Comments on: This year at Passover it is Palestinians who are demanding ‘Let my people go!’

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Passover is simultaneously the THANKING for our status as free, and the urging that all others be similarly freed.

Participating in the ritual itself includes the "tribal" attitude of thanking for OUR liberation.

Please celebrate that, so that your well-meaning political efforts can be for the purpose of evoking a good neighbor to good neighbor approach.

I assume that when you pray for the improvement of the status of Palestinian lives that you are not speaking of supporting their current very angry approach (to the point willingly murderous in MANY cases), but include the urging of peace.

If you don't, please don't use the Seder ritual to argue for strictly political agenda. It has that well-meaning purpose of urging peace, but it is definitely NOT limited to that. It would distort the ritual to mold it to fit a primarily political agenda.

By: Citizen

Citizen — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Witty, if the ritual means anything for the non-Jewish world, it means what Phil says, and, as he also says, that's why it is symbolic beyond the Jews. Otherwise, it's as you say, merely the evoking of "tribal" attitude. We all, somewhere in the past, came from tribes. All tribes feel justified in their past--always conflicts against other tribes and usually with religion mixed in-religion. The USA is the most successful anti-tribe & religion-neutral state in world history. We assume that when you thank God for your tribe's liberation from Egypt you will notice who is the Pharaoh now in terms of power as between the Israelis and their diaspora arms, and the Palestinians. Otherwise, you are just one more MOT celebrating your tribe's particular historical
liberations. Many of us see what happened in GAZA and what's been happening for forty plus years
of occupation as anger come to life in the most deadly form possible--paid for by all Americans--F-16s & Apache Helicopters are way beyond any Palestinian's "very angry approach."

The angry creed is in the angry deed.

Your Torah G-D reveals that, no?

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Its important to work to improve the lives of Palestinians. Who ever said differently?

Do it well.

By: Jaffr

Jaffr — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Many of the expulsions of Palestinians in 1948 also took place during Passover. More than one such operations were called "Chametz" — the ritual cleaning out and destruction of foodstuffs considered unclean for Passover — most notably the clearing of Yaffa and surrounding villages. Nothing could more clearly indicate intent to ethnically cleanse (possibly an Israeli/Hebrew coinage) the indigenous people.

Read about THAT at your Passover Seder — as also the slaughters that were celebrated in the Hebrew Bible on entering the "Promised Land" the first time. . .

By: Citizen

Citizen — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

And now, as tradition would have it, we have had Operation Cast Lead, taken from Jewish childhood song. Dreadful Dreidel. As Jaffr suggests by pointing toward the rape of Canaan authorized by their G-D, the problem with long memory sanctified is that it's a sword that cuts both ways. Ever listen to an Egyptian tell the story of the Exodus? The jews were not slaves, but
construction workers with Egyptian insurance policies and other fringe benefits; they didn't like being demoted to that status (as had been other conquered tribes) from their former status as
Egyptian military allies, so they raped and pillaged some Egyptian towns and hatted out; the Egyptian army (police force) were simply engaged in hot pursuit of criminals according to the law of the land.

By: tommy

tommy — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Where is the Palestinian Moses?

Is Hassan Nasrallah the Lebanese Shiites' Moses?

By: aristeides

aristeides — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is full of references to the use of language about ritual cleaning in connection with Passover. I learn from Wikipedia that "Operation Bi'ur Hametz [Passover Cleaning]" was the name for the Haganah operation on Apr. 21-22, 1948 that cleared the Palestinian population out of Haifa (with many of them ending up being drowned in the sea). This occurred right at the Passover season.

One thing in Pappe's book that strikes me as really weird is his quoting a passage in Ben Gurion's diary (dated Mauy 24, 1948) where he expresses approval of plans to consider occupying the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon and making even more ambitious military strikes all over the Middle East, because this would be revenge "for what they (the Egyptians, the Aramis and Assyrians) did to our forefathers during Biblical times." (Pappe p. 144).

By: Julian

Julian — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

For passover we should remember:
December 30, 1947 – 39 Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa’s oil refinery
January 16, 1948 – 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion
February 22, 1948 – 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem’s Rehov Ben-Yehuda
February 29, 1948 – 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.
January and February 1948 – Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma’anit were all subjected to attacks. Arab attackers also bombedThe Palestine Post
April 13, 1948 – 35 Jew were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre
March and April – Assault on Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an Egged bus were bombed.
May 15, 1948 – 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.
During this timespan(November 29, 1947 to May 15, 1948), a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine. During this time, all Jewish villages in the Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa’s Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem’s Old City.
The above list does not include Jews killed and synagogues burned in Arab countries during the timespan in question. However, it is known thatmore than 100 Jews were massacred and synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of Jews from their homes.
link to middleeastfacts.com
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Just a few slaughters of Jews by Arabs before 1948.

By: tommy

tommy — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Remember the USS Liberty.

By: Citizen

Citizen — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

What is the most famous saying non-Jews ever heard from the Jews? Eye for an eye. Revenge is
eternal sayeth their G-D. Now, its an eye for an eye lash, as some people on this blog have observed. Well, gotta admit, collective memory repeated each day upon awaking has been
the source of single-minded focus that has kept our subject tribe intact--not even land has
been necessary, but now, thousands of years later, non-Jews have to contend with an Israeli
land state--as well as the Jewish head start in finance networking, which as we all know, was due
to choice as much as land-ownership and guild restrictions.

Certainly, the test of virtue is power, another fact often noted on this blog.

So, between Hebrew biblical history, the jewish diaspora, the Shoah, and Israeli history right up to today, what over-riding lesson from the longest surviving intact world group is there for all people who would like to die, knowing their particular children & grandchildren will be equipped to carry on the extended family, rather than perish as so many peoples and civilizations have
over the life of Man on this planet?

Hitler felt he knew; he left the world his political testament. The Germans have rejected it. They are committing slow suicide. The USA's proposition nation, seems to be struggling mightily, though the Europeans, including the Germans, have not yet given up. The rest of the world looks
like it is perfectly content with reliving old pre-modern cultural ways--only technology and
capitalism seem progressive in any broad way, just tools to foister old ways.

This is a Jewish American's blog. It's an important question, no?