WhatIfTheyWereMuslim.com

(h/t: D. F.)

Right-wing activists try to crash Jewish-Muslim wedding

Police on Thursday prevented a bus with some 50 right-wing activists from entering the wedding of a Jewish woman and a Muslim man.

The woman had converted to Islam before the wedding, which was held in the groom’s hometown of Araba in the Galilee.

Former MK Michael Ben Ari posted his sentiments about the marriage on Facebook hours before the incident. “I’m on my way to this ‘celebration,’ ” he wrote. ”What would Golda Meir think of it? In the Diaspora we had intermarriages, and here?”

Residents of the village confronted the bus and demanded that it not enter the village, Ynet reported. Police called to the scene redirected the activists away from the wedding.

PA: Settlers exhume graves, spray racist graffiti

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Monday exhumed a number of graves and sprayed racist graffiti in the Sawiya village in Nablus, a Palestinian Authority official said.

Ghassan Daghlas, who heads the PA settlement activity file, said settlers from the Alia settlement were responsible for the damage.

He added that a plant nursery and two tractors, belonging to local Abdel Azziz Nasserallah, were also damaged in the attack.

The attack follows clashes on Saturday in the Burin village in Nablus, when dozens of settlers marched into the village.

One villager in Burin was slightly hurt in the hand by a stone and another passed out from tear gas fired by Israeli troops trying to separate the two groups, an AFP journalist said.

The military said that Israeli soldiers also fired rubber-coated bullets, lightly wounding a Palestinian who was given first aid on the spot.

An Israeli army spokeswoman told AFP that about 50 settlers and 20 Palestinians were involved in the confrontation.

The settlers came from Yizhar, a notorious settlement known for being home to Jewish extremists.

Yitzhar settlers also clashed with Palestinians in another neighboring village, Urif, but no injuries were reported, AFP reported at the time.

Tensions have been high in the northern West Bank following a stabbing attack which killed a settler from Yizhar on April 30.

Settlers started over 50 fires across the West Bank following the stabbing, and attacked a mosque and burned tires at junctions in Nablus.

Israeli forces rarely prosecute settlers for violence against Palestinians and their property, which is routine in the occupied West Bank.

Settler terrorists strike again in their daily assault against the indigenous Palestinian population.

Setters uproot 150 trees near Nablus

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Tuesday uprooted over 150 trees belonging to Palestinians south of Nablus, a local official said.

Settler monitoring official Ghassan Daghlas told Ma’an that several settlers attacked Sbeih mountain area between Beita and Yatma villages and destroyed over 150 olive and fig trees.

Real News: Israel’s New Generation of Racists

IDF Rabbinate shows non-Jews the door in mezuzah book ruling

(via. Haaretz)

A book endorsed last year by the Israel Defense Forces Rabbinate says the presence of non-Jews is no reason for an army base not to affix mezuzahs to its buildings.

One ruling on Jewish law in the book, “Laws of the Mezuzah,” states: “The idea that views non-Jews as having equal rights in the state goes against the opinion of the Torah, and no representative of the state is authorized to act against the will of the Torah.”  

The book deals with questions about mezuzahs, which are fixed to doorposts by Jews as a sign of faith, on army bases, and was endorsed by the IDF’s chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rabbi Rafi Peretz.

One issue it discusses is whether or not mezuzahs need be installed in army bases, because rulings have been issued over the generations that in buildings where both Jews and Gentiles live, there is no obligation to put up a mezuzah, and in light of the fact that both Jews and non-Jews live on IDF bases.

The issue, according to the authors, is whether state property can be said to be a kind of a cooperative. In the latter case, “Even if we say state property is like a cooperative, since the public in general is Jewish, and in any case, as long as non-Jews have not purchased a part of the assets, they have no right to the state property.”

