Never Forget The Massacres at Sabra & Shatila

For three days in September 1982, Israeli forces in collusion with the Lebanese Phalangist militia’s, slaughtered, raped and maimed a large number of unarmed civilians inside the encircled and sealed Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. As many as 3,000 innocent men, women and children were massacred, but to this day no one has been held accountable for this genocidal act.

For 40 hours in September 1982, members of the Israeli-allied Lebanese Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the encircled and sealed Sabra and Shatila camps. The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500.

On 6 June 1982, the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in retaliation for the attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London on 4 June. The Israeli secret services had that same day attributed the attempted assassination to a dissident Palestinian organisation backed by the government of Iraq, which was at the time eager to deflect world attention from its recent setbacks in the Iran-Iraq war. The Israeli operation, planned well in advance, was called “Operation Peace for Galilee.”

Initially, the Israeli government had announced that its intention was to penetrate just 40km into Lebanese territory. The military command, however, under the orders of Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, decided to execute a more ambitious project that Sharon had prepared several months earlier. Having occupied the south of the country and destroyed any Palestinian and Lebanese resistance there, simultaneously committing a series of violations against the civilian population, Israeli troops proceeded to penetrate as far as Beirut. By 18 June 1982 they had surrounded the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) armed forces in the western part of the Lebanese capital.

According to Lebanese statistics, the Israeli offensive, particularly the intensive shelling of Beirut, caused 18,000 deaths and 30,000 injuries, mostly among civilians.

After two months of fighting, a cease-fire was negotiated through the mediation of United States Envoy Philip Habib. Under the terms of these negotiations, the PLO was to evacuate Beirut under the supervision of a multinational force deployed in the evacuated part of the town. The Habib Accords envisaged that West Beirut would subsequently be under the control of the Lebanese army, and the Palestinian leadership was given guarantees by the Americans regarding the security of civilians in the camps after their departure.

The evacuation of the PLO ended on 1 September 1982.

On 10 September 1982, the multinational forces left Beirut. The next day, Sharon announced that “2,000 terrorists” had remained inside the Palestinian refugee camps around Beirut. On Wednesday 15 September, the day after the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israeli army occupied West Beirut, “encircling and sealing” the camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were inhabited by Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, the entirety of armed resistors (more than 14,000 people) having evacuated Beirut and its suburbs.

Historians and journalists agree that it was probably during a meeting between Ariel Sharon and Bashir Gemayel in Bikfaya on 12 September that an agreement was made authorizing the “Lebanese forces” to “mop up” these Palestinian camps. Sharon had already announced, on 9 July 1982, his intention to send the Phalangist forces into West Beirut, and in his autobiography he confirms having negotiated the operation during his meeting with Gemayel in Bikfaya.

According to statements made by Ariel Sharon on 22 September 1982 in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), the decision that the Phalangists should enter the refugee camps was made on Wednesday, 15 September 1982 at 15.30. Also according to General Sharon, the Israeli Command had received the following instruction: “[t]he Tsahal forces are forbidden to enter the refugee camps. The ‘mopping-up’ of the camps will be carried out by the Phalanges or the Lebanese army.”

By dawn on 15 September 1982, Israeli fighter-bombers were flying low over West Beirut and Israeli troops had secured their entry. From 9 am, General Sharon was present to personally direct the Israeli penetration, installing himself in the general army area at the Kuwait embassy junction situated at the edge of Shatila camp. From the roof of this six-story building, it was possible to observe the town and the camps of Sabra and Shatila clearly.

By midday, the camps of Sabra and Shatila – in reality a single zone of refugee camps in the south of West Beirut – were surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, who had installed checkpoints all around the camps in order to monitor the entry or exit of any person. During the late afternoon and evening, the camps were shelled.

By Thursday 16 September 1982, the Israeli army controlled West Beirut. In a press release, the Israeli military spokesperson declared, “Tsahal controls all strategic points in Beirut. The refugee camps, inside which there is a concentration of terrorists, are surrounded and sealed.” On the morning of 16 September, the following order was issued by the army high command: ” [t]he searching and mopping up of the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese army.”

During the course of the morning, shells were being fired down at the camps from higher elevations and Israeli snipers were shooting at people in the streets. By approximately midday, the Israeli military command gave the Phalangist militia the green light to enter the refugee camps. Shortly after 5pm, a unit of approximately 150 Phalangists entered Shatila camp from the south and south-west.

