IDF chief rabbi advocates rape of Palestinian women during wartime.
This is yet another in my series of posts about terrorism in Israel, both the latest attacks, and the Israeli oppression and terror which incite Palestinian counter-violence. Yesterday’s post recounted the particularly heinous murder of a Palestinian widow and mother of six gunned down at a West Bank checkpoint. The hasbara brigade has gone into overdrive on social media to defame the victim, defend the murderers, and uphold the virtue and moral purity of the IDF.
Fixed it! pic.twitter.com/YVXoScpaAR
— Ariel Gold אריאל 🕎 ☮️🔥✡️ (@ArielElyseGold) April 10, 2022
They were particularly incensed by the above tweet from Ariel Gold, who attracts a massive pro-Israel “fan club.” One of these ‘admirers’ tweeted (see screenshot l.) the strict measures purportedly in place when he served in the IDF, which would never have permitted the victim’s death had she been the innocent victim most of the world believes she was. I disputed his claim, noting there are hundreds of incidents in which unarmed Palestinian civilians have been murdered by Border Police and IDF. In the event of such killings, the security services break out a template. It includes claims like: we shouted for her to stop, we fired warning shots in the air, we fired to wound rather than kill. If that scenario really did happen, rather than being invented, the victims would never have died. But they did.
In another tweet, I said the Israeli military is noted for even greater depravity than the murder of single Palestinian woman. Among the genocidal rhetoric I noted, was a call by the general secretary of Bnai Akiva (the largest global Orthodox youth movement), Rabbi Noam Perel, for the IDF to “cut off” the foreskins of 300 Palestinians as a bizarre form of war booty, in retribution for attacks against Jews. The Twitter thread I mentioned above was filled with mirth and hysterical laughter at the notion that IDF soldiers could be associated with such behavior. The “jokes” (screenshot above r.) were deeply offensive. But not of course to these hasbara warriors afflicted with stunted brains and no moral conscience. They laughed and laughed because that’s just what they do. Nonetheless, they didn’t know me and figured I was making it up.
I also noted that an IDF chief rabbi delivered a halachic ruling that soldiers may rape Palestinian women if “satisfying their urges” will ensure the success of the military operation (in this case invading Gaza). In reply to a questioner asking him whether rape was permitted in wartime, he said:
“The wars of Israel […] are mitzvah wars, in which they differ from the rest of the wars the nations wage among themselves….
As in war the prohibition against risking your life is broken for the benefit of others, so are the prohibitions against immorality…Just so, war removes some of the prohibitions on sexual relations, and even though fraternizing with a gentile woman is a very serious matter, it was permitted during wartime…out of understanding for the hardship endured by the warriors. And since the success of the whole at war is our goal, the Torah permitted the individual to satisfy the evil [sexual] urge, under the conditions mentioned, for the purpose of the success of the whole.”
The rabbi and his apologists have shreyed in the years since that he didn’t say it, didn’t mean it, etc. The truth is that he was caught out when he thought he was speaking to a private group. So he did some damage control and presto-changeo, he came out of it smelling like a lamb.
A second clergy, the chief rabbi of Safed, had written a similar psak din back in 2002.
I also noted that IDF Col. Ofer Winter, commander of one of the main units which invaded Gaza, urged his troops to fight a “holy war” against what he called the “Palestinian-Philistines.” Winter, in his Order of Battle to his troops prior to their deployment to the frontlines, brought them to hot fury by calling the Palestinian enemy: “defamers, abusers and defilers of the God of Israel…” Col. Ofer Winter became known as the Butcher of Khuza’a after he destroyed an entire neighborhood of Gaza. Among his fondest military feats (he confided to Israeli reporters) was the destruction of the village’s mosque in a massive missile strike.
Then, there was the leading settler Orthodox rabbi who wrote an entire book, Torat Ha’Melech, arguing among other things, that Palestinian children may be killed because they will grow up to murder Jews. Or the current Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who once quoted her mentor approvingly saying that Palestinian children were “little snakes.”
