With Symbolic Hebron Chanukah Visit, Israeli President Greenlights Al-Aqsa Destruction

December 03rd, 2021

By Miko Peled

Source

Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to the Ibrahimi Mosque should be seen as nothing less than an invitation by the Zionist establishment to the Zionist radical elements to go ahead and burn the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

HEBRON, PALESTINE – “Should the Al-Aqsa Mosque be destroyed, the match will be lit by a fanatic settler, but it is decades of Zionist indoctrination and Israeli policies that will be responsible for the destruction.” I wrote these words in a piece in this publication in August of 2021. In December of this year the Israeli establishment has taken a huge step in this direction: the president of Israel, Yitzhak (Isaac) Herzog, decided to light the first candle of Chanukah at the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Palestinian city of Al-Khalil – Hebron.

This visit represents a “go ahead” by the so-called moderate Israeli establishment to the fanatic religious-Zionists to continue their unchecked, unhinged violent attacks against Palestinians in general and their pursuit of the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular.

The Ibrahimi Mosque

It is said that the Jerusalem geographer Muqqadasi, writing in 985 CE, described the town of Hebron as follows:

In Hebron is a public guest house continuously open, with a cook, a baker and servants in regular attendance. These offer a dish of lentils and olive oil to every poor person who arrives, and it is set before the rich, too, should they wish to partake. Most men express the opinion this is a continuation of the guest house of Abraham […] At present time I do not know in all the realm of al-Islam any house of hospitality and charity more excellent than this one.”

A UNESCO report declared the city of Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque that lies within it as Palestine Heritage sites. The report states, “The main monument of the town is the centrally sited Al Haram Al-Ibrahimi Mosque/The Tomb of the Patriarchs.” The mosque sits on what is believed to be the burial site of the biblical patriarch Abraham, his wife Sara, their son Isaac and his son Jacob, as well as Rebecca and Leah. This belief is based on a story from the Book of Genesis 23:1–20 that tells about the patriarch Abraham purchasing a cave in order to bury his wife.

An endangered shrine

Another UNESCO report regarding the city of Al-Khalil, now known as Hebron, states that it and the mosque are “endangered sites.”

According to the report, “The nominated property is considered […] of Outstanding Universal Value as a cultural property” for the following reasons:

The Al-Khalil/Hebron old town “is an outstanding, exceptionally complete and well preserved example of unique urban and architectural characteristics inspired by the human values of Hebron/Al-Khalil community” and “[r]eflects continuous fabric which dates back to the Mamluk and Ottoman Periods.” The report goes on to state that the old town “[w]as shaped by the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque/The Tomb of Patriarchs, an outstanding example of building that illustrates significant stages in human history,” which “[b]enefited from its location on the main commercial routes in the region.”

Israeli police occupy Shuhada before the arrival of Herzog to the Ibrahimi mosque in occupied Hebron, November 28, 2021. Photo | Activestills

Writing about Israel’s continuous threats to the sites, UNESCO reports:

What is clear is that threats and violations are systematic and long-standing. They have a significant impact on the lives of ordinary citizens, resulting in the gradual depopulation of the old town […] and also interfere with the conservation of cultural heritage assets.

The site of the mosque and the Old City of Hebron are under threat because of Israeli attempts to de-Arabize the old city, build Jewish-only settlements, rename the streets, and cover up the rich history of the city and the mosque, a history that spans thousands of years.

Isaac Herzog

Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, is described in a piece in The Guardian as a “softly spoken veteran of centre-left.” When Herzog was an attorney, he represented large corporations like Coca-Cola Israel. A prominent Palestinian who knows Herzog and dealt with him when Herzog was a lawyer once said to me, “I don’t know what he was thinking, what would make him do such a thing.”

This “thing” that this Palestinian was referring to was the dangerous accommodation of the militant right-wing Religious-Zionists and legitimization of their desecration of an ancient and revered Muslim site – the Ibrahimi Mosque — with Herzog’s visits to the site.

However, as we look at the history of the State of Israel, we see that the so-called moderate Zionist establishment has always accommodated the radical right and legitimized the achievements the Zionist state has enjoyed through the brutality and violence perpetrated by Zionist fanatics.