At this point, General Amir Drori telephoned Ariel Sharon and announced, “Our friends are advancing into the camps. We have co-ordinated their entry.” To which Sharon replied, “Congratulations! Our friends’ operation is approved.”

For the next 40 hours the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the “encircled and sealed” camps. These actions, accompanied or followed by systematic roundups, backed or reinforced by the Israeli army, resulted in dozens of disappearances.

The Israeli army had full knowledge of what was going on in the camps right up until the morning of Saturday 18 September 1982, and its leaders were in continuous contact with the militia leaders who perpetrated the massacre. Yet they never intervened. Instead, they prevented civilians from escaping the camps and arranged for the camps to be illuminated throughout the night by flares launched into the sky from helicopters and mortars.

The count of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) and 3,500 (in the inquiry launched by the Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk). The exact figure can never be determined because, in addition to the approximately 1,000 people who were buried in communal graves by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or in the cemeteries of Beirut by members of their families, a large number of corpses were buried beneath bulldozed buildings by the militia members themselves. Also, particularly on 17 and 18 September, hundreds of people were carried away alive in trucks towards unknown destinations, never to return.

The testimony of Mahmoud Younis an 11 year old child at the time can be read at The Cynical Arab blog “Of Israeli Peace & Massacres”

The victims and survivors of the massacres have never been deemed entitled to a formal investigation of the tragedy, whether in Lebanon, Israel, or elsewhere. After 400,000 Israelis took to the streets in protest once news of the massacre was broadcast by the international media, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) named a commission of inquiry, to be presided over by Yitzhak Kahan, in September 1982. In spite of the limitations of the Commission’s mandate (limited because it was a political rather than a judicial mandate and because the voices and demands of the victims were completely ignored), the Commission concluded that the Minister of Defence was personally responsible for the massacres.

Upon the insistence of the Commission, and the demonstrations that followed its report, Sharon resigned from his post of Minister of Defence but remained in the government as Minister without Portfolio. It is worth noting that during the Peace Now demonstration immediately prior to Sharon’s “resignation,” demonstrators were attacked with grenades, resulting in the death of a young demonstrator.

Several non-official inquiries and reports, including those of Sean MacBride and of the Nordic Commission, based mainly on the testimony of western eyewitnesses, as well as other pieces of journalistic and historical research, have assembled vital pieces of information.

Despite evidence of what the UN Security Council described as a “criminal massacre,” and the ranking of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in humankind’s collective memory as among the most heinous crimes of the 20th century, the man found “personally responsible” for this crime, as well as his associates and the people who carried out the massacres, have never been pursued or punished. In fact the warlord Ariel Sharon was proudly rewarded for his actions with the Premiership of his country and was welcomed into the White House with open arms, as a man of peace.

In 1984, Israeli journalists Schiff and Ya’ari concluded their chapter on the massacre with this sobering reflection: “If there is a moral to the painful episode of Sabra and Shatila, it has yet to be acknowledged.” The reality of this impunity remains true to this day.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the massacre with Resolution 521 (19 September 1982). This condemnation was followed by a 16 December 1982 General Assembly resolution qualifying the massacre as an “act of genocide.”

The perpetual acts of genocide carried out in the 28 years since Sabra and Shatilla are countless. Ask yourself how many more have died, how many more have been butchered under the tracks of armoured caterpillar bulldozers, been picked off by snipers, or been blown to pieces by missiles fired from Israeli helicopters.

The truth of the matter is that the blood of the Palestinians is cheap and plentiful, there are no remembrance ceremonies for those who died, no ringing of any bells, no remembrance of the fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, whose lives were taken in such a savage and brutal manner.

Originally posted September 19 2009.

Bomb Blast In Occupied Al-Aqsa, But How Many Civilian Deaths Have Their Been On Both Sides?

With the bomb blast in Occupied Al-Aqsa/Jerusalem yesterday, The Akh thought it was time to put the number of people who have died on both sides of the conflict into context, before the zionists launch another war of revenge.

The breakdown of the graph above makes for very interesting reading.

The numbers cited above include civilians and combatants killed by members of the opposing nationality. The numbers do not include the Israeli wars in Gaza or the sizable number of Palestinians who died as a result of inability to reach medical care due to Israeli road closures, curfews, the Israeli closure of border crossing from Gaza.

