Early this month, intrepid reporter Jonathan Cook told of a powerful Israeli rabbi, Yitzhak Shapira, under investigation for allegedly inciting the slaughter of Gentile babies. He advocates doing whatever necessary to drive out Palestinians.
So far the policy has chiefly involved violent harassment of Palestinians, with settlers inflicting beatings, attacking homes, throwing stones, burning fields, killing livestock and poisoning wells.Shlomo Aviner, one of the settlement movement’s leaders, defended the book’s arguments as a “legitimate stance” and one that should be taught in Jewish seminaries.
It is feared, however, that Shapira’s book The King’s Torah, published last year, is intended to offer ideological justifications for widening the scope of such attacks to include killing Palestinians, even children.
…Shapira was released a few hours after his questioning last Monday, dozens of rabbis, as well as several members of parliament, rallied to his side, condemning the arrest.
Shapira argues—correctly— that Talmudic “halachic” law permits killing Gentiles for a wide variety of reasons, including any time “a non-Jew’s presence endangers Jewish lives,” even if the non-Jew is “not at all guilty for the situation that has been created.”
The book sanctions the killing of non-Jewish children and babies: “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”
The rabbis suggest that harming the children of non-Jewish leaders is justified if it is likely to bring pressure to bear on them to change policy. (emphasis mine)
The authors also advocate committing “cruel deeds to create the proper balance of terror” and treating all members of an “enemy nation” as targets for retaliation, even if they are not directly participating in hostile activities.
The chaplain for the IDF forces has said the same: “In war, when our forces storm the enemies, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians that are ostensibly good.” (Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, p. 76)
Judaism’s most sacred Scriptures, the Talmud and Zohar, contain many admonitions to kill Gentiles and Christians. Probably the most widely referenced by ultra-Orthodox in Israel today is that of the preeminent Talmudic sage Simeon ben Yohai. In Abodah Zarah 26b, he cries out, “The best of the Gentiles deserves to be killed.” (Jewish Encyclopedia, “Gentile,” p. 617) Simeon ben Yohai is regarded with the highest respect by modern religious Jews, meriting praise by the Encyclopedia Judaica as one of the giants of Judaism. In Israel today, during the Festival of Lhe-ba’Omer, “tens of thousands assemble in Meron, the traditional resting place of R. Simeon ben Yohai…” to honor him in a week of Kabbalistic singing and dancing. (“ Israel, State of (Religious Life),” Encylopedia Judaica, p. 903)
This, I suppose, explains how an Israeli rabbi can write what Shapira wrote… and be defended.
Brutality Goes Mainstream in Israel
If you are in too much shock, let me restate. A rabbi says it’s a good idea to kill Gentile babies if Jews think they might someday be dangerous—or if their deaths can be used as political leverage. He was then supported by numerous rabbis and members of the Israeli parliament!
Translate this to America. A white pastor advocates killing black babies if it looks like they might become criminals or if their deaths could be used to coerce some kind of action from their parents and family members. A white pastor says this, and numerous Congressmen and other pastors support him. Are you finding that a little difficult to imagine? Me, too. In Israel, it’s not a bad daydream; it’s reality.
A Haaretz opinion piece titled, “Fundamentalism into the Mainstream,” says Shapira’s ruthless ideas are being mainstreamed. “What is new is that these are no longer "hilltop rabbis," "wild weeds" or "fence hoppers" …They and their supporters are transforming zealous fundamentalism and the shameful "The King's Torah" into the mainstream…No religious protest movement stood against the content; no one wrote a text to counter…”
The article says fundamentalist rabbis are responsible for training (instilling homicidal hatred) in tens of thousands of yeshiva students who go on to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. Perhaps one of them was the girl responsible for posing in front of bound Palestinians and posting the Abu Ghraib re-runs to Facebook. Ha’aretz reported her words, “I would gladly kill Arabs—even slaughter them.”
Rabbi Lior, who supports the King’s Torah, was invited to speak to IDF intelligence soldiers. They were told, “When there is a conflict between orders based on the ethics code and a halakhic instruction, of course one must follow halakha (Jewish law).” The Ha’aretz opinion piece concludes, “It's not incitement that's dangerous, but rather its transformation into the accepted and central form of discourse.” (emphasis mine)
Time to Look Deeper
Yet what do the words of a bloodthirsty rabbi in Israel mean for suburban Americans settled comfortably far from Palestine’s dusty violence? It means plenty. Ha’aretz comments, “The book says that any Gentile who supports war against Israel can also be killed.” (Will this include Gentiles who support the Palestinian claim that they were robbed of their homeland and deserve a return?) A recent Israel-endorsed poll shows that following Israel’s terrorist attack on the "Free Gaza" flotilla, 49 percent of Americans disapprove of further support of Israel. (See, Support for Israel Sags in US) Yet many of these Americans may not suspect that the sacred rabbinic scriptures of modern Judaism, the Talmud and Zohar, undoubtedly motivated these expressions of brutality by IDF forces on the Mavi Marmara, shooting over 50 and killing nine.
While Christianity and Islam are subject to severe and serious scrutiny, Judaism and its religious ambitions remain off limits. It is forbidden to speak of Judaism the way we now commonly speak of Christianity—or to consider that Israel’s slaughter of Gentiles aboard the Mavi Marmara and the threat in the rabbi’s words are undoubtedly related events.
Consider the double standard of what it is acceptable to say about Christianity: In early, predominantly Calvinist America, Christians dominated the political arena, holding the vast majority of public offices and writing their Biblical morality into American laws. They founded our elite universities, including Harvard, Rutgers and Yale, as Puritan Bible schools. They criminalized premarital sex, profanity, public immodesty, homosexuality, and other "sin." Their aim was to establish a nation of religious freedom yet always informed by worship of the Christian God. Until the 1960s, America was still largely ruled by the influence of its Puritan founders; concepts such as the gender binary, nuclear family, male-female marriage, objective morality and God’s existence were taken for granted by most Americans.
The previous paragraph is not “anti-Christian.” It is not “anti-Aryan.” It is history.
The competitive dominance of Jewish Americans has also profoundly shaped our nation, and is now—in the third century of American life—clearly outstripping the power of her Christian founders. Jewish Americans, 1.5% of the population, are now vastly overrepresented in seats of American power. They form an unstoppable, pro-Israel lobby in the halls of Washington and hold a large and ever increasing number of Congressional seats and positions as cabinet members and senior administration officials. They fill a third of the Supreme Court bench. American Jews also dominate culture formation in America by maintaining an impressive majority as owners, producers, and writers in all major American news and entertainment media. (See, Jews Confirm Big Media is Jewish)... Full story
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