Some amazing new population numbers. First Ynet gives the "happy news:" Jews are an "overwhelming majority" in Israel. 75 percent. Not so fast, bub. You didn't include the Occupied Territories, which Ynet charmingly describes as the Israeli empire. (And I thought the age of empire was over!)
According to the data provided by the
Central Bureau of Statistics and by the CIA, the Israeli government
rules over 11.43 million people at this time.
Of
those, 5.6 million people are Jewish, while 5.83 million people are not
Jewish (2.46 million Palestinians in the West Bank, 1.55 million
Palestinians residing in the Gaza Strip, 1.5 million Palestinians who
are citizens of the State of Israel, and another 0.32 million people
characterized as “other non-Jews.”)Therefore, the accurate figures are in fact as follows: A total of
49% Jews and 51% non-Jews currently live across the territory of the
Israeli empire.
Let's do the math: If you look at greater Israel and count the .32 million "other non-Jews" (these are mainly individuals from the Former Soviet Union with Jewish fathers, but not Jewish mothers, and non-Jewish spouses of Jews) as non-Jews, as the Israeli government does, you now have more non-Jews living in greater Israel than Jews (5.83>5.6). The Israeli Jews do slightly outnumber the Palestinians (5.6>5.51). However, if you account for the approximately .7 million Israeli Jews living outside of Israeli–Haaretz has put it at about 1 million–many of whom are unlikely to return because minority freedoms are so beautiful in the west (including the freedom to write books about Christian evangelical political influence in the U.S.)–then you have roughly 4.9 million Israeli Jews living in greater Israel. A whole lot less than the 5.83 million non-Jews, or the 5.51 million Palestinians living in greater Israel. Question: What do the hardliners in Israel and the lobby imagine when they oppose a two-state solution?
Sorry, OT, but comments seriously broken whether in Firefox or IE.
Trust Phil and Adam are aware of the problem.
test
OT, having troubles? I had that before. Now I don't even have to type in the code to post. What exactly do you mean by seriously broken.
That of course would be an explanation why the two antagonist camps have jointly abandoned the comment section.
Only me and three dots left kvetching.
Now they're calling it a "Regrettable statistical error," not "happy news." "[T]he Israeli government rules over 11.43 million people at this time." So they finally admit it. And they kill people they 'rule over'? Slaughter them? Destroy their houses with bulldozers? Render them homeless as the NYT reported yesterday? The mark of barbarians.
In other words, Jews are a minority in the maybe to be created Palestine, but are still an overwhelming majority of the real existing Israel. As it should be.
Answer: Lots of honorary Jews
Phil said "I thought the age of empires was over!" What the fuck world do you live in Phil? China? France? Russia? America? What about the Islamic empires that enslave their populations? What about every country in Africa? Ohh, sorry, those are just Negroes. Phil only "cares" about Jews, because . . . why exactly? Let's just hope his time as a hostage in Gaza knocks some sense into him!
Before Barukh Kimmerling died, he and I were looking at CBS statistics and were fairly certain 1. that there is a persistent overcounting of resident Israeli citizens that are Jewish and 2. that the percentage of resident Israeli citizens who are Palestinian is at least 24% and probably closer to 30%. Thus even in terms of resident citizens, the State of Israel is quite close to being majority non-Jewish, and for those concerned about a Jewish majority it makes little difference whether the discussion pertains to pre-1967 Israel or all the lands ruled by the Israeli state.
It's like the USA government on unemployment stats. It's probably closer to 20% than you imagine, especially adding in underemployment.
I love the idea of Mohammed al- martillo working with Baruch Kimmerlung "before he died." don't you mean shortly after his death?
I see the phony Jim Haygood is back.
RE Jewish freedom in "the west (including the freedom to write books about Christian evangelical political influence in the U.S.)" LOL. Hilarious dig at the supposed freedom of the West, which doesn't allow non-Jews (or Jews for that matter) to write books about Jewish Zionist political influence in the U.S. without being blacklisted. How Soviet, to refuse to tolerate criticism of minorities, no matter how powerful they are or may become. Yet Christian evangelicals are now a minority themselves. Again, how Soviet to construct this straw man threat (a Christian Emanuel Goldstein) and then whip the country into hysteria for fear that he might make a comeback. The differences between America and the early Soviet Union shrink more every day. Another common denominator? Murderous Big Government Judeofascists with hugely disproportionate power, pulling levers and exerting influence to actualize their twisted vision of putting the world in a totalitarian straight jacket.
