Opinion Editorials, May 2015

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Naftali Bennett wants to see Palestinians become "water carriers and wood hewers" for Jews

By Khalid Amayreh

in occupied Palestine

If you think that the UN was wrong in labeling Zionism as a racist movement, think again.
 
Of course, Zionist crimes, committed in the name of Judaism and the Jewish people, have not stopped ever since Zionist supremacists declared their plans to create an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine in the late 19th century.
 
Zionist Jews employed every form of depravity and immorality to achieve their goal.
 
But the goal was evil, just as the means used to reach that goal were decidedly evil.  This was the case 68 years ago, when Israel was created through blood, fire and terror. It will always be evil.
 
The passage of 68 years will not morph a hideous crime into a charitable enterprise. Israel will always be a crime against humanity, no matter how many people celebrate its achievements and sing its hymns.
 
Israel is built upon a foundation of evil and sinfulness. Such a state will not prosper or have an everlasting longevity. It will eventually meet the same fate that other evil states and empires eventually met.
 
Bennett's Talmudic fascism
 
Naftali Bennett, the number-2 figure in the new Israeli government was quoted recently as saying that he would never agree to give non-Jews in Israel equal rights.
 
When asked what he would tell Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas should he meet with him, Bennett said rather bluntly "I will order him to make me a cup of coffee."
 
Needless to say, "asking the Arabs to make coffee for Jews" is a slogan often invoked by leaders of religious-Zionist settlers especially when explaining their attitudes toward the Palestinians.
 
This manifestly racist mindset is encapsulated by the Biblical terms "water carriers and wood hewers" which refer to the treatment non-Jews were entitled to receive in ancient Israel.
 
Of course, there are many other Biblical verses which exhort the Children of Israel not to oppress "strangers living amongst you… because you yourselves were once strangers in the Land of the Pharaoh".
 
But Zionism, including religious Zionism, has very little to do with the sublime ideals of Prophetic Judaism. This is why, we notice that purportedly religious Zionists select the worst and most barbaric verses from the Old Testament and seek to apply it to the Palestinians.
 
Criminal versus genocidal
 
If classical Zionism is manifestly criminal, and it undoubtedly is, religious Zionism is decidedly genocidal.
 
Several years ago, a Jewish settler leader from the northern West Bank by the name of Daniela Weis gave a speech before a group of settlers in Hebron's Old Quarter. In her speech, she urged the settlers to "adopt Joshua's way to deal with the Palestinians."
 
"Would you choose Rabin's way or Joshua's way in dealing with the Palestinians," she asked. And the answer came loud and in unison: "We choose Joshua's way."
 
This genocidal fanaticism is not rhetorical or meant just to scare the Palestinians. It is rather a built-in character of the religious Zionist ideology as taught by its founder Abraham Kook.
 
This the same Kook that wrote that "the difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews-- all of them in all different levels -- is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."
 
Evil ideology, evil conduct
 
The settler ideology cannot be innocuous since it is not confined to the theoretical framework.
 
In 1994, a settler from the settlement of Kiryat Arbaa near Hebron descended on the Ibrahimi Mosque nearby and sprayed Muslim worshipers with bullets, using his army-issued machinegun.
 
He murdered 29 worshipers and injured numerous other people, many with serious disabilities that would stay with them for the rest of their lives.
 
Most of the settlers and their supporters enthusiastically gloated over the massacre as the grave of the murderer became a pilgrimage site.
 
A few years later, another religious Zionist asked a Palestinian cabbie to give him a ride from Jerusalem to Kfar Saba, north east of Tel Aviv. When the settler got to his home, he invited the Arab driver to drink a cup of coffee. However, instead of the cup of coffee, the settler came up with a dagger, stabbing the taxi driver to death.
 
Still, when the murderer was interrogated by the police, he told them that he heard his neighborhood synagogue's rabbis saying that the life of a non-Jew had no sanctity.
 
Last year, three settlers kidnapped an Arab child, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, and took him to an abandoned place. There they pumped gasoline into the boy's mouth, and then set the boy on fire, burning him alive.
 
Who will call the spade a spade?
 
Now, the same kind of evil-minded people have a great influence on the upcoming Israeli government. For example, Ayelet Shaked from the far-right HaBayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) party was given the portfolio of justice minister as part of a deal that saw PM Netanyahu gather enough support to form a coalition and control the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
 
Last year, Shaked, a nice-looking young woman, attracted global attention and criticism when she posted a Facebook status denouncing Palestinians, during Israel’s 50-day military offensive in Gaza.
 
"The Palestinian people [have] declared war on us, and we must respond with war ... Not an operation, not a slow-moving one, not low-intensity, not controlled escalation, no destruction of terror infrastructure, no targeted killings.
 
"Enough with the oblique references. This is a war. Words have meanings. This is a war. It is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. These too are forms of avoiding reality. This is a war between two peoples. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people."
 
Now, do the governments and peoples of the world have the courage to call the spade a spade, especially when it comes to Zionist criminality?
 
It is not enough to celebrate the annual anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. It is also imperative to fight Nazi ideals and Nazi ideas everywhere. Including in Israel.
 
Unfortunately this is not being done with regard to Israel as the capitals of Europe and North America will soon receive Shaked and her equally racist colleagues with all the required trappings.
 
That would be the ultimate insult to the victims of Nazism, Jews and non-Jews alike.

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