Israel has also commonly engaged in political assassination as a tool of state policy. Not only has it murdered leaders of Arab political movements viewed as threats (PFLP’s Ghassan Khanafani, the PLO’s Abu JIhad, Hezbollah’s Abbas Musawi and Imad Mugniyeh, and Hamas’ Sheikh Ahmed Yassine), it has engineered false-flag terror bombings during Lebanon’s civil war to sow chaos in foreign countries offering refuge to Israeli enemies (like the PLO). In a rare failure, Mossad agents injected Hamas leader Khaled Mashal with a lethal poison on a Jordanian street. Though the murderers fled, they were caught, arrested and imprisoned. Jordan’s King Hussein threatened Israel and demanded it provide the antidote. Then PM Netanyahu relented. The antidote saved Meshal’s life.
If a US enemy had murdered our political and military leaders almost at will, what would be the response at home? Would we not seek revenge?
Israel Breeds Palestinian Terror
These hateful incidents show indisputably that Palestinian resistance, including what Israelis will call “terrorism,” does not arise in a vacuum. It is not unprovoked. Palestinians do not suddenly wake up in the morning and say “I’m going to kill a Jew today.” In fact, those who take up violence have directly witnessed the cold-blooded killings of brothers, fathers, husbands, uncles, etc. They’ve seen dead babies in their parents’ arms. They’ve seen tens of thousands of homes destroyed in multiple invasions of Gaza. Worst of all, they are powerless and defenseless against this Israeli oppression. There is no political horizon that promises Palestinian rights. There is no possibility for accountability regarding Israeli crimes. The lives of Palestinian youth are blighted. Nothing but menial jobs, living in squalid refugee camps. No career path. No possibility of marrying, building a home and raising a family. Everything we in the west take for granted as part of a normal society is denied Palestinians.
When you add to that the incessant hate blaring at Palestinians from the Israeli side, how much does it take to light this match and ignite an inferno?
Israeli terrorism is not confined to Palestinian victims. Israel has assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists in what can only be described as an act of state terror. Despite the argument Israel may advance–that such acts deter Iran from achieving nuclear break-out capacity (and supposedly endangering Israel)–there is no other way to view a state murdering scientists of a rival state, than terrorism. Thus, Israel has no right to speak of Iran as the “leading global sponsor of terrorism.” Israel engaged in terrorism long before its rivalry with Iran began. It has refined the tool to a rapier’s edge against victims around the globe.
Early Zionist Terrorism
My goal in this post is to do a deeper dive into the issue of terrorism from the perspective of modern Israeli and ancient Israelite history. Regarding the former, the hate I outlined above also is not ex nihilo. Such hate has a history and a father (or two).
The first Jewish militant group which broke away from the Labor Zionist Yishuv movement (in 1933) was the Biryonim (‘The Thugs’). They were Revisionist followers of Zeev Jabotinsky, himself an early admirer of Mussolini. The group’s political vision was modeled on Italian fascism, including its romance with political violence. Among its goals was to overthrow the democratic model of the Yishuv leadership and instill a Mussolini-style dictatorship. Israel’s current political system is a hybrid of this model. Fascist in its political and security policy while maintaining a facade of electoral democracy. Elections make a mockery of true democracy (as the four in the past three years have proven), offering choices ranging from the right to the far-right.
Among the Biryonim’s most infamous acts of terrorism was purportedly the assassination of Yishuv leader, Chaim Arlosoroff. He was murdered shortly after returning from a trip to Nazi Germany, in which he completed plans for the Haavara Agreement. It would permit German Jews to emigrate to Israel, though it forced them to hand over the assets to the Yishuv, which used them to purchase and import German goods. This in turn broke the international boycott of Nazi goods organized in large part by US Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and Samuel Untermeyer.