They're empires?
Indeed, as by the definition of Palestinian in the refugee paper work, that is any living in the area from 1946 and their decendants, there are at least 300,000 Israeli Jews who can be considered Palestinian.
There's jews who castigate the end timers, and have been for ages; now those jews who praise them, so long as they rubber stamp Israel. Has there ever been a clearer case of "Is it [perceived as) good for the Jews?" Are those rabid end timers spitting rabid white racists, or are they rational white Christians doing what is best in Jesus's name? Never a better example of Who's Ox Is Being Gored have I seen in my nearly 70 years on planet earth. I see that since some neo-Nazi groups in Europe have joined up praising Israel as a nation of principle, more and more jewish writers are entertaining the notion such groups should be supported.
Re: "the maybe to be created Palestine" You Zionists and your relationship to the West Bank remind me of a fox guarding a henhouse. The Zionist fox wants to go in, kill and eat the chickens and their eggs (the Palestinians), but are scared of the farmer (consequential world opinion and Islamic reaction), and so they knock off a couple of chickens and a couple of eggs at a time, hoping the farmer won't notice or get too upset. At the same time, they hold up the possibility to the chickens and the farmer that one day they might not need guarding at all (the two state solution), but never really intend to introduce it until the last chicken has been eaten, at which point the Zionist fox will declare "Why bother with it at all?" Being animalistic, what the Zionist fox refuses to see is that one day the farmer will have simply had enough, and get out his shotgun.
Philip, this is all very interesting, and has been becoming increasingly evident for some time. But there's another huge lacuna in your argument: If a person wants to "count" Jewish-Israelis and ethnic Palestinians in any humanly meaningful way– as constituting, for example, those people who could be said to have a valid claim to the land of pre-1948 Palestine– then there is no basis at all for excluding the 5-7 million Palestinians who live outside and who are prevented by israel from returning to their homes inside the "empire". This includes not just the diasporic (as opposed to OPT-resident) Palestinian refugees from 1948 as well as the million or so Palestinians from the OPTs who've been excluded from having residency rights inside the OPTs by Israel, throughout the 42 years of occupation. Under international law these Palestinians– like the Mozambicans, Cambodians, Iraqis, Afghans, etc who were made refugees during the wars inside their various homelands– still retain their right to political participation in the land/polity of their birth. They don't suddenly lose all their political rights in their homeland just because they're refugees. In those other cases, great care was taken to ensure that the refugees were included in any voting or referendum on the final peace agreement. Many of these refugees have no other citizenship (and have been stateless for 61 years.) Some have other citizenships; but that doesn't wipe out their right to full Palestinian political participation– like, for example, the many Iraqi or Afghan refugees who, having other citizenships, nonetheless made their way back to their homeland to participate politicallly just as son as they could. … Israel had always tried to exclude the great mass of exiled Palestinians from any meaningful political participation. That stance is quite unsustainable. The 5-7 million Palestinian exiles want to be 'counted'– and certainly should be. (This is just one of the problems with the 'demographic' argument that many Jewish Israeli peaceniks have made… )
About Israeli Jews living abroad – the Israeli CBS differentiates between Israeli citizens and residents. Almost all of those who emigrated are not counted by the CBS.
Not that it changes the overall thrust of the article but I thought a considerable part of the Israelis living abroad were recent non-jewish russian immigrants actually . I didn't keep the source but it was mentioned on jpost i think.
Sorry to be off topic, and, worse, spamming my blog, but we simply (in my opinion) cannot, CANNOT, just move on and brush the Rosen/Weissman/Harman case as if it was just politics as usual. These people were caught red handed, with tens, if not hundreds of FBI and other law enforcement agents ready to testify, with proof being furnished with films, with photos, with testtimony, with tape recordings, and this is simply brushed off? Jane Harman is a speaker at AIPAC and the TV "news" does not blink? Does no one care that America is penetrated and subverted by agents of influence of the foreign power to such a degree that we undertake wars to realize other nation's goals – more, we say that spying for Israel is not spying, nor a crime, but that it is right and proper? Hello…? America….? Citizens? … anybody… Please leave me a comment on my blog to cheer me up, as I see this – May 3 – the day of the AIPAC conference – as a celebration of treason, as the final nail in the American "democracy" system, as our total and utter defeat.