The authors cite biblical verses whose message is that, if a mezuzah is in a Gentile’s possession, there is the fear that “it will be desecrated.”  The question thus arises: What should be done on military bases? The authors state, “As the owner, the military establishment must see to it that mezuzahs are installed in all dormitory rooms, including those where Gentile soldiers live.

Nevertheless, in places where there is the danger that the mezuzahs might be desecrated, the unit’s rabbi must see to it that the unit’s commanders sign the required form signifying that they are personally responsible for the mezuzahs so that they can be placed on trial should there be a need for doing so and so that the danger of the mezuzahs’ desecration can be prevented.”

The authors also address another issue: What is to be done with the mezuzahs on the buildings in a military base when a battalion of Gentile soldiers arrives to assume operational responsibility for the area?  Their response: “If mezuzahs have been installed on a structure that has been transferred to the jurisdiction of Gentile officers, the rabbi’s unit must brief the soldiers on their arrival in the area regarding the importance of keeping the mezuzahs intact and must see to it that the unit’s commanders sign the required form signifying that they are personally responsible for the mezuzahs so that they can be placed on trial should there be a need for doing so.”

The chief editor of the book, which was published 14 months ago, is Col. Rabbi Eyal Karim, formerly of the Sayeret Matkal ‏(the general staff’s elite special-operations force‏).

The book was written by three other rabbis, Capt. Alexander Rones, Capt. Dov Berkovich and Capt. Hananiah Shafran.  The book also deals with the question of affixing a mezuzah to the door post of a dormitory used for female soldiers.  “Must a mezuzah be installed in a dormitory where female soldiers live and can a senior female officer affix a mezuzah when a new building is officially opened on a military base?” it asks.

The book’s authors rule that is that the commandment regarding mezuzahs applies to females as well as males and that most rabbinical authorities have ruled that a woman is permitted to install a mezuzah. However, the authors point out, since IDF bases constitute a public area, “it would be preferable to be strict on this point” and to prohibit a senior female officer from installing a mezuzah.

The reason, they note, is that, as is it is written in the Book of Psalms, “All glorious is the king’s daughter within the palace” (45:14); thus, they write, “in a public area, it is much more suitable for a male to install the mezuzah.”

In response to a query on the book, the IDF spokesman’s office said: “The book ‘Laws of the Mezuzah’ is a clearly a book on Jewish law dealing with questions that are part of the daily reality in the army. Although the quotes presented are in response to specific questions, the answers cannot be viewed as relating to a specific group; the answer given is true for any unit in which there is concern the mezuzah will be disrespected.

Related:

Ex-IDF Chief Rabbi Who Put Together Book Saying It Was OK to Kill Gentiles in War Without Regard to Age Says Recently IDF Publishing of Jewish Discriminatory Law Was Mistake

Settler tells Palestinian farmers he is the son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and so their land belongs to him. He also proceeded to interpret the Quran for them and tell them that their religion says they must relinquish the land to him. For good measure he lets them know they will be his slaves when the King Messiah returns–if he so wills.

Another absurd scene of the occupation play. Hit CC on the bottom right of the video for the English subtitles:

Related:

-Hundreds of Beitar Jerusalem fans walk out after Muslim player scores

-Israel to launch ‘Palestinians-only’ bus service

 

The home of the Brooklyn Nets is courting a new crowd.

In what is believed to be a first for a major sports and entertainment venue, Barclays Center is offering gender-divided seating for ultra-Orthodox Jews at a public event.

Several hundred seats are being set aside so that Jewish men and women can sit in separate areas — as is custom — at a Feb. 28 concert by violinist Itzhak Perlman. The night features Jewish music and cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot. The tickets for the aisle-divided section cost $50. The remaining seats are open to anyone else.

The new arena will also augment its regular Avenue K kosher food service that night with entrees from Abigael’s, a kosher restaurant in Manhattan.

Bruce Ratner, Barclays majority owner and developer, said “to [his] knowledge” the ultra-Orthodox arrangement was a first.