From the earliest days of the Zionist colonization of Palestine, the radical violent elements pushed forward while the so-called moderates, while initially distancing themselves from the actions of “extremists,” gradually legitimized their actions.

This was true in the pre-1948 actions of Zionist terror squads that included the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem; the assassination of the United Nations mediator, the Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadot; and the brutal massacre of the people of Deir Yasin on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

In fact, the war of 1967 also was a push by Zionist radicals – who by that time were generals in army uniform and had a well-equipped and well-trained army at their disposal – to do what was left undone in 1948. While the more “moderate” Israeli politicians were hesitant, the generals demanded to start a war and take parts of Palestine that were left outside the state of Israel.

Post-1967

In post-1967 Israel, the face of the fundamentalist radical Zionists had slightly changed but the tactics remained the same. The 1967 occupation gave rise to a new form of radical Zionism called Religious Zionism. These were Zionists who had been indoctrinated in the hate-filled, violence-infused yeshiva, Yeshivat Mercaz Harav. Named “The Mother of Zionistic Yeshivot,” it was the very first Zionist yeshiva and the ‘flagship’ for the National Religious movement.

Originally the Labour-Left establishment, to which President Isaac Herzog belonged, had looked down on and even distanced itself from the National Religious movement. However, as early as 1968, when that movement initiated Jewish-only settlements in the heart of the West Bank, the army and the Labor-Left establishment supported them wholeheartedly. Today, Religious Zionists are credited with establishing a Jewish-Zionist presence throughout the entire West Bank.

What used to be the Zionist Labor-Left establishment is all but gone, and only a few relics like Herzog remain. Today the Israeli establishment consists of two factions of ultra-right fanatic blocks, fighting each other for power. Politically they are identical and their hate-filled anti-Palestinian rhetoric is equally appalling.

Hertzog’s visit to the Ibrahimi Mosque should be seen as nothing less than an invitation by the Zionist establishment to the Zionist radical elements to go ahead and burn the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Sword and The Book: How Zionism Does Violence to the Jewish Tradition

October 27th, 2021

By Miko Peled

Source

Glorifying war and violence is, like Zionism itself, an anathema to the Jewish faith.

JERUSALEM — In his comprehensive treatise on the subject of Judaism vs. Zionism, Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro writes, “The Jewish lifestyle is incompatible with the sword.” Violence and war are frowned upon in Judaism, which is one of the reasons that traditional, orthodox Jews by and large distance themselves from, if not completely rejecting, Zionism. It also explains why young Ultra Orthodox men and women refuse to serve in the Israeli army, and in fact prefer to go to prison.

A notice in the Ultra Orthodox neighborhood of Me’a Sha’arim.

The violence and brutality with which the State of Israel has conducted itself since it was established shows that it is a state that has an insatiable appetite for war. Because Israel’s false claim of being the State of the Jewish People has been widely accepted, one may wrongly assume that the violence and racism that are so integral to Israel are somehow a reflection of Jewish people and the Jewish religion. This, however, could not be farther from the truth.

Rabbi Shapiro writes, “We never glorified war or warriors the way other nations did. The only people glorified by us are our Torah scholars.” And even though Jewish people do have sites that they consider holy, “never did the Jews commemorate as a national symbol the site of an historic battle,” nor do Jewish people commemorate battles or victories as holidays or event days of remembrance.

Hanukkah

One Jewish holiday that is misunderstood and completely misrepresented by the Zionists is Hanukkah. The Zionists claim that it is a celebration of a military victory of the Jews against their Greek oppressors. However, Rabbi Shairo says, this is a secular-Zionist interpretation of a religious holiday.

The holiday of Hanukkah is a celebration of a miracle in which the oil for the lamp to illuminate the temple in Jerusalem lasted longer than it naturally would have otherwise. In fact, Rabbi Shapiro tells us that even Maimonides, who is arguably the greatest Jewish scholar who ever lived, commented on this issue and stated that celebrating Hanukkah as a military victory would be contrary to the Torah “because the Torah celebrates peace above all else.”

To demonstrate how Hannukah has been misrepresented, Rabbi Shapiro quotes Zionist figures like the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, author Leon Uris, and even Theodor Hertzl himself. They created and perpetuated the myth that the Macabees fought for national rights and self determination. This, according to Rabbi Shapiro, “is a violent, Zionist interpretation.” “The war in the story of Hanukkah isn’t even mentioned in the Talmud,” Rabbi Shapiro stressed when I asked him about this.