White South Africans were outnumbered about five-to-one by nonwhite South Africans before apartheid fell. On the other hand, African Americans were only about a fifth of the U.S. population, but still managed to overturn Jim Crow with some help from their friends. Like the former eastern European communist regimes, zionism probably will collapse because it is based on a Big Lie, not because Jews lost their majority. In the eventual unified state, the minority status of Jews likely will lead to demands for a Lebanon-style formula to allocate the positions of president, prime minister and cabinet ministries among the various religious groups. Two posts above under my name are by an imposter. According to the rules announced a few weeks ago, posting under someone else's name merits being banned. Would the webmaster kindly post the IP address of the imposter?
You are right Jim Haygood, but the hasbara agents keep changing their ISP addresses, I assume; taking advantage of the US public library system of making free computers availble, or they have jobs that let them hop from PC to PC…. it's hard to therefore ban them effectively. Americangoy has a good point too. Harmon, am obvious traitor like Franklin, is set at the next AIPAC meeting in a few days, to show Phil Weiss who has the power.
I don't think your analysis is correct. Israeli Arabs are Israeli citizens who vote and have 3 parties in Israel parlament Both Gaza( Hamas) and West Bank( PA) have their own elected gavernments with their passports and whatever. As to Jews being a monority in the Middle East this is true. Another mistake is to EXCLUDE Transjordan ( today Jordan) from the counting. This is an originally part of a Mandate Palestine. 60% of Jordanians ARE Palestinians. So I understand your frustrations to show that Israel is a racist state but you failed again, sorry.
Jecob, absolutely right. According to UN definition of refugees Ariel Sharon is a Palestinian, because he was born in Palestine, Yasser Arafat is NOT a Palestinianp he was born in Egypt so he is an Egyptian.
Yasser Arafat lived in Palestine in 1946 (and did so for the majority of his life) and was born to Palestinian parents. Both he and Ariel Sharon were Palestinians
Israeli Arabs live like second class citizens (which you'd know if you bothered to read the previous post about discrimination against Israeli Arabs). Transjordan was part of Mandate Palestine, but is not part of historic Palestine and 48% of Jordanians are Palestinian (not 60%) Israel is a racist state for the same reason as it was yesterday – the idea of a Jewish state disenfranchised the native Arabs. It's why calling the US a white state would be racist against every non-white American
Ariel (Sheinerman) Sharon was born in a community of racist murderous genocidal thieves, invaders, and interlopers. Zionist as invading colonists in Palestine differ in no obvious way from the colonists that German Nazis sent into E. Europe. Under Nuremberg Law, the native population whether Arab or Slav has absolute right to attack, kill, and to drive out the colonial interlopers. As explained in Jewish Nazism in Public Schools, Zionism is precisely ethnic Ashkenazi Nazism:
Many Zionists are ethnic monists are actually more extreme the German Nazis, who never really went beyond ethnic fundamentalism. All decent human being should hate and despise Zionists as enemies of Palestinians, Muslims, non-Jews, Americans and the whole human race.
I met him at Hebrew University while I was working in the Occupied Territories. We used to have some good conversations now and them. While he was undergoing treatment, I wanted to give him a puzzle as a distraction. There iare all sorts of weirdness in CBS data. For example the CBS is always quick to count Israeli Palestinians as having left the country permanently, but all sorts of tricks are used to count Israeli Jewish permanent expatriates as residents. We decided to look at data that might correlate with the real residency percentages. Among other indicators we used rental of halls for marriages. After controlling for factors that might create a higher rental rate for Zionist colonists or native Palestinians, we consistently found that the percentage of Israeli Palestinians residents was 30%. When we looked at other indicators, we found that the percentage could be as low as 24%. We never completed the analysis, but percentage of resident non-Jewish Israeli citizens is probably approximately 45%.
The claim is not true at all.
No wonder you post as you do.
Caught red handed doing exactly what they believed the American government, their government, wanted them to do? It sems the FBI and Franklin commited treason, Franklin for personal gain and the FBI for publicity.