The Israeli military have not updated their statistics page since early in 2006 for the number of Israelis killed, there is reason to believe that their numbers may have been somewhat inflated.

Cross reference the above graph with the one issued by zionist lobby group The Israel Project, who issued their stats on Fatalities and Casualties from Palestinian Terrorism yesterday.

The truth of it all is that more Israelis die from peanut allergies than from any Hamas rockets.

Yet More Israeli Hatred – Ben Yehuda St, Jerusalem, Catwalk of Jewish Extremism

In his latest vox pops Max Blumenthal takes a walk down Ben Yehuda Pedestrian Mall in central Jerusalem and meets some Jewish extremists.

The self certified “God’s chosen people®” showing their hatred yet again.

Never Forget The Massacres at Sabra & Shatila

For three days in September 1982, Israeli forces in collusion with the Lebanese Phalangist militia’s, slaughtered, raped and maimed a large number of unarmed civilians inside the encircled and sealed Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. As many as 3,000 innocent men, women and children were massacred, but to this day no one has been held accountable for this genocidal act.

For 40 hours in September 1982, members of the Israeli-allied Lebanese Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the encircled and sealed Sabra and Shatila camps. The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500.

On 6 June 1982, the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in retaliation for the attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London on 4 June. The Israeli secret services had that same day attributed the attempted assassination to a dissident Palestinian organisation backed by the government of Iraq, which was at the time eager to deflect world attention from its recent setbacks in the Iran-Iraq war. The Israeli operation, planned well in advance, was called “Operation Peace for Galilee.”

Initially, the Israeli government had announced that its intention was to penetrate just 40km into Lebanese territory. The military command, however, under the orders of Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, decided to execute a more ambitious project that Sharon had prepared several months earlier. Having occupied the south of the country and destroyed any Palestinian and Lebanese resistance there, simultaneously committing a series of violations against the civilian population, Israeli troops proceeded to penetrate as far as Beirut. By 18 June 1982 they had surrounded the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) armed forces in the western part of the Lebanese capital.

According to Lebanese statistics, the Israeli offensive, particularly the intensive shelling of Beirut, caused 18,000 deaths and 30,000 injuries, mostly among civilians.

After two months of fighting, a cease-fire was negotiated through the mediation of United States Envoy Philip Habib. Under the terms of these negotiations, the PLO was to evacuate Beirut under the supervision of a multinational force deployed in the evacuated part of the town. The Habib Accords envisaged that West Beirut would subsequently be under the control of the Lebanese army, and the Palestinian leadership was given guarantees by the Americans regarding the security of civilians in the camps after their departure.

The evacuation of the PLO ended on 1 September 1982.

On 10 September 1982, the multinational forces left Beirut. The next day, Sharon announced that “2,000 terrorists” had remained inside the Palestinian refugee camps around Beirut. On Wednesday 15 September, the day after the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israeli army occupied West Beirut, “encircling and sealing” the camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were inhabited by Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, the entirety of armed resistors (more than 14,000 people) having evacuated Beirut and its suburbs.

Historians and journalists agree that it was probably during a meeting between Ariel Sharon and Bashir Gemayel in Bikfaya on 12 September that an agreement was made authorizing the “Lebanese forces” to “mop up” these Palestinian camps. Sharon had already announced, on 9 July 1982, his intention to send the Phalangist forces into West Beirut, and in his autobiography he confirms having negotiated the operation during his meeting with Gemayel in Bikfaya.

According to statements made by Ariel Sharon on 22 September 1982 in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), the decision that the Phalangists should enter the refugee camps was made on Wednesday, 15 September 1982 at 15.30. Also according to General Sharon, the Israeli Command had received the following instruction: “[t]he Tsahal forces are forbidden to enter the refugee camps. The ‘mopping-up’ of the camps will be carried out by the Phalanges or the Lebanese army.”

By dawn on 15 September 1982, Israeli fighter-bombers were flying low over West Beirut and Israeli troops had secured their entry. From 9 am, General Sharon was present to personally direct the Israeli penetration, installing himself in the general army area at the Kuwait embassy junction situated at the edge of Shatila camp. From the roof of this six-story building, it was possible to observe the town and the camps of Sabra and Shatila clearly.