A bizarre historical footnote concerning Arlosoroff was that he conducted an affair with a young woman while he was a student in Germany. She later became the mistress and wife of Hitler’s foremost propagandist, Josef Goebbels. Here is my account from an earlier post:
When she [Magda Friedlander] met Arlosoroff, many accounts say they began an affair and she became a devoted partner in his Zionist activism. She even wore a Star of David he gave her as a present. But Arlosoroff intended to make aliya after completing his studies, and Magda had no interest in leaving her homeland. So they eventually ended the relationship.
That’s when things got strange. According to some accounts, just before their relationship ended, relations between them became rocky. Friedlander had attended a Nazi rally and came under the spell of a then-unknown junior activist in the Nazi Party. She supposedly began an affair with Joseph Goebbels, which Arlosoroff discovered, and there was a climactic scene in which (again this may be apocryphal) her Jewish lover exploded in a fit of rage, took out a revolver and fired it at her.
The first father of Zionist terror was Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, leader of the Yishuv who, in 1924 ordered the assassination of Jacob deHaan. He was a gay socialist Dutch Jew who became Orthodox after visiting Russia to witness the suffering of the Jews after WWI. He became the chief public lobbyist on behalf of the ultra-Orthodox (anti-Zionist) Mizrahi movement. When DeHaan began lobbying the Mandatory British government against Zionist interests, Ben Tzvi ordered him killed. DeHaan was the first Jew assassinated by the Zionist movement.
Some may not see the Nakba as terrorism. But terror is defined as an act of violence in pursuit of political aims. Thus the forced, violent expulsion of a million indigenous Palestinian inhabitants (including massacres and rape) with the goal of physically eliminating a major portion of the non-Jewish population, is also an act of Zionist terror.
The second father of modern Israeli terrorism was David Ben Gurion, the leader of the pre-state Yishuv and later the founder of the Israeli state and its first prime minister. As early as the 1930s he wrote this letter to his son, in which he makes the earliest and clearest statement of an approach that would eventually lead to the Nakba:
We must expel Arabs and take their place. Up to now, all our aspirations have been based on an assumption…that there is enough room in the land for the Arabs and ourselves. But if we are compelled to use force…to guarantee our right to settle there – our force will enable us to do so.
According to noted historian of the pre-state era, Benny Morris, Ben Gurion wrote that the Palestinian Arabs must be expelled, as they were an impediment to realizing the Zionist dream of a Jewish state:
Ben-Gurion at this time repeatedly endorsed the idea of ‘transferring’ (or expelling) Arabs, or the Arabs, out of the area of the Jewish state-to-be, either ‘voluntarily’ or by compulsion.
Another historian of the period, Ilan Pappe, quotes Ben Gurion:
“The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war”.
The future prime minister’s early conviction was transformed into national policy in 1948, when he and his government implemented the forced expulsion of 1-million indigenous Palestinians, forcing them to flee and become refugees in neighboring Arab states, where millions remain today.
Other acts of Jewish terrorism during the period included the assassination of the Swedish UN peace negotiator, Count Folke von Bernadotte by a gang of thugs commanded by future prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. Not to mention the infamous bombing of the King David Hotel by a gang led by another future prime minister, Menachem Begin. Another act of terror was the massacre of 100 residents of Deir Yassin by Shamir and Begin’s men.
Rabin and Jew-on-Jew Terror Assassinations
A more modern example of terrorism by the Israeli far-right against the country’s early peace camp was the 1983 assassination of Peace Now co-founder, Emil Grunzweig, at one of the movement’s earliest rallies. In this case, the assassination of Jews by Jews was used as a tool of enforcement of political heterodoxy. Threats to the far-right agenda would be met with the ultimate act of violence. No Jew was protected by membership in the tribe. In fact, espousing such views made your life hefker and removed you from the Jewish people. That is how this process of ultimate demonization leads to the ultimate crime of Jew killing Jew. It also confirmed that the fascist right would stop at nothing to enforce its dominance over the state’s political agenda.
