In a nutshell
Uri Bank, a leader of the pro-settlement (and pro-‘transfer’) Moledet party says:
“We break up Arab continuity and their claim to East Jerusalem by putting in isolated islands of Jewish presence in areas of Arab population. Then we definitely try to put these together to form our own continuity. It’s just like Legos – you put the pieces out there and connect the dots. That is Zionism. That is the way the state of Israel was built. Our eventual goal is Jewish continuity in all of Jerusalem.”
Does he mean that by purchasing the pieces of land and placing Jews there, they are practicing Zionism?
I guess that’s better than the alternative which we saw in 1948 when all of the Jews were evicted from East Jerusalem and the Old City, and then the historical Jewish Quarter was razed by the Arabs while Jewish grave headstones were used as stepping stones.
TM
Your such a zio-nazi scum sucking, Jew loving, Talmud worshiping…How dare you respond to John Brown’s post with sarcasm and Zionist inspired history. Don’t you know that Brown loves Jews and his incessant one-sided posts are done out of tough love? Like a mother who beats her child…love comes in all shapes, sizes, and uh, beatings. So feel the love brotha. Now go buy yourself one of Mob’s Tallit Katan’s, open up your seder to ISM folk, and replace Pharoh with Sharon. Do it out of love. Do it out of love for the Jewish people. Inshalah.
Shtreimel, go to sleep already, you have work tomorrow.
Considerately,
The Middle
TM,
I have MP3’s of that stuff you’re interested in. You interested?
Sure, thanks! Try the [email protected] address, or [email protected]. One of those should work.
I don’t get it. What is the problem with Uri’s comment?
DUJ asks:
I don’t get it. What is the problem with Uri’s comment?
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
I believe the phrase we are looking for is “too Jewish”.
sh’koach to Uri Bank!
For a couple of hours this morning, I joined up with one of his friends, member of knesset Dr. Arieh Eldad, on the current march from Sanur to Gush Katif. It was an honour to walk with him and meet his family who’s escorting him along the way. Just after Petach Tikva, Internal Security minister Gideon Ezra passed along with his Volvo and bodyguard. Most people honking there horns ‘in support’ were not religious. Sort of like the annual ‘March to Jerusalem’ in Montreal.
TM,
JohnBrown was saying that it’s illegal for Jews to buy land in Arab nieghbourhoods, and that any Jews currently there should be given the boot for being provocative. Hmm, not unlike those settlers in Gush Katif, eh?
yeah, this guy’s too jewish. i never realized that my religion was really about developing a better strategy to dispossess people of their land by putting my own people in the right places and linking them up. thank you to nineteenth-century german nationalism and french antisemitism for helping lead theodor herzl to this glorious conclusion. i hope one day i can be as good a jew as ben-david or anyone in the moledet party. blessed are you lord, who strategically places my people in arab neighborhoods.
The day Uri Bank’s comments represent true Zionism is the day Sharon lets Abbas punch him in the face so his lazy eye will go away.
Truth is the only honest policy is to move the arabs out of OUR land.
You see the issue here is that John, Sam, Mob and others really don’t believe that it is Jewish land.
Based on that I understand their position.
I see. Jews should stay the fuck out of Arab neighborhoods. Arabs should be able to live where they want. It’s only apartheid when an Arab is kept out of a Jewish neighborhood.
Keepin’ it real Jewschool!!! If John Brown loved Israel any more, he could hang with Neturei Karta.
It surprises me (maybe becuase i am too naiive) the comments in here by “Jews”. I am a young Jew and have been to Israel a few time and am going to be in Israel for the disengagement (not becuase of it though). I dont believe Jews should expell Jews, but i think leaving Gaza for now, is a right move, for now. The West Bank on the otherhand is not as simple, many more Jews and many more reasons to say. Why do people like Sam treat Jews as second class citizens. Why cant we live in our land,our country. Israel won that land. No country would give up land that it had spritual connections too. And certainly no country would give up land that would make its cities easly accesible to attacks. Why must Israel? Are Jews worth less or we just worthless. Why do we not destroy muslim temples but it is ok for arabs to attack and destroy our holly spots in the west bank? Why cant Jews re-claim their land and property in the Arab countries? Why doesnt anyone care about the Jews who were forced out of every Arab country? Why are Jews the biggest enemy to Jews?
