Yediot Achronot reported that several IDF officers created a T-shirt for their soldiers with a chilling explicitly racist, Islamophobic message. It read:
“Every Arab mother should know that the fate of her children is in our hands…Schem [Nablus] we’re on the way.”
The T-shirt features a graphic image of an armed soldier toppling the minaret of a mosque. It’s certainly designed to reassure the mothers of Nablus that the IDF believes in the purity of arms and is the most moral army in the world, as liberal Zionists and others like to claim.
This T-shirt is not an anomaly. Veterans of Operation Cast Lead made a variety of equally offensive products which were proudly modeled and sold online. In fact (and as an aside), the reason I stopped posting for Huffington Post is that they refused to publish my post on this story, which was originally broken by Uri Blau (of course).
H/t to Ari Remez.
Speaking of destroying mosques, it’s no accident that in the past week, Israeli settler jihadists have made strenuous efforts to promote their goal of destroying the Haram al-Sharif, the Dome of the Rock. I reported here the arrest (and quick release) of two Israeli settlers who posted flyers which demanded that Muslims vacate the Temple Mount so that work could begin on the Jewish Temple. In addition, Al Monitor posted a paean to this movement which featured the news that settler rabbis have been praciticing their proficiency at animal sacrifice in preparation for the day that God and people summon them to be priests once again in the Holy Temple.
Speaking of which, Haaretz features a Passover slide show with an image credited to Reuters with the incredibly misleading caption:
Orthodox Jewish priests gesture during re-enactment of Passover animal sacrifice.
Excuse me. Who died and left them “Jewish priests?” Some settler rabbi? There are no Jewish priests. Any claim otherwise is fake. And if there ever does come a time when there will be, be prepared for the New Jewish Crusades. There may be Jews who are kohanim, but that doesn’t qualify them to re-enact anything. Certainly not in my name or the name of the rest of world Jewry.
The punishment offered to the officers in the T-shirt incident was removal from their combat unit. They remain in military service though. Perhaps they’ll now be serving in the ‘T-shirt division’ making similar products for other IDF units!
[comment deleted for comment rule violation: do not repeat yourself in comments. Say it once and no need to say it again.]
I noticed in your twitter feed the photo of the kohanim with your comment “what the hell?” Have you never been to synagogue on Yom Kippur or any of the many other occasions when the kohanim/priests come up to “duchen” and bless the congregation with their hands outstretched like that?
@ Sara: Perhaps in your Orthodox synagogue kohanim duchen. But in 90% of the synagogues in America there is no duchening. And in the remaining 10% the kohanim certainly don’t dress in white tunics and come fresh from shechting pigeons & other animal sacrifices.
Although I now attend an orthodox synagogue I am not orthodox, and I know for sure that in Conservative shuls kohanim duchen, since I grew up attending Conservative shuls! As for the white garb, it’s called a kittel and on holy days many Jews wear them. But in the end, the entire ceremony is discussed is simply not worthy of a “what the hell” comment. It’s perfectly in line with what kohanim/priests are.
@ Sara: All that you say doesn’t contradict what I said, which is that duchening is an obscure ritual observed in a tiny minority of synagogues most of them Orthodox. Undoubtedly, the shul you attended was Conservadox. I have worshipped in Conservative synagogues my entire life and never observed it in any Conservative shul. I have seen the ritual once or twice among hundreds of synagogue visits, when I worshipped at an Orthodox shul.
Jews do not wear kittels on Pesach. Nor has any Kohen I’ve ever seen duchening worn a kittel. Nor is anything shown in the Israeli bizarre ritual “perfectly in line” with anything except messianic delusions about rebuilding the Temple, destroying the Dome of the Rock & reinstituting ritual sacrifice; developments 98% of world Jewry do NOT want.
IDF t-shirt isn’t Islamophobic, it’s anti-Semitic (since Arabs are Semites, too).