An even more portentous example of such ruthlessness was the assassination by a Jewish terrorist cell of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In this case, the Israeli far-right eliminated a popular leader whose political agenda called for negotiating the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only did the terrorist bullets end Rabin’s plan and derail the Oslo Agreement and a once propitious chance for peace; the murder led almost directly to the next 30 years’ dominance of the far-right over Israeli politics. No prime minister since, whether Labor, Likud or Kadima, has dared flirt with such an ambitious goal. Whatever small chance once existed for a peace deal evaporated as Rabin’s blood drained from his body outside the Tel Aviv plaza where he addressed 100,000 of his supporters chanting for peace.
This evil deed would never have been committed without two key accessories: the settler rabbis who issued a pulsa di nura permitting the spilling of a Jew’s blood by a fellow Jew; and Bibi Netanyahu, who gave a Mussolini-like speech inciting Rabin’s murder from a Jerusalem balcony before 10,000 settlers baying for the prime minister’s blood. Terrorism as state policy requires the endorsement, if not incitement of key religious and political leaders. It has enjoyed that, even enthusiastically, in the Israeli context.
Given this 70-year history, how can we fault Palestinians for nurturing a grievance against Israel? Expelled from their homes, treated like dirt if they managed to remain, forced to live under martial law for nearly 20 years following the 1948 War, who would not be prepared to attack the oppressor with whatever weapon he could muster?
Terror in Ancient Israel
But we need to go back even farther to Israelite history, to look for the earliest instances of Jewish terror. Biblical stories are filled with blood and mass extermination. God told the Children of Israel to utterly annihilate the Amalekites, who were among the first tribes they encountered as they entered the Land of Israel. After pitched battles between the two forces followed by Israelite victory, God commanded the murder of every man, woman, child, and animal as revenge for Amalek’s earlier attacks. In modern terms, we would have to call this an act of genocide.
Unfortunately, it’s not an outlier. Deuteronomy declares:
“In the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the Lord your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God”
But the Israelites were not behaving any differently than other tribes of the era. Warfare and conquest have been staples of the Middle East for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. Nor am I saying that the rival tribes were angelic creatures. They practiced child sacrifice, temple prostitution and a number of other rituals modern humans would find repugnant. Their traditions were as violent as those of the Israelites. The point to be made here is not that the Israelites were evil in the context of their own time, but that their behavior offered a template for Jews to follow in their later history.
In an essay I wrote for the London Review of Books (which the editors killed) about the use of assassinations as a method of enforcing political heterodoxy, I wrote about Judean proponents of terrorism in the Roman era:
The most prominent and formative group was the Sicarii, Jewish zealots who played an instrumental role in provoking the first Jewish rebellion against Rome in 66 C.E. One of the primary tactics used to sow fear and advance their political aims, was the assassination of Jewish collaborators. Their most sensational act was the killing of the former High Priest Hanania and burning of his Jerusalem home.
This brutal murder almost single-handedly divided Jews into radical and moderate camps, and eventually led to the rebellion. Thereafter, anyone viewed as a collaborator was fair game. The Sicarii, using knives hidden in their cloaks, mingled with the massive crowds of pilgrims around the Temple during religious festivals, picked off their quarry, and escaped into the crush. Their exploits struck fear in the hearts of Romans and Jews alike. The very audacity of their terror dramatically set the political tone and agenda for the era.
Josephus was a first-hand witness to this campaign of violence and wrote, in The Wars of the Jews, of the terror the Sicarii inflicted in the hearts of the Jews of Jerusalem:
“Many were slain every day, while the fear men were in of being so served was “afflicting”. and everybody expected death every hour as men do in war”
The Sicarii eventually incited a full-scale revolt against Rome. After four years of fierce fighting, hopes dimmed. One of the Sicarii leaders, Elazar Ben Yair, retreated to the Masada fortress in the Judean desert, where his forces were eventually overwhelmed by a Roman legion besieging them. The Jewish fighters committed suicide rather than surrender.
It’s certainly no coincidence that the most infamous pre-state Jewish terrorist, Avraham Stern adopted the nom de guerre, Ben Yair, before he himself was assassinated by British Mandatory police.
