Pigs and Monkeys and Donkeys and Nazis, Oh My!
Next time some right-wingnut gets all up in arms about an alleged Muslim holy man calling Jews the descendants of pigs and monkeys, just point them to the following story:
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has approached Attorney General Menachem Mazuz Saturday evening and demanded that he launch an investigation against the haredi author of an article that refers to Arabs as “a cult of murderers, savages, and a loathsome nation whose prophet is a false prophet.”
In the article, published in the ultra-Orthodox newspaper “Hassidic World”, author Yitzhak Ben-Zvi writes that “the Arabs are a people similar to donkeys… they are a vile nation of savages… they have a great desire to murder and are even worse than the Nazi enemy.”
The article analyzes Torah rulings, and presents the alleged opinion of a Jewish scholar, who claims that “the hatred and cruelty of the Arabs, may they be damned, towards the Jews surpasses even that of the Nazis,” and that “the hatred to the Arabs should have naturally been etched in our hearts.”
Throughout the article, the writer refers to the Arabs as stupid, hypocrite, and uncivilized. in a separate clause, Ben-Zvi refers to Muhammad as a false prophet.
So much for moral highground.
OK, but this guy is kind of extreme, and Islamic fundamentism is far more influential in the Muslim world, and backed up by deeds.
But the fact that Adalah has approached Israel’s Attorney General proves that there IS moral high ground. Unless you’re saying that Jews can likewise approach the Saudi Attorney General to demand he launch an investigation into state-sponsored, systemic vilification of Jews in Saudi Arabia? Or do so in any Muslim country in which Jews are vilified?
The far Left and Right deserve each other.
Disgusting, but thanks for information, Mobius.
I agree with you J. If this sort of hate was promoted by the government, schools, etc. there would be much greater cause for concern. As it stands we have an individual expressing a vile and uninformed opinion in a country that (mostly) respects freedom of speech. As such, this man should simply be ridiculed for his lunacy. But, if he is calling for violence against other Israeli citizens he should be charged. I feel the same way about the Islamists in London who called for their fellow citizens to be beheaded. Freedom of speech only goes so far. Even J.S. Mill recognized that.
And yes, shtreimel, you took the words right out of mouth. The extremes do deserve each other but humanity deserves neither. We’d be far better off without either of them.
Should is be illegal in the state of Israel to say Mohammed is a false prophet. Last time I checked Israel was a Jewish not an Islamic state. Why should Israel be enforcing Sharia, Islamic Law, which makes it a death penalty offense to deny Mohoammed is a prophet.
In terms of the Arab communities hatred of Jews. Has this civil rights group Adalah complained that Jews by virtue of religion are barred from praying at their holiest site, the Temple Mount, because they are not Muslims.
Are their Muslim groups that condemn Hezbollah’s kidnapping of Jewish soldiers, its attacks on Jewish civilians in the North.
Does this happen with anywhere near the same frequency as it does within the Arab world.
Just so non Israelis will be up to speed: the history of violent racism in Israel does not comprise one single madman’s rant. From the very beginning of the Zionist movement, leaders have spoken in racist terms about the Arabs and the need to expel or kill them. While much of this was based on secular, imperialist notions at first, since the 70s the pendulum has been swinging towards the extreme religious form of hatred.
Israel’s government has had ministers (!) from a party openly calling for the ‘transfer’ of Arabs from Israel. The military employs, as officers, rabbis who preach that Jews are ‘amalek.’ (source: me and my sister heard this personally while serving in the IDF in the 80s.)
After the Baruch Goldstein massacre in 1994, a rabbi published a book in praise of the man, called ‘Baruch Hagever’ which can be translated as ‘Blessed be the Man’ or ‘Baruch was a real man.’
There is no end to this crap. I was assaulted in 1987 outside of Petach Tikva by orthodox men screaming that ‘Arabs are dogs’ while participating in an anti-racism demonstration.
Anti-Arab racism has a long and sordid history, and present, in Israel. It’s vile, but serves to remind us all that the twin brother of nationalist fantasy is always racist and ethnic supremacy. This is true for Jews, who are much better off as a religious group than as a tribe or a state.
Thanks to R. Elmer Berger, z”l.
Maybe the arabs should do some soul-searching to understand why people hate them.
And yes, Muhammed is a false prophet. The man copies the Talmud, puts it in the qur’an and call it G-d’s word. Come on people, am I the only one to have noticed that?
