‘Rabbis Speak Out’ on Gaza stop speaking out on Gaza (with an update)

Anyone wishing to send a message to the two good rabbis can just go to the site Phil links to above and email them–I'd guess they
would like a thanks for their attempt to aspire to jewish ethics
in the wake of the Gaza massacre.

From Rabbi Brant Rosen:

There is a story here, and that is essentially that the core group of rabbis could not agree on a final wording of the statement that would allow us all to participate as signers. It is deeply saddening to us all, particularly to Rabbi Gluskin and me. I know for a fact that there are many brave rabbis out there who have opposed this Israel's outrageous war in Gaza, as well as their destructive policies toward the Palestinians.

Please bear with us. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we are finding our voice. You haven't heard the last of us…

To the two Rabbis: Put your own statement up on your web site and sign it as a postscript to your current notice. That by itself will go a long way in allowing more discourse–otherwise it just looks like you two were just muzzled–as if a group of thugs clubbed Luther just as he was nailing his protest to the church door.

Chris B:
Advocating for what the Rabbis were speaking out against is not part of a symmetry of beauty, in Judaism or anywhere else, including humanity itself.
There is no symmetry there from which beauty can be drawn, there is only a sewer, a pit full of bloody horror, and valiant efforts to crawl out of it.
Beauty's in the hearts of those doing the crawling, not in those justifying and rationalizing sinking still further down in that grotesque muck.

Sorry, but you lost me while you were crawling through the muck.

I don;t know what the Rabbis argued, all I can say is that they are all supposed to be experts on Judaic law. And that law allows a wide range of opinion.

I will certainly thank them if they promote a balanced statement giving Hamas equal credit for their part in the supposed massacre.

Better yet, the rabbis would serve judaism better by proving, which is quite easy to do, that Israel was justified in its actions but that the concept of jewish ethics should have caused them to go to greater lengths to minimize civilian casualties, all the while acknowledging that world opinion would have condemned Israel even if 100% of the causualties were gun and missle and card carrying members of Hamas.

The Gaza conflict WAS NOT initiated by Hamas. Why do friends of Israel think by repeating inaccurate information, they can change the facts on the ground?

Chris Hedges' Columns
With Gaza, Journalists Fail Again

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090126_with_gaza_journalists_fail_again/?ln
By Chris Hedges

The assault on Gaza exposed not only Israel’s callous disregard for international law but the gutlessness of the American press. There were no major newspapers, television networks or radio stations that challenged Israel’s fabricated version of events that led to the Gaza attack or the daily lies Israel used to justify the unjustifiable. Nearly all reporters were, as during the buildup to the Iraq war, pliant stenographers and echo chambers. If we as journalists have a product to sell, it is credibility. Take that credibility away and we become little more than propagandists and advertisers. By refusing to expose lies we destroy, in the end, ourselves.

Sounds like Chris Hedges is indulging in propaganda. Once you take away what little credibility he had, it is clear he might just be fronting for the Hamas press organization.

http://counterpunch.com/

The entire world knows that Israel is guilty of war crimes and that the US government made the crimes possible by providing the weapons and diplomatic support. What Israel and the US did in Lebanon and Gaza is no different from crimes for which Nazis were tried at Nuremberg. Israel understands this, and the Israeli government is currently preparing its defense, which will be led by Israeli Justice (sic) Minister Daniel Friedman. UN war crimes official Richard Falk has compared Israel’s massacre of Gazans to the Nazi starvation and massacre of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Amnesty International and the Red Cross have demanded Israel be held accountable for war crimes. Even eight Israeli human rights groups have called for an investigation into Israel’s war crimes.

Here is more from the article samuel burke just posted, along with a link:

If President Obama’s bankster economic team finishes off what remains of the US economy, Obama, to deflect the public’s attention from his own failures and Americans’ growing hardships, might fulfill his responsibility to prosecute Bush and Rumsfeld. But for now the interesting question is why did the US military succumb to illegal orders?

In the December 2008 issue of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn, in his report on an inglorious chapter in the history of the Harvard Law School, provides the answer. Two brothers, Jonathan and David Lubell, both Harvard law students, were politically active against the Korean War. It was the McCarthy era, and the brothers were subpoenaed. They refused to cooperate on the grounds that the subpoena was a violation of the First Amendment.