Conclusion
As I wrote in an earlier post, Malcolm X once wrote that violence is as American as cherry pie. There is no Jewish culinary equivalent to this saying I could think of. But terrorism is a concept deeply ingrained in Jewish and Israeli history. It has been used repeatedly and over many centuries to enforce heterodoxy on its Jewish victims and to enforce Israeli domination over Palestinians.
Israelis live in glass houses and shouldn’t throw stones (or bullets) at Palestinians engaged in resistance. Instead, they should examine their own national, political, and religious history and consider their role in instigating terror today and in the past. Of course, pro-Israel social media warriors have no interest in studying the Zionist or Jewish past, especially if it dredges up inconvenient truths. But I will do so and point out the historical record come hell or high water.
Finally, the historical analysis I’ve offered above is not anti-Semitic. I am not arguing that Jewish history is nothing but violence and terrorism. I am saying that there has been a dangerous trend in our history that embraces and glorifies such violence. There is a countervailing tendency that rejects this approach and demands peace, justice, and human rights. There is a battle of ideas within Judaism and Zionism. A battle for their respective souls. I’m issuing a warning cry that we must not let the Blood and Soil crowd take over our religion. In Israel, I fear that battle is lost. But among Diaspora Jews, the battle rages and we must go “once more unto the breach” to fight on behalf of Jewish ethics and against Judeo-thuggery.
A good article but just a minor point. You say that Arlossorof’snegotiation of Ha’avara ‘broke the international boycott of Nazi goods organized in large part by US Zionist leader, Rabbi Stephen S Wise.’
Wise only supported the Boycott after having been shamed into doing so by Samuel Untermayer. Wise later ratted on the Boycott because given the choice he preferred Zionism. This is all in Edwin Black’s ‘The Transfer Agreement.’
Stephen Wise was one of the most notorious Zionist war criminals there was. He never missed an opportunity to block or turn down any refuge for Jewish refugees that wasn’t Palestine.
Wise kept secret, at the State Departments urging, a telegram from Gerhard Riegner on 8 August 1942 from the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, which announced how the extermination of the Jews was official policy.
Wise ‘not only knew of the death camps in the summer of 1942… but actively collaborated with the (State) Department in keeping verified accounts of mass murder from the public.’ [1] In a letter to Roosevelt of 2 December 1942 Wise admitted that
‘it is indisputable that as many as two million civilian Jews have been slain. I have had cables and underground advices for some months, telling of these things. I succeeded, together with the heads of other Jewish organizations, in keeping these out of the press and have been in constant communication with the State Department, particularly Under-secretary Welles.[2] (my emphasis)
These 3 months were the most intensive period of the holocaust when 1.5 million Jews died. By this time the Zionists had but one priority, achieving a Jewish state and they weren’t going to let a minor matter such as the Holocaust to get in the way.
In my forthcoming book I provide the gory details of some of Wise’s activities, such as trying to block the establishment of the War Refugee Board in January 1944 which saved an estimated 1/4 million Jews.
Wise’s name should be as notorious as that of Haman.
[1] Saul S. Friedman, No Haven for the Oppressed: United States Policy Toward Jewish Refugees, p.139.
[2] Laqueur, The Terrible Secret, p.160, 2.12.42. Stephen Wise Papers, Brandeis University.
@ TOny: I might have named the wrong rabbi. I remember reading there was a particular rabbi who championed the boycott. I thought it was Wise, but maybe I misremembered. COuld it have been Abba Hillel Silver? I’ve removed Stephen Wise’s name from the article
[comment deleted: you are disgusting and banned. Terror porn is absolutely prohibited here.]
[comment deleted: NO terror porn. And btw, for every instance of such terror porn you can find, I can another that proves the pre-state Yishuv engaged in similar acts of terror porn. That why it is a zero sum game.]
“We must expel Arabs and take their place.”