“Being in Brooklyn and being an arena that caters to such diversity, the opportunity to do things different than elsewhere is enormous,” Ratner told The Huffington Post.

Ratner, who is Jewish and a fan of liturgical music, said marketing to the strictly observant is worth a try. He said he will soon discover whether the demographic is “too niched.”

However, the potential customer base is there. About 40 percent of New York City’s 1.1 million Jews consider themselves Orthodox, according to a UJA-Federation study published in The New York Times, and many of them live in Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Borough Park is home to 130,000 Jews, most of whom are among the most conservative, according to a UJA follow-up in the Forward. Williamsburg has 74,500 Jews, also predominantly ultra-Orthodox.

Benny Rogosnitzky, a cantor under Helfgot at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue, helped coordinate the concert. He noted that marketing, which includes ads in Jewish newspapers, has its challenges.

“The ultraorthodox have been reclusive for years,” he explained to HuffPost. “They have not been open to outreach.”

Barclays will cut the main arena’s 19,000 concert capacity to 5,000 for the Perlman performance, meaning that a good chunk of patrons in the center’s Cushman & Wakefield Theater could be from the most traditional communities.

Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot are scheduled to perform at the Barclays Center, which will accommodate the needs of ultra-conservative Jews by offering gender-divided seating. (Credit: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco)

This “price tag” assault and numerous attacks like it do not represent Judaism, which calls for respect and tolerance for other religious traditions and especially the dead.

These settlers who act in the name of G-d, and a supposed exclusive claim to the land in the West Bank by desecrating tombs are the lunatic fringe; every religion has them.

What if they were Muslim? (h/t: JD)

Jewish settlers vandalize Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem

(Al-Akhbar)

Suspected Jewish settlers damaged 30 graves and scrawled anti-Arab graffiti on the headstones in an ancient Muslim cemetery in west Jerusalem, Israeli police and witnesses said on Thursday.

“The words ‘price tag’ and Stars of David were scrawled on around a dozen tombs in the Muslim cemetery in Mamilla in central Jerusalem,” a police spokeswoman told AFP, saying an inquiry had been opened.

An AFP correspondent at the scene said the vandals had also written “Mohammad is dead” and “Maale Rehavam” on the tombs some of which date back to the 12th century.

Maale Rehavam is an illegal outpost in the southern West Bank where Israeli police removed six caravans a day earlier.

The move sparked angry protests by settlers and their supporters in and around Jerusalem.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation, a Jerusalem-based religious and archeological preservation group, said wine glasses were found in the area and 30 graves were damaged.

In a statement, the foundation held Israeli Israeli authorities responsible for the attack and urged Islamic countries to intervene to end attacks on Muslim and Christian sites in the holy city.

Price tag is a euphemism for hate crimes carried out by Israeli extremists which generally target Palestinians or Arabs and their property.

There have been several attacks on Mamilla graveyard, known in Arabic as Ma’man Allah cemetery, which dates from the 12th century and is the resting place of several Sufi saints.

Descendants of those interred in the west Jerusalem cemetery say it also houses the remains of soldiers and officials of legendary Muslim ruler Saladin.

(AFP, Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

The new star of Israeli politics, Naftali Bennet of the Habayit Hayehudi party expressed why he believes there is no place for a Palestinian state.

What if he was Muslim?

‘No place in Israel for Palestine,’ says Naftali Bennett in maiden Knesset speech

(Haaretz)

In his first address to the Knesset, Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett on Tuesday rejected any possibility of an agreement that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

“There’s no place in our small and stunning piece of God’s country for another state,” he said. “It won’t happen. But friends, before any debate about territory, it must be said: The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. Now let’s argue.”

Bennett also referred to his commitment to making the defense burden more equitable.