Harvard Law School immediately began pressuring the students to cooperate with Congress. The other students ostracized them. Pressures from the Dean and faculty turned into threats. Although the Lubells graduated magna cum laude, they were kept off the Harvard Law Review. Their scholarships were terminated. A majority of the Harvard Law faculty voted for their expulsion (expulsion required a two-thirds vote).

Why did Harvard Law School betray two honor students who stood up for the US Constitution? Cockburn concludes that the Harvard law faculty sacrificed constitutional principle in order not to jeopardize their own self-advancement by displeasing the government (and no doubt donors).

We see such acts of personal cowardice every day. Recently we had the case of Jewish scholar and Israel critic Norman Finkelstein, whose tenure was blocked by the cowardly president of DePaul University, a man afraid to stand up for his own faculty against the Israel Lobby, which successfully imposed on a Catholic university the principle that no critic of Israel can gain academic tenure.

The same calculation of self-interest causes American journalists to serve as shills for Israeli and US government propaganda and the US Congress to endorse Israeli war crimes that the rest of the world condemns.

When US military officers saw that torture was a policy coming down from the top, they knew that doing the right thing would cost them their careers. They trimmed their sails. One who did not was Major General Antonio Taguba. Instead of covering up the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, General Taguba wrote an honest report that terminated his career.

Despite legislation that protects whistleblowers, it is always the whistleblower, not the wrongdoer, who suffers. When it finally became public that the Bush regime was committing felonies under US law by using the NSA to spy on Americans, the Justice (sic) Department went after the whistleblower. Nothing was done about the felonies.

In America, Speaking the Truth Is a Career-ending Event

American Rabbinical society takes no stand in the israeli aparthied argument because there is no such aparthied movement.

As for the 'reconstructionist' sect, they are small and not well respected among main stream judaism. As for their rabbis being experts on judaic law, those that came up from the ranks of the conservative movement can state such. Those strictly brought up reconstruct are probably not experts.

Tel Aviv Univ Study: Violence Starter – Israel 78% Hamas 8%

by jim d @ dailykos.com – Jan 15, 2009

One by one the justifications given by Israel for its latest war in Gaza are unravelling.

The argument that this is a purely defensive war, launched only after Hamas broke a six-month ceasefire has been challenged, not just by observers in the know such as Jimmy Carter, the former US president who helped facilitate the truce, but by centre-right Israeli intelligence think tanks.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose December 31 report titled "Six Months of the Lull Arrangement Intelligence Report," confirmed that the June 19 truce was only "sporadically violated, and then not by Hamas but instead by … "rogue terrorist organisations".

Instead, "the escalation and erosion of the lull arrangement" occurred after Israel killed six Hamas members on November 4 without provocation and then placed the entire Strip under an even more intensive siege the next day…..

…..According to a joint Tel Aviv University-European University study, this fits a larger pattern in which Israeli violence has been responsible for ending 79 per cent of all lulls in violence since the outbreak of the second intifada, compared with only 8 per cent for Hamas and other Palestinian factions…..

SOURCE – http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/15/19241/3637

Who is this Chris Berel, compared to whom Richard Witty now starts to look like a subtle thinker?

Could his sudden appearance on this blog have anything to do with this recent item in Haaretz:

Israel recruits ‘army of bloggers’ to combat anti-Zionist Web sites

By Cnaan Liphshiz

The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an “army of bloggers,” to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in “anti-Zionist blogs” in English, French, Spanish and German.

The program’s first volunteer was Sandrine Pitousi, 31, from Kfar Maimon, situated five kilometers from Gaza. “I heard about the project over the radio and decided to join because I’m living in the middle of the conflict,” she said.

Before hanging up the phone prematurely following a Color Red rocket alert, Pitousi, who immigrated to Israel from France in 1993, said she had some experience with public relations from managing a production company.

“During the war, we looked for a way to contribute to the effort,” the ministry’s director general, Erez Halfon, told Haaretz. “We turned to this enormous reservoir of more than a million people with a second mother tongue.” Other languages in which bloggers are sought include Russian and Portuguese.