It’s amazing to me how you’ve taken the quote completely out of context to make it seem as if Ben-Gurion had said under all circumstances, the Arabs will be expelled.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
The Arabs Ben Gurion was talking about were a few clans, or at most a tribe of Bedouins who were preventing the Zionists from settling a small portion of the Negev.
Here is the original quote:
“Let us assume that the Negev will not be allotted to the Jewish state. In such event,
the Negev will remain barren because the Arabs have neither the competence nor
the need to develop it or make it prosper. They already have an abundance of
deserts but not of manpower, financial resources, or creative initiative. It is very
probable that they will agree that we undertake the development of the Negev and
make it prosper in return for our financial, military, organizational, and scientific
assistance. It is also possible that they will not agree. People don’t always behave
according to logic, common sense, or their own practical advantage. Just as you
yourself are sometimes split conflicted between your mind and your emotions, it is
possible that the Arabs will follow the dictates of sterile nationalist emotions and
tell us: “We want neither your honey nor your sting. We’d rather that the Negev
remain barren than that Jews should inhabit it.” If this occurs, we will have to talk
to them in a different language—and we will have a different language—but such a
language will not be ours without a state. This is so because we can no longer
tolerate that vast territories capable of absorbing tens of thousands of Jews should
remain vacant, and that Jews cannot return to their homeland because the Arabs
prefer that the place [the Negev] remains neither ours nor theirs. We must expel
Arabs and take their place. Up to now, all our aspirations have been based on an
assumption – one that has been vindicated throughout our activities in the country
– that there is enough room in the land for the Arabs and ourselves. But if we are
compelled to use force – not in order to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev or
Transjordan, but in order to guarantee our right to settle there – our force will
enable us to do so.”
@ Stoney: A couple of major issues with your claims. First, he was talking about the entire Negev. To call the “Arabs” of the entire Negev “a few clans” or “at most a tribe of Bedouins” is a complete distortion of reality. How would such a small number prevent all Jews from settling the Negev. BTW, many of the current inhabitants of Gaza were Palestinian refugees from the Negev. There are currently nearly 2-million living there. Even if the number was much smaller then, that is a very large number of indigenous inhabitants.
Second, there were many parts of Palestine with indigenous Palestinians aside from the Negev. He mentioned the Negev in particular because it was less inhabited than the other areas. So it served as aqa tabula rasa in BG’s mind for what he envisioned in future. The expulsion of Palestinians in more densely inhaibtated parts of the country would be much messier and more complicated, which is why he did not mention other areas than the Negev.
Third, the Negev served as a template for BG about how the rest of the Palestinian population would be dealt with. He didn’t use the Negev as an exclusive example of what he had in mind and exclude other areas of Palestinian population.
Fourth, the proof is in the pudding. How did Yishuv policy play out in reality? Were only Bedouin expelled in the Negev? Of course not. Indigenous Palestinians were expelled from almost every population center which included them, north, south and center. So BG’s actions and those of his army showed precisely what he had in mind when he wrote the letter in 1937. And even if you’re right and he was only talking about the Negev, what he did in 1948 is more more declarative than what he conceived in 1937. Not that 1937 is not important. Since to my mind and those of TOm Segev, Ilan Pappe, and Benny Morris, the pre-eminent historians in the field, the earlier letter does accord entirely with subsequent policy, it is useful as an idea of what BG intended once he would have a chance to implement his ideas as actual policy of expulsion.
Since there were Palestinianas living throughout the Yishuv, why would BG have confined his ideas only to one segment and omit the others? What would have made separated the Negev from the rest in his mind? Clearly, when he had the ability he applied his views not just to the Negev but to all their population centers.
So all your claims fail. Reminder: you are permitted one comment per thread. This was your one comment.
No, Richard. Your claims fail because your claims are contradicted by the plain meaning of the letter, which states:
“Up to now, all our aspirations have been based on an assumption – one that has been vindicated throughout our activities in the country– that there is enough room in the land for the Arabs and ourselves.
But if we are compelled to use force – not in order to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev or Transjordan, but in order to guarantee our right to settle there – our force will
enable us to do so.”
