11 thoughts on “Pro-Settler Rabbi Tells IDF Troops Vatican and Hezbollah Conspire to Exterminate Jews – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. “In fact, the Breaking the Silence testimonies reveal that soldiers were told that there are no civilians in Gaza; that everyone is Hamas.”

    If you add the word “some” then that would be an accurate and informative statement. “some” soldiers were told.

    Otherwise its a misleading and malevolently judgemental misrepresentation.

    I get your anger. I don’t get your willingness to drop the prohibition from “bearing false witness against thy neighbor’.

  2. The phrase “soldiers were told” in English is not synonymous with “all soldiers were told.” Your nitpicking has gone beyond the bounds of making any sense.

    1. What does this “all” matter? Is told to 90 % of soldiers worse than to 60 or 40 percent? Or does it only “matter” if to ALL was told the propaganda or if ALL committed war crimes. Well then WW2 German soldiers can’t be blamed. Not ALL did know.

      If we use constantly the term militant Islam it also nowadays justified to speak about militant Judaism, so much evidence there is of the growing usage of religious propaganda among IDF troops.

      1. just use the “some”you got to treat my people with kid gloves “they” is another word “some” jews look for to auto call u an anti-semite.I now kow for sure all germans did not know what was going on with the jews during the holocaust why u ask? Well most jews have no clue what the idf are doing to the people of Palestine.

        1. From where do you know that ALL Germans during WW2 knew what happened in Auschwitz etc? Surely ALL did not know. Some knew, most not, but that is not essential. What happened happened and the whole nation was and is demanded to feel guilty. Why should it be different with Israel’s ethnic cleansing operations? Nabka as an historical fact doesn’t disappear even if it by a law is “criminalized” in Israel.

          That is simply stupid to use constantly this SOME – ALL argument. It is perfectly clear that when Israel as a state and the self declared “representative” of Jews does something or tolerates something others see as criminal not all of the 5 million Israeli Jews nor the rest 7 million Jews around the world are informed of the events and those who are do have numerous different opinions and attitudes. Surely some Israeli Jews did support what happened just in Gaza, some opposed it fiercely, some did not care and some demanded even more “determined” actions. Does it make the events on the field more “pretty” or less significant because not ALL approved them?

  3. This story also sheds an unflattering light on the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

  4. This is so disturbing it’s hard to know where to begin. This spew was published by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (?); I wonder what the vast majority of Americans would think of the intense demonization of Catholics and other non-Jews amidst its paranoid rantings, if they became acquainted with this tract. Americans as a whole ought to & need to know about this stuff. This vilification is being done (at least partly) by our fellow Americans, after all.

    The media does a good job of ignoring and/or covering up blood-curdling material like this from the far-right-wing of the Israeli and American Jewish community, at least the generalized hatred-of-Gentiles aspect of it. Our media just distills and filters the very large Islamophobic, anti-Arab portion of it for broader American consumption. When you cut down to the quick, this pamphlet appears to hold at its core a blistering, unadulterated hostility and hatred toward the very large non-Jewish portion of the human family. Pure tribalism, denial and destruction of the Other. Disgusting stuff. The other religious leaders I can think of in the American context who can match the level of vitriol and hate evinced by the likes of Rav Shmuel Eliahu, are some of the leaders of the Christian Right. I don’t believe even the Christian Right goes as far as openly advocating slaughter of civilians, though, like at least one rightwing Rabbi (that I heard of) did during the war on Gaza.

    As an American growing up in the Lutheran tradition (on and off) and currently attending a church of the United Methodist denomination, I haven’t come into contact with this level of war-mongering bloodlust in the realm of American mainline Protestantism (I’ve spent time in the Lutheran, Presbyterian and Methodist churches). Granted, I currently go to a very liberal progressive church, but the very idea of a religious leader invoking military aggression and actually condoning & encouraging the slaughter of civilians because among the ‘enemy’ there are no innocents, no civilians, is so bizzare & foreign to my religious frame of reference and understanding. It doesn’t compute. Religion has to encompass and offer good-will and blessings to the whole, the universal, to make sense and truly be meaningful. I just don’t get tribalist religion. Right-wing Judaism appears to embody a very scary warlike form of tribalism.

    Just as moderate, liberal Christians like myself (and there are a lot of us out there) tend to get drowned out by the white noise and national spotlight of the Religious Right nutters, the Falwells and Hagees, so perhaps do moderate Jewish voices get drowned out in the national policy debate by the right-wing nationalist settler movement. The sane voices in both groups (including myself) ought to speak out against the extremist haters that inhabit our larger communities.

    The Eliahus out there seem to be driving Israeli and, to a substantial degree, American policy. This is what’s so scary. Obama has put up a somewhat half-assed road-block. But he needs to draw a much more definitive line in the sand against this madness. For most of my life I’ve held the image of the benevolent, gentle, loving rabbi. Soulful and Wise, a dynamic balance of intellect and ethical rigor. The Eliahu version is horrifying and incredibly disillusioning.

  5. Religious extremism seems to be an increasing influence in the military of both Israel and the US. One reads of retired IDF personnel who are equally horrified to read of material like this, while there has been sufficient concern about Christian proselytizing encountered by US military personnel to lead to official investigations and at least one legal complaint.

    Moreover, efforts to develop good relations seen as essential for progress in Afghanistan are reportedly being impeded by evangelical activity of military personnel in-country. As Kamran Pasha commented in Huffington Post, regarding this issue, “…faith proffered at the end of a gun is not the same as spirited discourse between equals.”

    Even worse is a report in Harper’s of Special Forces staff taunting the Iraqi opposition with shouts of “Jesus killed Mohammed.” As Warren says, a line needs to be drawn against such activity.

    Somehow it’s not surprising to find that the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, who advised on interrogation techniques until August 2007, is reported by Harper’s to hold the belief that Christianity is worship of God, while Islam is worship of Satan.

    Mikey Weinstein, founder of Military Religious Freedom Foundation, calls the former deputy undersecretary a “traitor to the oath he swore, which was to the United States Constitution.” (Harper’s 5-09, The Crusade for a Christian Military)

    1. I don’t figure anything (related to this issue). This is the figure that all credible news media are using. If you want to accept the lies of the IDF based on nothing more than wishful thinking , be my guest.

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