“From the very beginning of the Zionist movement, leaders have spoken in racist terms about the Arabs and the need to expel or kill them.”
Are you paraphrasing Lenni Brenner or Ralph Shonenman?
“Israel’s government has had ministers (!) from a party openly calling for the ‘transfer’ of Arabs from Israel.”
A sad statement but many of these people are a security risk. Given that many Arabs wanted Israel’s neighboring enemies to win their wars of aggression against Israel. What would you do with people comitted to your nation, state, and peoples demise?
To put my cards on the table, I think they should have done so when the Mizrahim were “transfered” from North Africa and West Asia. Seems like it would have been a fair trade to me. We get Jews who want to live in peace and contribute to the state of Israel, they get people who want to kill Jews and destroy the state of Israel.
“This is true for Jews, who are much better off as a religious group than as a tribe or a state.”
Ah yes, a history of pogroms, having our property taken away, living in ghettos, and the Holocaust have certainly taught us that lesson. We are much better off not having a state of our own. Are you serious?
“It’s vile, but serves to remind us all that the twin brother of nationalist fantasy is always racist and ethnic supremacy.”
Actually, it is not unique to nationalist governments, or liberal ones, or any specific form of government. We’ll never be able to get individuals to rid themselves of their hatreds. It’s part of the human condition. What matters is policy. Compare the level of official state racism, and even discrimination, in Israel to any other country in the Middle East and Israel comes out far and away the most committed to rectifying these issues. It isn’t perfect and there is room for improvement but where else in the region does one find a vibrant civil society with a free press, free trade unions, freedom of religion and other forms of expression, and so forth? Try organizing an anarcha-queer-feminist collective in Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Syria and you’ll see what I mean.
WEVS1, your main point is that if Arabs are a threat, maybe they should be deported.
Well…. since Jews appear to be a threat to (at least some) Arabs, why not deport them? By what universal standard do we choose who should be deported in the name of peace?
“Well…. since Jews appear to be a threat to (at least some) Arabs, why not deport them?”
Abu-Esther, my point is that the Arab countries already deported their Jewish populations. This transfer happened decades ago. That’s why the population of Israel is close to 1/2 Mizrahim. And if I’m not mistaken the numbers were almost equal i.e. approx. 700,000 Palestinians fled Israel in 1948 and a similar number of Mizrahim were kicked out of the Arab countries at the same time. And none of my Mizrahi friends are clamouring about their “right of return” to Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, etc. Even the post-post-post Zionist ones.
I’ve actually never discussed this issue with others but since you bring it up, perhaps you need to consider that the source for the insult about the Jews is the Koran itself and therefore may have a tad more meaning than some “haredi author?”
Just saying.
Oh, and here’s a little more background as to why this insult against Jews exists and persists:
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01102
My only kashe on this post — the tone of voice makes it sound like the author was vindicated. “Ahh, finally! Now I can show how f**ked up the Jews are, too!” I’m going to assume this isn’t the case.
I’m also going to go ahead and assume that the object of this post wasn’t just to call attention to “the f**ked up charedi comment of the day”, thereby increasing anti-charedi prejudice (and there’s NO shortage of that going around, esp. in the Knesset, it’s like an -itis.).
What was the intended tachlit?
“Maybe the arabs should do some soul-searching to understand why people hate them.”
by the same token the jews should do the same. no?
“Ah yes, a history of pogroms, having our property taken away, living in ghettos, and the Holocaust have certainly taught us that lesson. We are much better off not having a state of our own. Are you serious?”
has a state of our own stop the killing of jews? did we accomplished what the founders of zionism intent to accomplish by us having own state?
two wrongs do not make it right.
Interesting link, TM. check this out:
Arab literature (Adab) also discussed Jews’ transformation into animals. In his 9th century treatise The Book of Animals, the greatest of these authors, Al-Jahiz,[15] mentions that it is generally thought that the cheetah, eel, white ant, mouse, and lizard were originally Jews. He mentions the tradition telling how a sage saw a man eating a lizard and said to him: “Know that you have eaten one of the sheikhs of the sons of Israel.” He does not mention why they were changed into animals, but does say that proof of this is that “the lizard’s foot resembles the human hand.”[16]
being turned into a cheetah sounds kinda cool. white ant?
Approx 10 Million Muslims in the US. How many are criminals?
You really should be more upset with the Germans.
10 million now? I thought it was 3 million.
“has a state of our own stop the killing of jews?”
No, of course not. This an impossibility. People will always kill each other. We even kill each other.