The major population areas of Transjordan are certainly part of Historic Palestine (which you would know if you bother to read the maps). 60% to 70% of all Jordanians are Palestinian, the queen is Palestinian and the heir to the throne is Palestinian.
Arafat was born in Egypt, raised in Egypt, and educated in Egypt. He was an Egyptian who adopted the Palestinian cause for fame and money.
Looks like the pressure id finally getting to our Ethnic Puerto Rican disguised as Jewish Muslim. Racist murderous genocidal thieves and invaders, fine. But "interlopers"? Ouch! Or, rather, MEOW!
I don't know how you get from somewhere between a quarter and a third to being "quite close to being majority non-Jewish".
Joahcim, can you please substanitiate this assertion?
'B. Michael' (Michael Barizon) takes a characteristic pot shot at this in today's Ynet: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3709436...
Phillip, Just on the issue of empire. The Ynet article is B Michael's satirical column. The figures are genuine but the language is deliberately couched in those terms. You won't get straight news items referring to the Israeli empire. Sol Salbe Melbourne Australia
Says who?
For example all the Palestinians in Jordan eventually got Jordanian citizenship, but they retain the right to citizenship as Palestinians in Palestine.
HI, on the stats, isn't there also a fair amount of overcounting on the Palestinians side? There has been a lot of Palestinian emigration from the West Bank because of Israeli brutality, which I don't think has been fully acknowledged (though I could be wrong). Also on the .32 million "other non-Jews", wouldn't a lot of them be immigrant workers? Or perhaps they're not characterised as 'residents'.
The Brits unilaterally broke off what is today Jordan when they had the power to do so. That's why the UN partition did not include that area. All the Palestinians that were pushed into Jordan by Israel now hold dual citizenship in that when these refugees eventually got Jordanian citizenship they retained the right to return to their homeland in the former Palestine mandate area separated from Jordan.
Arafat was born, raised, and educated in Egypt. He was an Egyptian. His nobel prize biography does not indicate that he lived in the Palestinain Mandate in 1946, but rather that he lived in Egypt. "Throughout his career, Arafat's Egyptian background was a political impediment and source of personal embarrassment. One biographer notes that upon first meeting him in 1967, 'West Bankers did not like his Egyptian accent and ways and found them alien,' and to the very end Arafat employed an aide to translate his Egyptian dialect into Palestinian Arabic for conversing with his West Bank and Gaza subjects." http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/...
I'm sorry Joachim, but I have just developed a visceral hatred of you!
oops I mean IP, not ISP
No. The only Empire is the American Empire. Or does some other country have 700+ military bases in 130+ countries and they just aren't telling us about them?
The AIPAC Case in Washington, Iraq, and Beyond, David Bromwich, 3 May 09
"What do the hardliners in Israel and the lobby imagine when they oppose a two-state solution?" They imagine that sooner or later the opportunity will arise to do a large-scale cleansing of Palestinians as in 1948. A la Netanyahu: "Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China [Tiananmen Square], when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
Lying cunt! Netanyahu never said that. You'd have cited it if he had!
Yes he did. Also, AIPAC rules! As Ariel Sharon once said in Hebrew on Israeli Radio, Jews control America and the Americans know it!
That's exactly what they are hoping for. The desire for the political and economic turmoil that would distract the world another such crime is the very heart of the neocon notion of 'creative destruction'.
Silly discussion. If you're a human being, you support the Palestinians. If you're shit from the toilet, you support Israel. All the rest is idle chatter.
Right Diane. Wasn't the 2003 US invasion of Iraq supposed to provide just such cover for large-scale ethnic cleansing? People (or more accurately, academics plus Alison Weir) here in Israel were even on the alert for signs of trucks and other transit that would have facilitated the transer? http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02082003.html I don't believe that that actually happened. And I don't think that that was because Weir and her group of academics were on the look out!
Sharon most certainly did not say that or anything like it: CAMERA received confirmation from Kol Yisrael political correspondent Yoni Ben-Menachem, who reports on Cabinet meetings, that he never made such a broadcast and that Sharon never made such a statement. http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x...