Rabbi Shapiro quotes Rabbi Shimon Shwab (1908-95), a German anti-Zionist rabbi who served as Chief Rabbi of the Washington Heights Jews. Regarding Hanukkah, he said, “The Maccabees didn’t fight for the Jews, they fought for the Torah; they would give their lives to stay Jewish. To show that they’d rather die than not be able to worship.” Rabbi Shwab further said, “Beis ha mikdash [the Temple] is not worth a life. We didn’t go to war because of it but because they tried to make us not Jewish.”

The Sword and the Book

The concept of the Book vs. the Sword is central to Judaism. Judaism is a religion that demands of its followers that they observe the book and not the sword. This goes back as far as the Book of Genesis, where the Patriarch Yitzhak has two sons, the twins Ya’akov and Esav. Each one of his sons represents one of these two qualities. Ya’akov, who inherits from his father and becomes the third patriarch, represents the scholar who is faithful to the Torah. The second son, Esav, represents the warrior. The Torah speaks about “the voice of Ya’akov and the hands of Esav.” Later on in Jewish history these terms were known as safra, which is Aramaic for the word “book,” and saifa, which is Aramaic for the word “sword.” The two are incompatible and will forever be at odds with each other.

To further illustrate this case, Rabbi Shapiro brings a story from the Gemara, one of several elements that make up the Talmud, which is the body of work that constitutes Jewish life, law and learning. In this story, Eleazar ben Perata was a rabbi who lived in Palestine during the second century CE, when the country was ruled by the Romans. The Romans, who according to the story made it illegal to study the Torah, accused him of armed robbery and of studying the Torah. When brought before the judge he claimed, “I can be guilty of either safra (studying the book, or the Torah) or saifa (holding a sword) but not both.”

Resistance to the Zionist warrior mentality

The resistance to Zionism by Torah Jews is largely due to the warrior version of a Jew that the Zionists invented. The early Zionists, and to a large degree Zionists today, despise traditional, ultra-orthodox Jews. Zionism as a movement wanted to put an end to the existence of what they termed “the diaspora Jews,” who were characterized by their devotion to their faith and to the study of the Torah. To this end, the Zionists invented a “new Jew,” which according to Rabbi Shapiro is an “antithesis to Judaism.”

A banner in the main street in the Me’a Sha’arim neighborhood in Jerusalem.

Jews esteem the Torah scholar above all else, while the Zionist “new-Jew” considers the warrior as the epitome of Jewish existence. Young Ultra Orthodox children learn about the lives and teachings of great Rabbis and Torah scholars, while young Israeli children in Zionist schools learn about generals and politicians, many who have a history of war crimes. This is precisely why devoted religious Jews do not allow their children to go to Zionist schools, or for that matter to serve in the Zionist army.

What is perhaps one of the most profound and revealing passages with respect to how Judaism views war and the warrior is the following quote. It is from a book of commentaries by the late Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a highly regarded scholar and an Orthodox rabbi who lived in Germany in the nineteenth century:

As long as the annals of humanity attach glory to the heroes of the sword; as long as those that throttle and murder the happiness of mankind are not buried in oblivion, subsequent generations will look with admiration upon those infamous strongmen, and their memory will awaken the desire to emulate them in acts of violence and glory. 

A book of commentaries by the late Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.

Throughout its short and violent history, Israel has glorified violence and the perpetrators of violence above all else. Every other street in the cities that the Zionists built, and even the one they occupied, carries the name of an Israeli Army general, military unit, or Zionist politician.

However, as we have established here, glorifying war and violence is, like Zionism itself, an anathema to the Jewish faith.

Trump on Borrowed Time and Potential Dangers

By Ali Abadi, Al-Ahed News

Why are we witnessing the intensification of normalization efforts between Arab regimes and the Zionist entity following the US presidential elections? What options does Donald Trump have during the remainder of his time in office?