By midday, the camps of Sabra and Shatila – in reality a single zone of refugee camps in the south of West Beirut – were surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, who had installed checkpoints all around the camps in order to monitor the entry or exit of any person. During the late afternoon and evening, the camps were shelled.

By Thursday 16 September 1982, the Israeli army controlled West Beirut. In a press release, the Israeli military spokesperson declared, “Tsahal controls all strategic points in Beirut. The refugee camps, inside which there is a concentration of terrorists, are surrounded and sealed.” On the morning of 16 September, the following order was issued by the army high command: ” [t]he searching and mopping up of the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese army.”

During the course of the morning, shells were being fired down at the camps from higher elevations and Israeli snipers were shooting at people in the streets. By approximately midday, the Israeli military command gave the Phalangist militia the green light to enter the refugee camps. Shortly after 5pm, a unit of approximately 150 Phalangists entered Shatila camp from the south and south-west.

At this point, General Amir Drori telephoned Ariel Sharon and announced, “Our friends are advancing into the camps. We have co-ordinated their entry.” To which Sharon replied, “Congratulations! Our friends’ operation is approved.”

For the next 40 hours the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the “encircled and sealed” camps. These actions, accompanied or followed by systematic roundups, backed or reinforced by the Israeli army, resulted in dozens of disappearances.

The Israeli army had full knowledge of what was going on in the camps right up until the morning of Saturday 18 September 1982, and its leaders were in continuous contact with the militia leaders who perpetrated the massacre. Yet they never intervened. Instead, they prevented civilians from escaping the camps and arranged for the camps to be illuminated throughout the night by flares launched into the sky from helicopters and mortars.

The count of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) and 3,500 (in the inquiry launched by the Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk). The exact figure can never be determined because, in addition to the approximately 1,000 people who were buried in communal graves by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or in the cemeteries of Beirut by members of their families, a large number of corpses were buried beneath bulldozed buildings by the militia members themselves. Also, particularly on 17 and 18 September, hundreds of people were carried away alive in trucks towards unknown destinations, never to return.

The victims and survivors of the massacres have never been deemed entitled to a formal investigation of the tragedy, whether in Lebanon, Israel, or elsewhere. After 400,000 Israelis took to the streets in protest once news of the massacre was broadcast by the international media, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) named a commission of inquiry, to be presided over by Yitzhak Kahan, in September 1982. In spite of the limitations of the Commission’s mandate (limited because it was a political rather than a judicial mandate and because the voices and demands of the victims were completely ignored), the Commission concluded that the Minister of Defence was personally responsible for the massacres.

Upon the insistence of the Commission, and the demonstrations that followed its report, Sharon resigned from his post of Minister of Defence but remained in the government as Minister without Portfolio. It is worth noting that during the Peace Now demonstration immediately prior to Sharon’s “resignation,” demonstrators were attacked with grenades, resulting in the death of a young demonstrator.

Several non-official inquiries and reports, including those of Sean MacBride and of the Nordic Commission, based mainly on the testimony of western eyewitnesses, as well as other pieces of journalistic and historical research, have assembled vital pieces of information.

Despite evidence of what the UN Security Council described as a “criminal massacre,” and the ranking of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in humankind’s collective memory as among the most heinous crimes of the 20th century, the man found “personally responsible” for this crime, as well as his associates and the people who carried out the massacres, have never been pursued or punished. In fact the warlord Ariel Sharon was proudly rewarded for his actions with the Premiership of his country and was welcomed into the White House with open arms, as a man of peace.

In 1984, Israeli journalists Schiff and Ya’ari concluded their chapter on the massacre with this sobering reflection: “If there is a moral to the painful episode of Sabra and Shatila, it has yet to be acknowledged.” The reality of this impunity remains true to this day.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the massacre with Resolution 521 (19 September 1982). This condemnation was followed by a 16 December 1982 General Assembly resolution qualifying the massacre as an “act of genocide.”

The perpetual acts of genocide carried out in the 28 years since Sabra and Shatilla are countless. Ask yourself how many more have died, how many more have been butchered under the tracks of armoured caterpillar bulldozers, been picked off by snipers, or been blown to pieces by missiles fired from Israeli helicopters.

The truth of the matter is that the blood of the Palestinians is cheap and plentiful, there are no remembrance ceremonies for those who died, no ringing of any bells, no remembrance of the fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, whose lives were taken in such a savage and brutal manner.