“Why do we not destroy muslim temples but it is ok for arabs to attack and destroy our holly spots in the west bank?”
er…because violent sociopathy doesn’t run in our tradition?
let’s be honest with ourselves maer_sf – all groups of people have their sociopaths and other sick bastards..
I love Israel and plan on moving there. I think that disengagement is a step in the right direction. Uri “West” Bank (small bad joke) should be careful with his words though, let alone reevaluate his extremist views. Defining Zionism as uprooting non-Jews only lends credence to the charge by Israel’s deplorable detractors that Zionism is racism. Plus, it’s not up to Bank to try to define Zionism when many Zionists don’t share his extremist views.
Hmmm, nobody is addressing my point. East Jerusalem had plenty of Jews living there and a vibrant community. It was destroyed in the same was that gave the Arabs control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. When Jews now use legal means to purchase land there, and have brought themselves back to this part of the city that had a majority Jewish population as far back as the early 1800s, what sin are they committing? Would you rather they did it with violence? Would you rather they pretended not to have a connection to that area? Would you rather they turn a blind eye to the illegal construction by the Palestinians in the very same area? Would you rather they ignore similar attempts by the Palestinians to gain as much land and housing in the area as possible?
Sam? John? Anyone?
T_M if your waiting for a direct answer from them, you’re in for a long wait…
I am against dividing up Jerusalem. However, given the extremely volatile situation, having Jews move into areas of East Jerusalem may be seen by the Palestinians as provocative and may hurt peace efforts. I understand that parts of East Jerusalem such as Ir David used to be Jewish and that Jewish land may have been taken unjustly. Unfortunately, many Palestinians believe that their land had been taken against their will in 1948 as well. This doesn’t mean that their claims are correct, but it is a matter of perception to be taken into account. This a very sensitive issue that probably should be left to be solved at the negotiation tables, as outside interference may be detrimental to progress.
Plus, even if the Arabs are at fault here and peace is practically impossible (I believe that there is a chance), the fact of the matter is that if the peace process fails, then not only will Israel be blamed but there will be even more years of bloody violence.
Really, this statement is ebtirely consistent with everything we have heard and is if anything guilty only of careless honesty, like Benny Morris. The commitment to an artificial, militarily maintained demographic forces Israel into unjust practices; one can be for Zionism or for peace and justice, but not both.
And now to get incoherent: As far as Jerusalem, it should be declared an international city and administered by some third party that could use the prestige, say, the PRC or the DPRK, under UN auspices. Frees up IDF resources and totally lifts a pile of blame.
Matt, the point is that both sides are doing it. You can’t stop one side without stopping the other. It’s not unlike the current brouhaha about the 3500 homes that are supposed to link Ma’aleh Edumim to Jerusalem. Israel wants to build that link in large part because two Palestinian villages are growing in such a way as to connect and cut off Ma’aleh Edumim from Jerusalem. What gives them the right and not the Israelis? What takes away the right from Israelis from purchasing deeds in East Jerusalem and moving in? A potential peace process? I guess, but if they wait, the Palestinians keep building structures anyway, usually without permits but with a full knowledge that it is meaningful in the overall scheme of things.
maer_sf,
read the bible. We are more violent than you want to think.
Matt and Hazeev (TM too, but I pick on him on his home turf),
Leaving Gaza sets up a very dangerous precedent. The whole world is waiting for us to retreat in order to say that ‘now you can leave more territory since we see that you left Gush Katif’. What makes you think that we will be able to keep one centimetre of land after we oursleves proclaim loudly that Jews can retreat from land so easily. We know that Sharon and the Israeli media lied to us about Bush and the American assurance about keeping ‘settlement blocs’ and there are numerous articles relating about Israeli politicians overseas prodding their foriegn counterparts to admit that Israel will in fact get time to breathe after ‘disengagement’ and that myth. in hebrew, scroll down, third to last paragraph, for the latest warning. Knesset Speaker Rivlin warns that at least we shouldn’t fool ourselves.