Halfon said volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail, at media@moia.gov.il, will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry’s media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed “problematic.”

Within 30 minutes of announcing the program, which was approved by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, five volunteers were already in touch, Halfon said. ”

Admittedly, Berel has been throwing his disinformation (and bad spelling) around elsewhere for quite a few years now but it could be that those Zionist shils who are already operating have received the instruction to target more directly the most outspoken anti-Zionist blogs.

"Who is this Chris Berel…"

In my many years of being on the net and running into rabid Zionists, one thing always strikes me: they literally all sound the same.

Rabbi Shai Gluskin,

Just out of curiosity, where do you stand on Talmudic teachings which preach that Jewish blood is different from "goy" blood, Jewish lives are more valuable than gentiles (and especially Arabs), and other such doctrines? I think I can answer my own question, based on your efforts to shed light on Palestinian suffering, but I wonder how you feel about it. How widespread are these teachings in Israel and in the Jewish community, and what can be done to curb such language which obviously leads to such barbarity as militant Zionism and the violence we've witnessed from Israel since its inception?

Thank you Rabbi.

Such polite rudeness. Who could have imagined? Where does a reconstructionist rabbi stand on an "out of context" talmudic quote regarding jewish and non-jewish blood?

Where do you and the 100's of millions of Islamic fascists stand on the Koran stating that the rocks shall tell muslims where jews are so that they can be killed?

'If I have to choose between the status quo in which so many Palestinians are the citizens of no state but live under the control of Israel vs. a one-state solution –> I choose a one-state solution. But in neither case am I anti-Zionist.' — Rabbi Gluskin

My understanding is that zionism is committed to maintaining a Jewish-majority state. A one-state solution is unlikely to retain a Jewish majority, and thus would seem to be incompatible with zionism.

But actions count more than labels. If your brand of zionism is open to the possibility of a unified state, then count me in. As Marc Cohn wrote after hearing a sermon by Rev. Al Green –

Now Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would –
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
And she said –
Tell me are you a Christian child?
And I said 'Ma'am I am tonight'

http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/M/marccohnlyrics/marccohnwalkinginmemphislyrics.htm

Here is the formula, roughly, for Israel:

Grand Jewish narrative/history/pseudo-history + European Enlightenment + 19th and 20th Century Nationalism + 20th Century European Anti-semitism culminating in the Holocaust = Israel as a modern state.

I am NOT a religious Zionist. I happen to be a rabbi.

Religious Zionism was very small in the early days and has grown exponentially since the settler movement began in the 1970's. Before that time most Orthodox Jews were anti-Zionist.

I'm in favor of the total separation of religion and state in Israel.

By "Jewish character" I mean in a national sense, not a religious sense. Notice Checkoslovakia was a failure, now it is the Checkh and Slovak republics. Even in the EU, nobody talks about merging Belgium and Lichtenstein. Each country has its own narrative which is really meaningful to its people.

To the extent that the Jewish narrative has "we are better than them" aspects to it, I'm in favor dropping those from the evolving narrative that we create. Actually, Reconstructionist Judaism, goes a pretty far way in dropping the "Chosen People" idea.

There is no positive national narrative that can be forged in a one state solution that holds the aspirations of Palestinians and Israelis. I just don't think that is realistic.

But as I said, as a matter of justice — if Israel can't sell the Palestinians on a viable two-state solution including solving the refugee problem, Jerusalem, etc… than a one-state solution is the only solution because Israel ruling over non-citizens is not acceptable.

Holy texts as proof texts must be completely left out of the whole discussion. They validate nothing, prove nothing. There are Jewish texts which are extremely humanitarian and those that are racist. Holy texts cannot be used justify a position. They can be used for inspiration, maybe.

The brilliance of the Talmud is in studying it for its amazing model for learning/studying/pedagogy. So it's a great model for a radical way of studying –> not a guide for the specifics of behavior, for the most part.

For more on my approach to Jewish religion, check out two blog posts at:
http://everydayandeverynight.com/what-is-Torah

Jewish militancy doesn't come from the Talmud or any Jewish philosophy. It comes most from fear, mostly as a response to the Holocaust. Certainly Palestinians shouldn't have to suffer because of the Jewish experience in the Holocaust. It doesn't justify Israel but it does some measure in explaining.

