drank the blood of Christian Children” and Shmuel saying “The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion are True.”
    While I wish these kids had shown more common sense and dignity, I also recognize that they were being baited – they were probably chosen because they were drunk and would likely give a response that suited the cameraman’s political agenda.
    Every night we pray “remove Satan from before me and from behind me.” I wish these youth understood that Satan was before them, someone stalking them with a camera so that at the moment their behavior failed, he could shout “j’accuse!”
    Moral perfection is what we are supposed to strive for, and we should make an effort. Thing is we do not know, because it is not on the tape, what kind of efforts might have been made and what kind of provocations offered. If you make someone feel sufficiently threatened, you will bring out this kind of behavior.
    What we are seeing here is Jew baiting. It would be nice if we never rose to it, but the first rule of bullying is that if your prey doesn’t rise to it, escalate. We have no way of knowing how much escalation took place before the camera rolled.
    Is your patience infinite mobius? Is there nothing another person could do that would draw your wrath if they tried hard enough? Just how many times are we supposed to go to the cross because some other people want to feel less guilty about themselves?

  19. To Jacob:
    Didn’t you read this bit below the comment box … ?
    “I may attack a certain point of view which I consider false, but I will never attack a person who preaches it.”

  20. Mobius,
    I see the Torah as the story of our people forming and our relationship with G-d. I understand halacha as the glue that kept us together. I do not take the Torah literally so I do not think we are holier than other people or we had this convenant with G-d that made us special. The religion kept us together…

  21. It occurs to me if they really belived that God gave them the land, they wouldn’t have to be so blue-mouthed about saying so.
    Second, if they’re just people like anyone else, what claim have they got to the land? We got it on the merit of our ancestors (A,I, J) and the condition that we behave with kedusha. If we don’t fulfil the requirement, we don’t get to keep the land…
    So says the Torah, pretty explicitly.

  22. “It occurs to me if they really believed that God gave them the land, they wouldn’t have to be so blue-mouthed about saying so.”
    good point.

  23. That a sickening display, and a chillul Hashem to boot. No excuses.
    But it can’t be used as proof that “we are wrong and they are right.”
    You would argue that a vast majority of palestinians are not terrorists, nor advocate terror. Why do I not see the same benefit of the doubt afforded to Jews living in the disputed territories?

  24. I as a Jew take no responsibility for the State of Israel (or for spoilt bratts in Judea) or her actions, I can neither feel embarrassed or proud of her achievements or crimes.
    Just as I take no responsibility for the behaviour of my mother or spouse if they do well or embarrass themselves.
    Let Israel grow up – let go of her, let her make her own mistakes and learn her own lessons without you feeling the need to come to her aid or to criticise her.
    She is not me and I am not her.
    these kids are stupid but so are the film crew for wanting a fight – and i don’t give a f*ck either way – bunch of blood idiots!
    they deserve each other!

  25. http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/02/27/wilder-italiantv-attack/
    Hebron settler spokesman attacks Italian film crew
    by ISM Hebron, February 27th
    UPDATE 6.30PM – Raed has now been released on NIS 1500 bail
    Hebron settler spokesman, David Wilder, today attacked an Italian film crew making a documentary film about schools in Israel and Palestine. The RAI Cinema TV crew was in the Tel Rumeida district of Hebron filming the Qurtuba school, having already visited schools in Israel.
    At around 3pm film director and actress Barbara Cupisti was filming the Palestinian schoolchildren on Shuhada Street when the spokesman for settlers in Hebron, David Wilder, approached her and started taking photos of her. When he persisted Barbara requested that he stop but he continued taking photos of her from a very short distance.
    When Palestinian cameraman Raed Alhelo started filming David Wilder, the settler spokesperson grabbed his camera and assaulted him. Hebron police then detained Raed and he currently remains in custody in Kiryat Arba police station.
    Barbara Cupisti is most famous outside her native country for her roles in horror films.

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