of course the land is ours. it is also not ours. eretz israel is the land of which Hashem said, “mine is the land.” if you say your sh’ma every day, you know that the land was conditionally given to the people of israel pending a behavior review of our conduct. the land we are currently living on is ours, if we deserve it. the land we are not currently living on is not ours for the taking. there can be no argument from “historical right.” otherwise you would just have to keep going ceaselessly back into the past, saying that the land really belongs to whoever came before, conquered before, migrated before. and if you try to do that and you want to stop at the jewish claim, you end up back at theology with the conquest of joshua, which means you have to accept theology’s subsequent conditioning of our right to the land on our observance of god’s laws. rights to land derive from living on the land, not from historical constructs of nationalism. the nature of the jewish right to eretz israel did not suddenly change just because some european theorist like johann gottfried herder came up with a theory of nations which require sovereign territory to exercise their political rights.
that being said, the nature of the jewish connection to east jerusalem is not equivalent, in the present, to the arab one. it is the same with hebron and any other place jews try to move to under the occupation regime. for jews to move there, there has to be displacement of palestinians carried out under the aegis of the force of the state. it has to be maintained, as in hebron, by the daily forceful suppression of the majority population, or as in east jerusalem, by turning the palestinians into a minority population by restricting their access to building permits or tenancy. such actions cannot be justified by an appeal to “historical” right.
furthermore, in the context of the pressing necessity for a solution to the problem of the conflict, they exacerbate the conflict and make it more likely that more people will die, placing the commandment to settle the land above the commandment to seek peace or to love thy neighbor or to do right by the stranger in your land. this is one of the saddest things about post-1967 judaism, that a part of it has moved to theologically embrace land settlement uber alles. it’s a rationalization for a jewish lebensraum. sure, you can subscribe to some stretched idea that your neighbor is only the jewish neighbor, and that the stranger is only the convert (though how the people of israel “were converts in mitzrayim” is a mystery to me, and how that becomes the basis for one of the most frequently repeated commandments in the Torah is likewise), but that is all they are: rationalizations, appealed to ex post facto to justify theft and the use of force without justification. and in time, we will see whether Hashem will tolerate it.
Sam you made three point:
1. If we go to Judaism we only have the land “conditionally”- and somehow you are trying to say that maybe now its not ours anymore.
2. Based on the above you insist on terming jewish presence “occupation.”
3. Post 67′ we are somehow changing judaism by putting land over life whereas before it was different.
Ill just answer simply and stick to the points.
1. Israel was never ging to be permanently taken but if we violate the covenant we would be punished- first by lack of rain, if we continue our ways by defeats in war and finally by being driven away. Even at that point God will not break the covenant permanently but He remembers our forfathers Wbraham Isaac and jacob who loved Him. He promised that we will never be destroyed and will ultimately come back even if we sin. If we keep the covenant it will be without suffering otherwise it will be with suffering. Whether now He allows us to have the land or not is between us and our Father it has nothing to do with anyone else they certainly have no claim. I can get sources if you want but I don’t think based on your past posts that I need to.
2. Based on what I wrote the term “occupation” refers to the arabs who “illegaly” wandered onto our stolen land – stolen by many nations who forced us off and subsequently did not let us come back.
3. Contrary to what we hear alot life and peace are very important but Justice and following the covenant are even more important. Part of the covenant is to live in the land. WWII “forced” many Jews to move to Israel when no other country was accepting them. Unfortunately when Jews get too comfortable in the exile our Father makes it so that we are forced out such as by bad decrees of the nations, expulsions and killings. WWII was a big sign to many people that we better get back to Israel.
I don’t think you need me to give sources of our not giving land for peace. The whole Torah and Tanach and all subsequent sources are replete with this.
Before I could sneeze,
the folks at the Palestinian ‘Human Rights’ organziation run by Jews has this for us:
B’Tselem calls for evacuation of Jewish Quarter, Ramat Eshkol and French Hill
“There is no difference between these neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and the Jewish community in Hebron”, Sarit Michaeli, Press Officer for B’Tselem, confirmed today to IMRA.
And before you blindly disregard Btsalem (it’s so easy, I admit), I suggest that you check out what they said ten years ago and what the government is planning now. They are prophets.
People, stop being delusional before it’s too late. The entire Jewish settlement of the ‘territories’ = The entire Jewish settlement of Israel = 1 centimetre of the Gaza.
“Really, this statement is ebtirely consistent with everything we have heard and is if anything guilty only of careless honesty, like Benny Morris. The commitment to an artificial, militarily maintained demographic forces Israel into unjust practices; one can be for Zionism or for peace and justice, but not both.
