Culture

John Kerry and the Pope set to face off with Jewish Knight Templars on the Temple Mount

Israeli Housing Minister and settler advocate Uri Ariel visiting the Temple Mount. (Photo: Michal Fattal via Haaretz)
Israeli Housing Minister and settler advocate Uri Ariel visiting the Temple Mount. (Photo: Michal Fattal via Haaretz)

This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

This is the week that supposedly spells the end of the peace process or its end. My money is on a continuation that has no real substance or direction.

What’s the alternative?

With Passover and Easter over, Secretary Kerry can return to the Middle East crisis. This, after dealing so successfully with crisis in the Ukraine. With Pope Francis arriving in Israel-Palestine soon the (un)holy nature of the conflict can once again be emphasized. Will Kerry and the Pope work hand in hand?

Did you notice the increased activity by our very own Jewish Knight Templars on the Temple Mount during Passover? Amazing how Crusaders can wear (religious) coats of many colors. When you think of the Jewish Crusaders and then think of Israel and its great super power partner, America, you know the Crusader tradition is alive and well.

The ominous Palestinian threat, taking Israel to various international tribunals or, perhaps even more serious, allowing the Palestinian Authority to collapse, is on the table this week. But since some years ago, Joseph Massad, that intrepid take-no-prisoners Palestinian commentator, compared the Palestinian Authority to the Jewish Councils of Europe that presided over the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi era, would we really miss the grand old PA?

Collaboration is a tricky issue. Jewish commentators should take a deep breath before sharing their views. But Massad is always worth listening to. Would it be better if the Palestinian version of the Jewish Councils just packed their bags and fled?

Having been protected from its own people by American-trained Palestinian police in close contact with Israel’s security apparatus, withdrawing that protection would make it dangerous for Palestinian political elites. This may be why President Abbas has already agreed to an American-led NATO occupation of a Palestinian state if that state, however truncated and ghettoized, ever came into existence.

Palestinian prisoner release is another item Jewish commentators should think twice before offering an opinion. But what does swapping Palestinian prisoners for increased Israeli settlements do in the long run for the Palestinian national cause?

The possibility that the American Jewish spy, Jonathan Pollard, might be released is another interesting possibility being bandied about. Sad to say, Pollard, a slimy character if there ever was one, has become a hero of sorts in certain Israeli circles. The issue isn’t so much the question of dual loyalty – an American spying for Israel – as it is testimony to the devolution of Jewish life.

So is this week meaningful, portending a turning point? Or is does it promise to be more of the same charade?

How irresponsible of all parties – America, Israel and the Palestinian Authority – to pretend a turning point when they know it is a charade. So many lives hang in the balance. But, then, collapse, is heavy. Make no mistake – the casualties can come fast and furious.

Is this what our Jewish Knight Templars are about – shock troops for the coming apocalypse? Or is John Kerry enabling an apocalypse under the peace process rubric.

Apocalypse – disaster, catastrophe, destruction.

Call it want you want. Even call it a peace process. Palestine is already experiencing all of the above.

Is it about to get worse?

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Since as long as I can remember Israelis have rallied around freeing Jewish prisoners. In the 70s it was Anatoly Sharansky was the face of the refuseniks, and by extension, all Soviet Jews. in the 80s and 90s it was Ron Arad, the Israeli airman shot down during Israel’s war on the PLO in Lebanon. Jonathan Pollard is another icon in the pantheon of Jewish prisoners whom we must set free.
There is a venerable Jewish tradition of pidyon sh’vuyim, freeing Jewish prisoners from non-Jewish hands. The premise is that the Jew is innocent of anything but being Jewish so the Jewish community rallies to bring him home. The State of Israel fulfills its mission and finds its identity in living out this value.
Problem is we’re talking about soldiers and spies, not innocent Jews.
I don’t believe Netanyahu actually gives two hoots about Pollard. Ask not what we can do for the Jews of the world, ask what they can do for us.

I’m pretty sure it’s always “Knights Templar.”

What I see in that photo is: blatant provocation and disrespect tantamount to a hate crime on the surface and an ominous threat below the surface.

The description of the PA here is right on the money and it has been the detriment of its own long-suffering people and their aspirations.

Any Apartheid state should be forced to release resistors to modern-day colonialist-inspired, oppressive military and illegal occupation that are held in Apartheid state prisons in any Apartheid state.

>> I’m pretty sure it’s always “Knights Templar.”

And I’m pretty sure you’re correct.

“… Ron Arad, the Israeli airman shot down during Israel’s war on the PLO in Lebanon.”

Small clarification needed here, Elliot. Navigator Arad was not on a mission against the PLO, he was on one to carpet-bomb Shia villages in Lebanon’s south. Another is about the sanctity of Jewish lives or bodies that must be set free; in 2006 the IDF was in such hurry to get the hell out of Lebanon, it took the time to snatch a few cadavres of fallen Hizbullah fighters and dragged them across the border to be used as bargaining chips on future negotiations. They also yanked a schizophrenic former fighter from his front porch where he was sitting to watch the ongoing fighting in front of his house. But in their dragging of these bodies back to Israel, they left behind the bodies and parts of bodies of fallen fellow Israeli soldiers. So this sanctity bit is somewhat of a myth along the same lines as the “purity of arms” one.