The shelling by Hamas of southern Israel does a lot to awaken the post-traumatic stress of the Jewish experience.

The right-wing crafters of the disengagement from Gaza policy completely fooled Israel's center and center left to this very day. Those normal folk think, "We removed the settlers from Gaza and left them alone… and we get rockets in response!" Actually the crafters of disengagement knew that would happen. The the middle and middle-left were just so happy to get some movement and to stop Israeli citizen soldiers from being killed defending Jewish settlers in Gaza. But they did NOT/ do not, for the most part, understand that it gave the Gazans nothing -> other than the inevitable victory of Hamas over Fatah.

That's all for now.

Any proposals, rabbi?

On really any element.

My sense is that there is fear all around. I consider fear as information, information to include in one's decision-making, but not to drive one's decisions.

This applies to EVERY person, and every condition, for those that desire to work and live from reason rather than fear.

It applies to Israel making poor judgements (more than poor judgements) from fear. It applies to Hamas making poor judgements from fear (and related emotions). It applies to dissenting activists making judgements from fear.

So, for example, it seems to me that the only means by which any peace will occur is by the formation of relationships between civilists. (Let those religious that desire to live in fully separate communities do so, so long as they don't harm anyone).

But, the proposed actions of the dissenting community (boycotts, divestment), threaten to hinder the formation of relationships between civil and consenting individuals and organizations.

Academia for example, is the ONE place that alternative narratives can get formed, if there is the opportunity of dialog.

In reading I wrote last night on disengagement, I realize I described it wrong. It was NOT the right wing that fooled the center, center/left of the Israeli public. It was then Prime Minister Arik Sharon and the architects of disengagement.

Sharon, by alienating the right had cunningly portrayed himself as having moved to the center. The right in Israel were totally opposed to disengagement. That was what made it so easy to fool the left. Most folks on the left (including myself) thought, "If the right is so against it, how could it be bad?" Wrong.

Rabbi Brant has dug up a 2004 (pre-disengagement) interview with geographer Arnon Soffer, architect of disengagement. His honesty is chilling.

http://rabbibrant.com/2009/01/06/israel-and-gaza-one-geographers-prediction/

Richard, I agree with your thoughts. I'm not a grand plan kind of person. I'm most interested in trying to wake Jews out of the Israel-as-victim stupor and realize that we have violated the human rights of the people living in Gaza.

In the following piece, Rabbi Michael Lerner lays out a plan that, on a quick look, I pretty much agree with.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/rdpulpit/919/rdpulpit:_israel_in_gaza:_right_but_not_smart/

Thanks for posting that link to the Sofer JPost interview. It's rather famous, but I had never seen it online in its entirety.

Hamas would never agree to the Lerner recommendation as it makes no accommodation for 67 borders, right of return for refugees.

And Israel would never agree to compel unconditional "normalization" of its borders. It is a border, and the state of Israel has the responsibilty to run it as such, beyond just searching for weapons.

RE: "FEAR empowers authority. Fear is all in the future, it hasn't happened yet. It is one of the most difficult barricades to peace. In the case of the Palestineans I think despair is more likely a greater part of the paradigm.

Posted by: jim byers"

I agree.

Looking at Witty's comments over the years, I think he is motivated by fear also–his fear is akin to a kid's, one who heard tales of how his mother was raped, and can't get beyond that–every goy is a potential rapist. This despite his comfortable life devoid of anything ever raping him other than, perhaps, his version of getting
caught in some accounting "error." Goy cops protect his blood community night and day, 24/7. Goy GIs protecting him across the earth. He earns a good living. Even General Grant's order was retracted during the immense turmoil of a civil war, way back when, and despite this, after all these years, there's Witty, masturbating to Jewish-American victimhood… He thinks Katrina might happen to him! LOL

Maybe he should look at the practical reality of what Grant tried to stop. Maybe Obama should too.

It means that Israel will not adopt the Hamas demand, or the Lerner demand of unlimited and unrestricted passage across borders.

It will control them, as any nation would and should, especially in a state of deferred (or active) war.