“My Haredi brothers, army service is also a mitzvah, no less than that,” he said. “It cannot be that they [the Haredim] won’t serve in the army. It cannot be that they won’t bear the economic burden. This is clear to the Haredim as well.”

by Mooneye & Garibaldi

A planned Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) forum at Brooklyn College on February, 7th has brought together an angry assortment of Zionists and Islamophobes, including influential New York lawmakers who are threatening to slash the funding of Brooklyn College for hosting and co-sponsoring the event–describing it as “anti-Semitic.”

Amongst those threatening Brooklyn College are: NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who called for the racial profiling of Arabs and South Asians in 2009 because they fit the “terrorist” description. Alan Dershowitz, a well known apologist for Israeli war crimes has a track record of advocating for the suppression of Israel critics, and has made such absurd claims as the assassination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan was,

“[I]n some ways the beginning of Islamic terrorism in America. It was the first shot. A lot of us didn’t recognize it at the time.”

Also advocating the suppression of the event is the Anti-Defamation League, an organization with a “very mixed” and troubling record on Islamophobia and which too often paints critics of Israel and Zionism as “anti-Semites.”

Glenn Greenwald who has covered the controversy in two extensive pieces over the past week in the Guardian described the efforts by Dershowitz and NY lawmakers this way,

Plainly, this entire controversy has only one “principle” and one purpose: to threaten, intimidate and bully professors, school administrators and academic institutions out of any involvement in criticisms of Israel.

Democracy Now which invited opponents to the BDS event, including the NY lawmakers (they all rejected the invitation) had a revealing report on the controversy, including interviews with one of tomorrow’s speakers, Omar Barghouti, as well as Glenn Greenwald:

In a break with the past, when such pressure would likely have led to the administration of such a college caving-in to the demands of Dershowitz and his allies, Brooklyn College has stood its ground,

The college administration has so far stood their ground. Brooklyn College spokespeople have said that the Political Science Department’s sponsorship of the event does not mean that it is endorsing the event, and that the college administration is “not going to tell members of our faculty what they can and cannot choose to support.”

In another unique development Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a self-described “big supporter of Israel” has come out strongly in support of academic freedom,

“If you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea,” he said in a news conference at City Hall.

This may be a turning point in the public debate over the limits of criticizing Zionism and the state of Israel. In the past reflexive accusations of “anti-Semitism” drowned nuanced discussion on Zionism, Israel and Palestinian rights, now we are witnessing a hopeful sign of more balanced public discussion.

This also bodes well for those who are truly concerned about fighting anti-Semitism since it rescues it from the clutches of those who trivialize real anti-Semitism by conflating it with criticism of Zionism and Israel.

One can only imagine the Islamophobic repercussions that would have ensued if a lobby of Muslim organizations and lawmakers attempted a parallel attack on academic freedom. Hackles of Islamization and Islamic incompatibility with freedom would be endless.

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Judith Miller & Omar Barghouti–BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights. Thursday, February 7, 2013, 6:30 EST. Brooklyn College E 27th St and Campus Road Brooklyn, NY 11210 Student Center Building PENTHOUSE

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Update I: Our description of Dov Hikind’s extremism was not complete. Max Blumenthal has more on Hikind, including the fact that he was a member of the JDL and suspected of involvement in terrorism, (h/t: Dmitri)

Hikind gained his earliest experience in the early 1970s in local New York politics as an acolyte of Meir Kahane, the fanatical rabbi-turned-Israeli Member of Knesset who called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and establishment of a theocratic state of “Judea” in the West Bank. “I’m proud of every single moment, let me make that very clear. Rabbi Kahane had a great influence on me,” Hikind declared in 2008. Under Kahane’s guidance, Hikind became active in the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a nationwide extremist network that attacked Arab-American and Soviet targets while rallying vigilante squads to “protect” working-class Jews living in African-American and Puerto Rican neighborhoods.

Related:

-Dershowitz fights academic freedom at Brooklyn College

-Alan Dershowitz to Brooklyn College: Academic Freedom For Me But Not For Thee