Prior to the US elections, it was clear that the goal of the normalization agreements was to boost Trump’s reelection campaign. But the extension of the normalization current beyond the election that Trump lost has other potential objectives:

–    Attracting additional support for Trump in his battle to cling to power by sharpening the capabilities of the Zionist constituencies to support his electoral appeals that don’t have a great chance of success. But Trump has not given up yet in his efforts to reverse the results.

–    Sending important signals to those concerned at home and abroad that Trump still has vigor, as he plans to complete the goals he set and stay on the political scene. If he were to lose the presidency now, he may return in 2024, as those close to him have hinted. In the meantime, he seeks to gain support from the Jewish and Christian Zionist circles as a “man of word and action” in supporting “Israel” absolutely and without hesitation.

With Trump preoccupied with the battle to cling to power at home, his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is abroad – touring as “Israel’s” minister of foreign affairs accompanied by Arab ministers to sign more normalization agreements. He is legalizing “Israeli” settlements and the occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights and declaring a move to criminalize the campaign of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). 

It’s worth noting that months before the US elections, Pompeo reportedly had his sights set on the 2024 presidential race. As such, Pompeo, who identifies with Trump’s approach and acts as his obedient supporter, plans to be the natural heir to the Trumpian current in the event that its leader is absent due natural causes like death or unnatural causes such as imprisonment due to his legal issues. 

He is also preparing the groundwork for the birth of an “Israeli”-Arab alliance (Saudi, Bahraini, and Emirati) standing in the face of the Islamic Republic of Iran and adding further complications to any possible return of the Biden administration to the nuclear deal.

Saudi and “Israeli” officials are now speaking in one voice about a “no return” to the nuclear agreement, as they set the conditions and limits that they feel the next American administration should abide by. This is also a reflection of widespread concerns over the failure of Trump’s so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran. 

This was the background for news reports about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meeting “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saudi territory – a get-together arranged by Pompeo.

The choice for war is in the balance

All of the above are possibilities. But does that give way to expectations for a military adventure against Iran, for example, during the transitional period before Joe Biden takes office on January 20?

No sane person can absolutely deny such a possibility. In this context, news about the US strategic B-52 bomber’s flight to the region, the possibility of supplying US bombs that penetrate fortifications to the Zionist entity, the dismissal of US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and the withdrawal of US units from Iraq and Afghanistan trickled in. 

The last move may be aimed at withdrawing targets near Iran in the event Washington takes military action against Tehran. However, attacking Iran militarily is not an American desire as much as it is an “Israeli” and Saudi one. The Pentagon has previously opposed military action against Iran, at a time when the US military has not recovered from its wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

This view does not appear to have changed, and US military commanders are unlikely to agree to put the military during the transition period on the course of a new war in the Middle East for personal or populist purposes. 

There are other considerations too. The costs of the war and its consequences are difficult to determine. Trump also knows that the mood of the American public can’t bear sacrifices abroad, financially or on a humanitarian level.

What about other possibilities?

Based on Trump’s behavior over the past four years, it appears the US president prefers to score goals and make quick deals. He is not inclined to get involved in prolonged duels. As such, it’s possible to predict that Trump will resort to localized strikes in Syria, Iraq, or Yemen (there is talk about the possibility of placing Ansarullah on the list of terrorist organizations) or cover a possible “Israeli” strike in Lebanon under one pretext or another. 

He could also resort to assassinating figures affiliated with the axis of resistance, and this possibility is more likely, especially in Iraq and Syria. Trump revealed in recent months that he thought about assassinating the Syrian president, and there are also American threats directed at leaders of the resistance factions in Iraq.

In conclusion, any aggressive military action against Iran appears to be a rooted “Israeli” option that Netanyahu tried to market to the Americans since the Obama era but failed. He is trying to strike Iran via the Americans, but Washington has other calculations and options. 

The Saudis have also urged successive US administrations to strike Iran, according to what appeared in WikiLeaks documents quoting the late King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. The window of opportunity for major military action before Trump’s departure appears narrow. He may consider the rapid operations approach followed by similar actions against Iran’s allies to deal a moral blow to Tehran, cut back its regional leadership role, and besiege its growing influence in the power equation with the Zionist entity that is challenging the US hegemony over the region.

However, we should add that the axis of resistance has its own plans for the confrontation. It withstood the maximum pressure and is able to turn any adventure into an opportunity, relying on its vigilance and accumulated capabilities.