Originally posted September 19 2009.

Protest Against Zionist Pirates Today All Across UK

Get out and demonstrate against the barbaric Apartheid state of Israel and show the Government your outrage by the barbaric attack – please attend the emergency demonstrations being organised in your area and show your support:

LONDON – 2pm @ DOWNING STREET

BIRMINGHAM – 4pm @ Outside Zavvi, The BULL RING

SHEFFIELD – NOW @ TOWN HALL

MANCHESTER – 5pm @ BBC on OXFORD STREET

GLASGOW – 5pm @ GEORGE SQUARE

YORK – 5pm @ ST SAMPSON SQUARE

EDINBURGH – 5pm @ FOOT OF THE MOUND

Latest Update 1030:
Israel is trying to defend itself by saying they were attacked by activists with iron bars and knives, however there seems to be little evidence to suggest that the activists held any dangerous weapons. What would you do if heavily armed soldiers holding guns and looking threatening decided to invade your ship? Would you not defend yourself with any tool you had?

1005:
Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister for Israel, has tried to justify the attacks on a Sky interview saying the peace activists have no respect for international waters. This is the same man who previously tried branded the Freedom Flotilla as being anti-Semitic and as a ‘delegitimisation of Israel‘…

0930:
Sky News are saying that 19 peaceful, unarmed activists have been murdered by Israel, where as the BBC is reporting it as “more than 10 have been killed”

0720:
the BBC website is still reporting only two people killed whilst other news outlets confirm that 16 peace activists have already been brutally murdered by Israeli forces. See this screenshot.

0445:
Israel’s Channel 10 private TV puts the death toll at about 14, with other reports saying that up to 16 people have been killed. Israel has used live ammunition against unarmed civilians on the Flotilla. Israel has so far declined to comment.

The BBC website finally reports on it but tries to misrepresent what is happening by using the words “It is not clear whether the fighting is ongoing” when clearly it is an attack by Israel on an unarmed ship not a two sided fight. All throughout their report the show a pro-Israeli bias by trying to mention Hamas rocket attacks but declining to mention Israel’s ongoing and brutal assault on Gaza. This is sickening.

0430:
We have just heard that Israel has opened fire on the Freedom Flotilla – having just checked the BBC site, normally the first to get breaking news, has nothing on this breaking story but MPACUK can confirm that the Flotilla has come under fire from Israeli war ships, 3 dead and 30 injured are the first reports.

The captains words are “Please stop firing we are unarmed civilians” – it didn’t stop the the Israeli Army.

For continuous updates throughout the day keep checking the MPACUK website on what direct action you can take to put a stop to Israel’s murderous actions.

I’m off to Downing Street, join me!

Israel Tells The World To “F-Off” Over Its Nuclear Weapons

Israeli prime minister Netanyahu cancelled his proposed ass licking trip to Washington upon finding out that he would have to attend a conference on the spread of nuclear weapons, fearing Israel would be singled out over its well known but undeclared nuclear programme.

Seeing as the zionist regime is trying to manufacture consent for a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s supposed nuclear programme, it would be extremely double faced to cry foul when the Israeli regime has held a nuclear stockpile since the mid 1980’s, a fact that had Israeli nuclear weapon designer Mordechai Vanunu was locked up for 18 years when he tried to expose this fact.

Top Israeli General’s have in the past commented:

“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.

Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.“

Game Theory dictates that the U.S. would never attack a country that has a proven nuclear deterrent.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) recently condemned the Israeli regime for its use of depleted uranium, a radioactive material, which causes cancer and deformities, stating that:

“The quantity of depleted uranium may amount to no less than 75 tons found in the soil and subsoil in the Gaza Strip”

It’s clear to most of the sane minded world that Iran has no nuclear weaponry nor does it harbour any illusions to that effect, a fact backed up by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Perhaps the only way it can deter an attack is to have them by stealth – Israeli style of course.

Jewish or British?

Why is it that Muslims here in the UK are constantly harangued to pledge and show their undying love and commitment to Great Britain, especially whenever there’s a political storm caused by yet another staged terrorist act.

Reading the Guardian recently, I chanced upon the following;

The prospect of Britain and Israel going to war is an unlikely one. At the orthodox Jewish school that I attended, however, it must have seemed like a distinct possibility. We used to regularly debate which side we would fight for.