But having a state of our own has prevented the sort of large-scale killings that were more common in our past. This much should be obvious to anyone familiar with the history of the Jewish people.
“did we accomplished what the founders of zionism intent to accomplish by us having own state?”
I’m not sure, I did not know any of the founders personally but I have read some of their writings. I think Zionism, like life, is a work in progress.
Israel has saved Jews. Just not very many…. and far less than the number of Jews it has endangered. For example, it was the rise of the Zionist yishuv and the state of Israel that helped make the Arab and Islamic world inhospitable to Jews. A world where thriving Jewish communities are integrated in Morocco, Iran, and Tunisia would be a very good thing – perhaps even better than a world with a Jewish supremacist state. (they call it ‘affirmative action for Jews’)
Any serious researcher will tell you how many of the holocaust survivors really wanted to emigrate to the US, not Israel. How many Russians preferred the US and Germany to Israel. The US is a far better homeland for Jews and Jewish culture than Israel is; at least the US is not a theocracy with special priviliges for the orthodox at the expense of say, reform Jews.
Judged by the goals of the Zionist movements founders, Israel is a failure: it has not secured Jewish safety and standing in the world. Judged by religious standars, it is a failure because we are nowhere near being a ‘light unto the nations.’
I’ll be surprised if the third Jewish republic lasts longer than the Crusader states.
“For example, it was the rise of the Zionist yishuv and the state of Israel that helped make the Arab and Islamic world inhospitable to Jews.”
This is a post-Zionist interpretation of history and one that, frankly, is not accurate. The Arab and Islamic worlds have been hostile to Jews since the Koran, if not prior.
Even in Andalus–the supposed “Golden Age” of Muslim Jewish understanding–Jews were second class citizens. Have a look at Efraim Karsh’s “Islamic Imperalism: A History” (Yale University Press, 2006) for more information. He’s an actual historian, not a “gender/ethnic/po-mo studies” hack.
“Israel has saved Jews. Just not very many…. and far less than the number of Jews it has endangered.”
Yeah, loads of pogroms taking place since the establishment of Israel…
If Israel did not exist the situation for Jews would be much, much worse.
“Judged by the goals of the Zionist movements founders, Israel is a failure: it has not secured Jewish safety and standing in the world. Judged by religious standars, it is a failure because we are nowhere near being a ‘light unto the nations.’”
I don’t think the Zionist movements founders would agree with your revisionist, post-Zionist, interpretation of Israeli history. Israel has made Jews safer. It has not been perfect but it’s a heck of a lot better than relying on people who could give a f*ck less what happens to you. And Jewish standing in the world has improved as well, but perhaps not in the ways you would like. The establishment of the state of Israel means the people of the world take us seriously because we can strike back. It’s improved because we’re no longer viewed as a people without an ability to defend ourselves.
And, actually, Israel is a light unto the nations for the region and the world.
Israel is a shining example in the region regarding multi-party elections, human rights, civil society, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and other forms of association, freedom of religion, and the list goes on. Many of us who live with these freedoms take them for granted. Excepting the totalitarian Islamists, the populations of all of Israel’s neighbors wish and long for these sorts of freedoms.
Israel is a shining example to the world in terms of science and techonlogy as well as arts and letters. Plus, the Israelis are a shining example of our peoples’ ability to love life and freedom even when faced with terrorism.
Lastly, and I know you’ll love this one, Israel is a shining example in terms of the great care the IDF takes to avoid civilian casualties. Compare what just happened in Lebanon to Russia’s approach in Chechnya (carpet bombing of civilians). Or, another illuminating example, compare how many civilians were killed in the present Lebanese conflict to the fairly recent episode of communalist violence in Gujurat, India. In one week over 2,000 Muslims were killed. This was with fists and knives, not guided bombs. By all measures of comparison, Israel acts with great care in military conflicts. Some of us think far too much care. After all, Israel’s enemies are not nearly as careful. Or, to put it another way, they are careful to intentionally target civilians.
“But having a state of our own has prevented the sort of large-scale killings that were more common in our past. This much should be obvious to anyone familiar with the history of the Jewish people.”
no it has not.
it’s the after math of the holocaust that prevented this sort of large scale stuff if anything.
#15 yachne – You obviously didn’t get the sarcasm of my post.
“it’s the after math of the holocaust that prevented this sort of large scale stuff…”
You must be kidding. Our enemies–the ones shooting at us and blowing themselves up on busses–deny that the Holocaust ever happened.