Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The accompanying B’Tselem video should make your stomach turn and call to mind what a Kristallnacht perpetrated by Jews might resemble.  These are citizens of the State of Israel who treat its authorities with utter contempt, not to mention shower them with violence:

…B’Tselem released footage on Thursday showing a mob of settlers clashing with Israeli security forces in the West Bank town of Hebron.  During the clashes…settlers…wounded an IDF soldier by pouring turpentine on him as he tried to stop them from throwing stones at Palestinians…The settlers also scribbled graffiti…including spraying ‘Mohammed Pig’ on the walls of a local mosque and on Palestinian homes nearby.

Mouatassem Daana, a Palestinian resident of Hebron, said he saw settlers gathered near the building “writing demeaning graffiti on the wall of the mosque insulting the Prophet Mohammad” and breaking windows.

An IDF spokesman said settlers also vandalized a cemetery near the mosque.

Israel’s prime minister has called such outrageous behavior a “pogrom.”  Last week, Jews around the world commemorated the anniversary of Kristallnacht. I’m afraid that this represents our own Jewish Kristallnacht by which we desecrate Muslim cemeteries and mosques. And settlers committed such violence not only against their Palestinian target of choice, but against IDF soldiers and Israeli police.  In fact, one wonders whether they even make a distinction.

In fact, one West Bank rabbi has gone so far as to state:

“The state of Israel has become the enemy of the people and the land of Israel,” settler rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe said Tuesday during an emergency meeting on the state’s plan to evacuate a house in Hebron…

For the life of me I simply cannot understand the forbearance with which Israel treats these traitorous zealots.  Yes, the settlers are known to make outrageous claims that confronting them will lead to civil war; that the nation will rise up against any political leadership that opposes them, etc.  But all this is always shown to be empty rhetoric when push comes to shove as it did during the Gaza evacuation.  This however, doesn’t prevent said leadership from being cowed in the face of such bullying blackmail.

All this is something over which I have no control.  Where I do have control, and do feel great anger is knowing that my own government has provided 501c3 non-profit status to various settler groups which raise funds to support this noxious enterprise.  And raise fund they do.  Of the three groups listed in the Reuters report, a single one, the Hebron Fund raised $8 million from 2002-2005.

It hosts an annual gala in Manhattan each year which provides one-third of the overall funds raised in a given year.  This year’s event was held last week at a midtown hotel.  Adalah NY demonstrated outside the event and unsuccessfully asked the Marriott to cancel it on the grounds that the settlement project constitutes a gross violation of Palestinian human rights.  The hotel chain was more concerned about accepting the Hebron Fund’s check than they were with respecting human rights.

In fact, the violence in Hebron revolves around a formerly Palestinian property appropriated/stolen by settlers through a forged deed (not the first time they’ve tried this fraudulent ruse).  The High Court has directed the settlers to return the property and they’ve refused.  Which means they deny the authority of Israel’s supreme judicial authority to adjudicate the matter.

Funds raised from the N.Y. fundraiser will be used to “Judaize” the building and Hebron itself:

After settlers took over a new but unfinished building in Hebron in March 2007, the fund solicited donations to finance renovations like installing doors, windows and heating systems.

“Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron — only if we renovate this building quickly!” the Hebron Fund said in its appeal…Critics who argue that the projects promote settlement expansion and run counter to U.S. foreign policy…

Not to mention that the ultimate goal of these Jewish extremist is to uproot any vestige of Palestinian existence from Hebron and the rest of the Territories.  This is what our government is endorsing with a tax-exemption.  How does the IRS do this and let these people get away with this U.S. endorsed racism and hooligan violence?

Let us tell our government that American Jews do not support this disgusting display.  We do not want such Jews given a heksher by our government.  If anything, they should be declared a terrorist organization just like Hamas and Kahane Chai.  When will government bureaucrats come to their senses and understand this?  When will our so-called Jewish leaders speak out and tell them this?  If they truly disapprove of this stain on the Jewish conscience then they would denounce it publicly and intensely.  Thus far, I’ve heard only silence from Abe Foxman, David Harris and the Israel lobby groups which claim to be concerned about human (not just Jewish) rights.

Some of my readers persist in the belief that only Muslims and Arabs hate Jews but that there is no such feeling among Jews toward the former.  This story disproves that false notion.  Hate unfortunately is an equal opportunity offender that afflicts both religions.

Thanks to a reader who prefers to remain anonymous for research and the original story tip.