Although steeped in religious observance, we had been born in England, grew up here, and developed strong allegiances to English football teams. We spoke little modern Hebrew and had been to Israel just a handful of times.

Nevertheless, the feeling was unanimous: we would take up arms on behalf of the Jewish state.

Many of my schoolmates volunteered for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) after completing their A-levels and my younger brother, Zack, was among them.

So, where’s the uproar?

Why aren’t the Jewish members of our community held to the same standards you set for the Muslims?

There are plenty of dual izzy/brit passport holders that have represented the IDF and have served in campaigns of terror to kill and brutalise the indigenous population of Palestine, and yet there’s never any finger waving in their direction.

Doesn’t Tebbit’s cricket test apply to them?

Or perhaps Britain still remembers when it’s army was literally slaughtered by Jewish terrorists whilst it was supposed to be protecting Palestine.

All this at a time when the izzies have given a middle finger salute to the UN, Europe, Australia – and now the USA.

The zionist state does not care one iota about anyone but itself, it is a state founded on terror and continues to be a state sponsor of international terrorism.

It thrives on continuing theft of lands seized from its neighbours at gun-point, and will stick two fingers up at all international laws and contraventions that remind it of its illegal occupation.

All these obfuscatory hasbara attempts at creating a decent image for the zionist regime are minimal no matter how clever the spin.

Your lies and deceit are too obvious and people are wising up to see through them.

New Israeli Law Forbids Palestinians From Showing Signs Of Sadness

A new law in Israel makes it a crime to commemorate what Palestinians call the “Nakba”, the “catastrophe” of their dispossession by the creation of the Zionist state in 1948. The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, has passed “The Nakba Draft Law” after just one reading. Penalties will be imposed on anyone showing signs of sadness and mourning within the (undefined) borders of Israel on 15 May; Palestinians remember on that day the creation of the refugee crisis that remains after 62 years.

Hebrew radio reported this week that the law is intended to stop people mourning on what is Israeli Independence Day; commemorative acts are, it is claimed, tantamount to “denying the Jewish character of Israel [and] insulting the symbols of the state”. The radio noted that the fines might amount up to three times the expenditure of commemorative programmes.

According to one commentator, it is ironic that this law has been passed at a time when Israel is complaining about attempts to “de-legitimise” the Zionist state. Here is an example of Israel’s own “de-legitimisation” of the Palestinians, their land and their culture, he said.

Cross posted from Political Theatrics

Exploring Jewish Extremism

Eli Valley takes a satirical look at ultra-Orthodox Judaism, outreach to young, secular Jews, and perceptions and misconceptions of authentic Jewish life.

Click to enlarge

The quotations in this comic are all based on real quotations. Below, each subject is linked to its original source.

1) Intolerance of other Jewish groups.
In response to the Neeman Commission on conversion, certain Orthodox leaders gave voice to their opinion on other forms of Judaism. Rabbi Andrew Sacks in the Jerusalem Post reports:

Rabbi Yisrael Eichler, a spokesperson in the Haredi world, wrote that “Reform Rabbis are further from Judaism than Christians and Muslims and that they should be considered as filthy, lying, shekotzim who are criminals, who brought about the holocaust on the Jewish people.”

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said, “Reform Jews should be vomited up…and thrown out of the country.”

Both Sacks and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs quote an advertisement signed by Orthodox leaders including Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv, the leading halachic authority of the haredi community, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Shas’ spiritual mentor:

As darkness covers the earth, the Reform and Conservative sects that are the destroyers of the religion are trying to dig their nails into the Holy Land and receive recognition as though they were streams of Judaism, God forbid. We hereby pronounce da’at Torah [this Torah opinion] that it is inconceivable to grant them any recognition whatsoever, and it is forbidden to conduct any negotiations with the destroyers that counterfeit Torah.

2) Intolerance of women’s prayers.
Yediot Aharonot (October 24, 2001) reported Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s understanding of women’s prayer. Prof. David Golinkin, President of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem noted at the time that Yosef, “one of the foremost halakhic authorities in the world and spiritual leader of the Shas party,” distinguishes between Michal, daughter of King Saul, who put on tefillin every day despite not being obliged to, and:

these wicked women, the Reform, who do everything in order to bash Judaism … they should be wrapped in a tallit and buried.