And we're meant to believe CAMERA? You really do make me laugh sometimes
If your father was a jew, and your mother isn't – you're still a Jew. Let's not mince terms here. You can do Alyah, but you need to convert to marry other Jews in Israel. Your conversion is more or less welcome, provided you meet the 1/4th rule. So no, you can't not count people who pass the Alyah test as being non-jews – that's just plain BS! Most consider themselves Jewish, and are considered as such by their friends. Do the math, and you get a very slim Jewish majority.
And we're supposed to believe the Islamic Association for Palestine? Somehow, I'll choose to believe what Yoni Ben-Menachem told CAMERA about what he actually reported. BTW, your naivete and blind acceptance of any "fact" against Israel really makes me laugh sometimes as well.
Oy, Helena. You don't seem to understand the one difference between the Palestinians and other refugees that you mention: Mozamicans, Cambodians, Iraqis, Afghans, etc. do not confer refugee status to future generations to become "exiles". The only thing that stands between the Palestinians and normal refugee status under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is UNRWA.
JES, of course children born to the refugees in the extensive and longlasting refugee camps set up for Mozambicans, Afghans, Cambodians, etc all inherited their status as refugee/exiled citizens of those respective countries. What do you imagine? That when those refugees returned back home in the context of a peace deal, they had to leave all the children born to them in exile behind?? Some of those refugee situations lasted for enough years for grandchildren to be born to some of the original refugees. None of these succeeding generations lose their citizenship/refugee status just by being born in exile. … Also, we should remember that refugees in Syria, Lebanon and other places have no citizenship conferred on them. They are stateless persons. Does this not evoke troubling memories for a Jewish person like yourself, JES? Remember, too, how oppressed and vulnerable the refugees in Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere are…
Don't be ridiculous. In all the other cases you have mentioned, they did not "inherit… their status as refugees" (I'm not certain where you came up with the term "exiled citizens".) Please take a look at the definition of "refugee" in the "UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees", Article I, Section A,2, and particularly to the key phrase: "…who not having a nationality and being outside the country of his habitual residence…" [emphasis added] What I imagine is that whether or not the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of a refugee born while outside the country of his "habitual residence" are only considered exiled citizens of that country according to the laws of that country – not under international law. I also know that the majority of refugees never return to their countries of origin and that the vast majority of these do not return to their former homes or even villages.
(Continued) Further, you should alsot take a look at the Convention Article I, Section C, 3 and Section E which states that refugees cease to be considered as such once they acquire nationality of the host country that affords them protection. BTW, Helena, I am a Jew, not a "Jewish Person".
Every day I understand why the Zionists are so eager to reserve the minipulation of the word "Jewish" unto themselves. What will finally break Zionism is not its relationship with non-Jews, but the way it distorts, minipulates and coarsens the relationship between Jews. Frankly, its end result will be that nobody except affluent Ashkenazis will want to be Jews. And nobody can make you a Jew if you don't want to be. Even in Israel. It all started because I noticed a shocking tendency of Zionist-supporters to alwayd judge all other Jews Jewishness. If American Zionist-supporters feel they have the right to do this to other American Jews, can you imagine what they do in Israel with Russian half-Jews, or ethnic Jews with disparate customs. When you have existential problems, there's usually no time for sensitive solutions. Zionists have a saying, that "anti-semitism makes a Jew". Problem is, it seems anti-semitism is more efficient at it then Jews are. Not good.
"If your father was a jew, and your mother isn't – you're still a Jew." I can find you thousands of Christians, and those of many other faiths, whose parents were both Jews. Given the absence of an anti-semitic system which needs Jews for its anti-semitism, there is nothing which can make you a Jew, if you don't feel like it. Zionists are much more dependent on anti-semitism than Judaism. Judaism can't produce the kind of Jews they need, but anti-Semitism can. Disgusting.
I'm not Helena, but would appreciate an explanation of why you object.
One must conclude the "American government" is not monolithic in what it believes should be done.
Why I object to what, Margaret? To the fact that Palestinians are essentially the only refugees whose population has been growing? Or to Helena's disingenuous attempts to try and misrepresent the facts so as to make her case about the Palestinian "diaspora"?
What did you mean to express when you said: \”I am a Jew, not a \”Jewish
Person\”.\”?
Why did you tell Helena: "I am a Jew, not a "Jewish Person"."? What did you mean to express?