And BTW, lot’s of ink has been spilt proving that that quote, as it appears in the original hand written version, did not call for expulsion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter#Disputed_text
@ Shelly: First, you are referring to the letter alone. I have offered 2 other sources directly quoting BG himself which confirm my interpretation that he intended to expel all, or as many Palestinians as he could. And again, while what he wrote or said is important. What he did is definitive. And he did precisely what I claim (and what he said he intended).
The original handwritten version DID call for expulsion. A later hand tampered with the text. As Morris writes, BG never crossed out or added text in such documents. Yet here there was such a suspicious tampering done by a different, later hand. Benny Morris confirms this was a fraudulent effort to avoid an inconvenient historical document. Ephraim Karsh, who championed your claim, is a pro Israel propagandist. Not a scholar or reliable source.
Finally, as your comment very closely mirrors the argument and claims of an earlier commenter, I warn you both. Do not coordinate your commenting in any way. I would construe that as inauthentic, fraudulent behavior. If both of you have not coordinated your activity, good-then keep it that way.
[comment deleted: yours is the 3rd in a series offering the same arguments about Ben Gurion’s views on expulsion of the Palestinians. We’ve plowed this ground before and pulverized it to death. Further, do not ever use Middle East Forum here for anything, let alone as a credible source. It’s garbage produced by a failed academic who himself is garbage.
Further, you appear to using unique IP addresses for every comment you publish. That means you are likely using a proxy server to hide your location. I view this as inauthentic behavior unless you are hiding in a basement in Ukraine. More likely you are a member of a Hasbara Bot Network. USe a single, real IP address or I will treat you with suspicion.]
“..and Benny Morris, the pre-eminent historians in the field,..”
You can cite Morris, but I may not.
Animal Farm rules.
@ Mynah: Not at all. If you want to cite Benny Morris’s worst, most noxious, most genocidal views, I’m gonna call you on it. When I cite Morris I cite his early historical research which was far more rigorous and well-founded than his later research. It’s called a careful understanding of the full arc of a historian’s career and where they were right and where they went astray. You prefer the Morris who endorses rape & expulsion as morally justified in order to guarantee the pure Jewish-dominated state. I prefer the Morris who simply recorded historical facts & reality without the added moralizing that detracted from the hard historical research & documentation.
BTW, I cited a short sentence Morris wrote which documented an actual statement Ben Gurion made based on solid historical research. When a historian who I otherwise disagree with cites a historical fact, I have no problem with citing this.]
Thanks for this review of Jewish terrorism. Your piece filled in many details that I never knew or forgot.
I thank my luck that I was born in America where the Jews mostly gave up the terrorism that Israeli Jews still practice. After reading this review, I wonder why American liberal Zionists keep saying that they “love Israel” and go to bat for Israelis.
I thought an earlier Jewish terrorism than against the Romans in 66 BCE, was during the Hasmonean (Maccabee) revolt against Syrian-Greeks in ~167 BCE when Jews would get near a Greek general and stab him to death, immediately being killed by the general’s men (real similar to lone wolf Palestinians committing “suicide by soldier”).
An even earlier example of Jewish terrorism is the Biblical book of Ester. After Ester “saves” the Jews, she gets a dispensation from the King to kill Haman. Her brother, Mordecai, not only kills Haman, but 75,000 of his followers. That is surely genocide if not actual terrorism. Many Biblical guides suggest that the book of Ester is a comedy. Nevertheless, I see intend below the comedy.
best jeff
@ Jeff Warner: How true. Thanks for those examples I hadn’t thought to include.
[comment deleted: off-topic. More terror porn. Do this again and you will be moderated.]
[comment deleted: Read the comment rules. I don’t permit Palestinophobic content in the comment threads. You might try Algemeiner or, if you’re Israeli, Arutz Sheva. THey will be much more conducive]
[comment deleted: not censorship. My blog, my rules. Dont like it, dont play. New rule for you: One comment per thread.]