And now to get incoherent: As far as Jerusalem, it should be declared an international city and administered by some third party that could use the prestige, say, the PRC or the DPRK, under UN auspices. Frees up IDF resources and totally lifts a pile of blame.” I absolutely 100% disagree: there are plenty of Zionists who are committed peace and justice. To dry a line in the sand like that is just wrong. As for the internationalization of the city, I was against it from the get-go. Why should the holiest city in Judaism be under control of a “third” party? I didn’t mean to sound right wing there, but I think simply making Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine, west Jerusalem part of Israel, and let Israel and the PA negotiate over holy sites.
k&y, you’re making this much more complicated than it has to be.
Oy.
Well, props to sam, anyway.
As for whose land it is… Ya’ll seem to be missing an important component that makes Israeli and Palestinian growth in the West Bank in-equivalent. That is… Israel is occupying the west bank. Its not part of Israel. If it were, we would have to give Palestinians voting rights, and then say goodbye to your Jewish state. So, Israel likes to claim the west bank when its convenient (building settlements) and deny it when its not (palestinian rights to suffrage). In my mind that double standard is BULLSHIT! Aside from shmo, who has made it very clear that a fascist Jewish state is alright with him, can anyone defend holding onto the west bank while denying palestinians their democratic rights? It seems if you want a Jewish state we must relinquish military hold over the west bank. That is where Mr. Uri Bank causes problems. by building settlements that cut the west bank in half, he is making it that much harder to pull out and create a Palestinian state. This is a problem unless you want to see either a fascist Jewish state or a democratic pluralistic state (ie, not a jewish state). I’m ok with option 2. I think democracy and human rights are pretty good things. But I gather most of you folks defending Uri Bank would not be so happy, giving up the zionist dream, so. How can you have your cake and eat it too? Please, tell me.
I’m for leaving most of the West Bank, so I’m the wrong person to be addressing here. That has nothing to do with the topic we’re discussing.
Frankly, while Sam tries to address my points by talking about how the two sides aren’t equal, he doesn’t really address them. What is worse, he ends up using bullshit Nazi terminology to attempt to describe a situation where the Palestinian presence in the form of population growth and physical buildings growth has only increased under Israeli rule. Absurd.
Yusul I saw your challenge before and I didn’t answer because I too want to hear a response.
You are right the others are so irrational – good question don’t they have a double-standard?
If you wanted to be accurate and not act like a demogogue you would say “Aside from shmo, who has made it very clear that a “religious” Jewish state is alright with him” You might say a state that follows the covenant. I understand that you don’t like the covenant so say “religious” – but to say “fascist” is inaccurate.
But Shmo, if its not democratic, if only Jews get to participate, if the law is not based on the consent of the governed but is unilaterally enforced by the state, would that not be fascist?
Ok, at the very best we get an autocratic theocracy (or an oligarchic theocracy, depending on if you are talking about having a king in charge, a sanhedrin, or the priesthood). Not much better than fascism in terms of human and civil rights.
Yusul sorry I didnt get back sooner,
According to the dictionary Fascism 1. exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual
2. uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition
3 engages in severe economic and social regimentation
Its a different concept. Its sort of a mix of socialism (individuals secondary to the group) and dictatorship- totalitarism.
A theocracy has none of these. Its not decracy thats true – its a separate concept.
It is much better in terms of human and cicil right- I mean that all depends on the religion!
As one example Jewish people are not allowed to give up one innocent person even if a whole city is in danger and the enemy just asks for that one person!
One the other hand even in a democracy the people might vote that its worh it to give up a few people for the larger good – it also depends on who the majority is!
A blanket statement of which is better for human and civil rights can’t be made because its the details of who the democracy is and what the religion says that determines that.
(Take a look at all the anti-semitism in many countries that now and certainly in the past was supported by the majorities.)
I think a real theocracy would pretty much have to be an anarchy. At least in terms of human administration. The LORD was the first king of Israel and it was all downhill from the moment we asked for a human king.
I think you fucken Jews should get the fuck out of Palestine!! You’re only proving you’re the fucken parasites of the world!! Why the hell do you think everybody hates you!? You’re fucken greedy, land stealing scum! Hitler should of fuck destroyed you all!