His comments last year were more moderately couched but amount to a similar condemnation. This year, in response to the recent events where a woman worshiper was arrested, Haaretz reports that Haredim have been shouting “Nazis” at women worshipers at the Kotel.

3) Lack of respect for secular and temporal power.
Many places reported Chabad rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe saying in Tel Aviv that “Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials should be ‘hanged from the gallows.’” His remarks, in January 2008, were widely condemned by Chabad as well as others. The same rabbi said similar things more recently in the video here.

4) The power of prayer.
Ohr Somayach tells of a legend where devout prayer turns a black chicken into a white chicken!

5) Preventing evil by any means necessary.
Akiva Eldar recently reported in Haaretz about the settlement of Yitzhar and Od Yosef Chai Shechem yeshiva, the settlement’s “crowning glory.” He notes:

This is the same yeshiva whose rabbi said it is permissible to kill gentile babies because of “the future danger that will arise if they are allowed to grow into evil people like their parents.”

6) Intolerance of homosexuality.
In the wake of the fatal shooting attacks against homosexuals in Tel Aviv last year Haredim were blamed for incitement. A Jerusalem Post article commented that these communities felt scapegoated but both the Jerusalem Post and FailedMessiah made a note of some of the comments that had led to them being blamed for incitement. Shas MK Nissim Ze’ev is quoted as saying, for example, that homosexuality is a “plague that may destroy Jewish Israel,” adding that this “plague” should be dealt with “just as the Health Ministry is dealing with bird flu.” More similar comments were reported throughout 2009.

7) Intolerance of Islam and Arabs.
In a protest against the expansion of a bi-lingual Arabic Hebrew school in 2006, Rabbi David Batzri was quoted by Ynet as saying:

The people of Israel are pure and Arabs are a nation of asses. The question must be asked, why didn’t God give them four legs, because they are asses.

Although he later apologized, and Chabad HQ issued a rare statement of condemnation, Manis Friedman, in the May/June issue of Moment magazine, responded to the question posed to a number of rabbis “How should Jews treat their Arab neighbours?” by saying “Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).”

Some more context for Friedman’s response to this “Ask the Rabbis” question was also provided by Josh Nathan-Kazis writing for New Voices.

European Based Israeli Death Squad Wanted For Hamas Assassination

Police are hunting 11 suspects with European passports, including a woman, for the murder in a Dubai hotel room of a Hamas commander.

The hit team which killed Mahmud al-Mabhuh last month was made up of six British passport holders, three with Irish passports, including the woman, and the holders of a German and a French passport, Dhafi Khalfan said.

Clockwise from top left: British passport holders Louis Graham, Paul Keeley, James Clarke, Melvyn Mildiner, Michael Barney, Stephen Hodes

Irish passport-holders Kevin Daveron, Gail Foliard, Evan Dennings

French national’ Peter Elvinger and ‘German national’ Michael Bodenheimer

All of the suspects left the United Arab Emirates within 19 hours of arriving.

The assassination squad posed as a group of tennis enthusiasts as their primary cover.

According to the Sunday Times newspaper, citing unidentified Middle East sources, Mabhuh on arrival in Dubai was followed by two men described by local police as “Europeans carrying European passports.”

The hit squad injected Mabhuh with a drug that induced a heart attack, photographed all the documents in his briefcase, and left a “do not disturb” sign on the door, it said.

Over the years, a number of Hamas leaders have been murdered by acts of state sponsored terrorism in what Israel calls “targeted killings.”

In 2004, Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed in an Israeli helicopter gunship attack in Gaza.

One month later, another Hamas leader in the enclave, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, was killed when two missiles hit his car.

In 1997, Israeli agents tried to poison Hamas’ exiled political supremo Khaled Meshaal in Amman.

The zionist state has a long and well polished routine of extra judicial assassinations, so it should come as no surprise to anyone who is aware of mossads’s MO and lengthy history of criminal activity.

What’s even worse is that these individuals have sanctuary in our very shores, can we expect our government to act over this, if they don’t then for me our government is bowing down yet again to a foreign agency and therefore are in direct collusion with the perpetrators of aggression.

It is natural that Hamas will seek retribution, but when it comes, no one will remember who drew first blood, the zionist state will be given carte blanche to respond with an over the top punishment, despite all their attempts recently to provoke Hamas, and by constantly violating the air space of Lebanon & Syria, the Muslim world has shown a great amount of restraint, but for how long can that continue?