Would you think of calling someone an "Arab person" or a "Muslim person" as opposed to simply an "Arab" or a "Muslim"? The reluctance to refer to a Jew simply as a "Jew" often results from the fact that the term jew has pejorative connotations for the speaker. Does that answer your question?
It is an answer, but I don't know if I understand any better.
I was raised to think twice before using the word, \”Jew,\” to be sure I
was not using it in a pejorative manner – one is not taught the
significance of common phrases that are offensive when the meaning is
considered. As a result, I tend to be comfortable using the term only
when speaking of someone in relation to religion, as I would say
Catholic. I rarely discuss religion with people. The Islamist
religion is so varied, I wouldn't consider Muslim appropriate unless
the person with whom I was talking used it self-reflexively; Muslim
to me sounds more like 'Jewish' than 'Jew'.
I am not used to addressing people by ethnicity, and am not
comfortable doing so except in specific contexts. In such a context,
I would call you \”Jewish,\” if it were necessary to identify you in
relation to ethnicity.
I would be interested in hearing what you might consider the use of "Jew" in a pejorative manner. BTW, "Islamist" is not appropriate, unless referring to a fundamentalist Muslim. Muslim is the appropriate terms, and any (honest) Muslim will tell you that Islam is more of an ethnicity, or at least a way of life, than a religion. I also find it interesting that you claim not to be used to addressing people by ethnicity. Don't you refer to people as Irish, or German, or Italian, or Chinese? Certainly not as a "German person" (or possibly a "Chinaman")?
Now I understand why Zionist-supporters are so obsessed with degrees of Jewishness, and so adamant about reserving that judgement to themselves. In Israel, the accusation "You're not a Jew" or "You are not the right kind of Jew" can have material consequences, can't it? I never thought I'd live to see it, but let's call it what it is: Anti-Semitism being used by Jews as a weapon against other Jews!! You know what, I am not going to worry about anti-Semitism until Zionists claim there are so few Jews that anyone who says he is a Jew, (and embraces monotheism, of course: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One) is their brother. Zionists seem to think there are way too many Jews; they are always trying to kick some out. In Israel, that would mean you would lose your job or place to live, doesn't it?
Pejorative use: relating to commerce. How often do you refer to others by their ethnicity if you aren't referring to history or genealogy or to something specifically related to ethnic tradition? What reason would you have to refer to my ethnicity? English terms relating to Islam and it's followers haven't reached a state where there are commonly accepted meanings that make sense to me.
What distinguishes being a Jew from being Jewish for you?
Pejorative use: relating to commerce. You mean like "Boy, he really jewed me down"? I guess I've made my case. "How often do you refer to others by their ethnicity if you aren't referring to history or genealogy or to something specifically related to ethnic tradition?" I don't know. How often have the current President and his wife been referrred to as "African-Americans"?
The first is a noun; the second an adjective. I don't have any problem with someone saying: "He's Jewish". What I do have a problem with, and this is what I was trying to point out to Helena, is that by insisting on using the term "Jewish person" – where she would never think of doing the same with, say a German or Italian – the emphasis is on the "person", i.e. it's okay, they're still a person, even though they're Jewish. And now, if you will….
Your case being: "The reluctance to refer to a Jew simply as a "Jew" often results from the fact that the term jew has pejorative connotations for the speaker."? I said I had been taught to be careful in use of the term because of the frequency it was used pejoratively – which makes unclear why you feel such a case must be made. The explanation that Helena was distinguishing someone as a person, even though they're Jewish, seems to me very much an individual response, rather than what would be a common understanding of her meaning – a response made for the purpose of criticizing her daring to talk about someone who is Jewish, rather than because of what she said. You seem to depersonalize yourself when you call yourself a Jew, rather than Jewish.
What on earth are you talking about? How are "Zionist-supports…obsessed with degrees of Jewishness". Aboslute bullshit. It is the ultra-orthodox, non-Zionists who are concerned with whether or not someone is a Jew. And where did you come up with the fact that not being the "right kind" of Jew would mean losing one's job or home? The only thing that not being a Jew from an ultra-orthodox religious perspective means is that one cannot be married or buried as a Jew, and the devil-incarnate, Avigdor Lieberman, is trying to rectify that one through reform of the civil laws.