by AlicetheCurious » Fri Oct 06, 2006 12:59 pm
DE, your basic premise seems to be that the conflicts in the Middle East are caused by Arab nationalism and Islamic reactionary movements, which, frankly, is bullpoop.<br><br>You're ignoring the elephant (the mammoth?) in the room: colonialism and foreign occupation, and a bloody history of intervention to promote foreign interests at the expense of the native populations.<br><br>The Mufti, whatever you think of him, was a blip, an insignificant, sycophantic blip, and it if weren't for the tiresome Zionist propaganda, he would have been left in peace where he belongs, in the dust-bin of history. Who respected him, even at the time (we are talking 60 years ago)? Other that blow a lot of hot air, what did he actually do?<br><br>How would you say he compares to, say, Ariel Sharon, or Meir Kahane, or the much-revered former Israeli Cabinet Minister, Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, one of the founders of the armed, fanatic settler movement Gush Emunim, that spread Jewish settlements and terror throughout the West Bank, and author of this moving piece as recently as 2004?<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br><br>What is a Jew doing living in the "Arab" city of Hebron? How dare the Jews "occupy" the "Palestinian" hills of<br>Judea and Samaria? "Peace" will only be achieved after the end of the occupation of "Arab lands"!!! <br><br>These absurd declarations which are being broadcast day and night in the international media have been brainwashing world opinion, and have been adopted as well by the Israeli left. <br><br>Let's get things straight. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>We have not occupied any foreign land, we've come back home to the land of our ancestors which has been promised to their children by the G-D of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> We have returned to Hebron, the city of Abraham, the first capital of Israel established by King David. <br><br>We have renewed Jewish life in the hills of Judea and Samaria where the visions of our prophets enlightened our lives even in the darkness of exile and suppression, with the divine promise of the redemption of Israel by its return to its Biblical inheritance. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>How blessed is our generation to take an active part in the realization of this divine plan of renewal of Jewish life, which is to bring a blessing (!!!) to all the nations of the world.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Mr. Prime Minister and Minister of Defense with all due respect, there is no Jewish "occupied territories" in Eretz Yisrael. We have renewed Jewish life by settling in the heart of our homeland, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>as we are instructed by divine Biblical command</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> and by the driving spirit of the Zionist dream. <br><br>The continous flow of eternal Jewish life from the depths of destruction in the blood baths of Europe, burst forth into a renewing stream of life in Eretz Yisrael, turning into a gushing river of faith and hope. This divine Zionist faith created the pioneering zeal and devotion, which inspired the <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>builders of towns, villages and cities, from Metullah, Rosh Pina, Elon Moreh, Shilo, Eli, Beit El, Yerushalyim, Gush Etzion and Hebron, to Sderot and Gush Katif.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> (<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>My comment: and how many Arab "towns", "villages" and "cities" were destroyed in the process? Where are their inhabitants now</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->?) <br><br>Generations of dreamers, fighters and builders have been privileged to achieve the realization of the Zionist dream. "When G-D returns us to Zion, we will be like dreamers". (Psalms 126:1)<br><br>...<br><br>I want all my friends, including our Israeli government, to know that the Zionist dream is continuing in the classical divine path of <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>settling, building, and defending Jewish life in <!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--><span style="text-decoration:underline">all</span><!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> of Eretz Yisrael</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->, b'ezrat Hashem. This divine phenomenon is driven by the eternal strength of faith and its natural instincts of Jewish survival and existence. This process will not be deterred by the evil of our enemies nor by the weakness and irresponsible folly of our brothers at the head of the Israeli government.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.internationalwallofprayer.org/A-279-The-Strength-of-Zionist-Roots-Testing-the-Leadership-of-Israel.html">www.internationalwallofpr...srael.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br><br>June 1967 radically transformed Zionism. Since then, its renewed ideological drive and pioneering zeal have come from within religious circles. <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Secular Greater Israel would be indistinguishable from the fruits of old fashioned colonialist plunder. But clothed in the pure garment of religious rectitude, religious Zionism could appeal to its divine provenance and be fuelled by eschatological fervor.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>Its theological underpinning lies in the trinity of the father Kook, the son Kook and the Merkaz HaRav, the Center for the training of rabbis established by the elder Kook in 1921.<br><br>Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook (1865-1935) immigrated in 1904, and became the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine in 1921. With few exceptions, Orthodox Jewry was vehemently opposed to Zionism. They rejected it because of its secular inspiration and values, and regarded Zionists as heretics and sinners who presumed to usher in the messianic era on their own terms, without waiting for God. <br><br>Rav Kook's teachings integrated the traditional, passive religious longing for the land with the modern, secular and aggressively active practice of Zionism, giving birth to a comprehensive religious-nationalist Zionism. Seeking 'the holy sparks' in every Jewish ideology, the Rav saw secular Zionism as an instrument of God to further the messianic redemption and restoration not only of Jews, but of all humanity - a critical aspect of his teleology, if widely ignored by his disciples. <br><br>He was convinced that God was leading Jews, whether secular or religious to return to the Holy Land, after which the nation would return to its faith. God was bringing about his redemption through the 'Divinely inspired' Balfour Declaration that 'mirrored the Dawn of Salvation'.<br><br>In Rav Kook's view, the divine energy was at its strongest in the creative pioneers of the secular Zionist revolution who were agents of God without even knowing it. If their utopian secularism was heretical in the minds of the Orthodox establishment, for him it represented the source of renewal. Practical activities were inseparable from spiritual aspirations, and social activity as well as mysticism had religious meaning: stirrings 'down below' were a necessary preamble to evoking messianic grace 'from above'.<br><br>If Rav Kook's metamorphosis of the theory of secular Zionism into a full-blown practical and eschatological mysticism was virtually unknown during his lifetime, his prodigious writings, selectively mediated by his son, and especially his founding of the Center have proven to be critical in the renaissance of religio-political Zionism up to the present. <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>It was only after his death that he became a cult hero and an idolized spiritual guide in the 1970s after the settler movement, Gush Emunim, claimed him as their forefather, and devoted themselves to carrying out his legacy, under the authoritative guidance of his only son. Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook produced doctored versions of his father's writings, reducing them to collections of articles that distilled Judaism into Zionism by means of messianism. One such collection, Orot (Lights) was the 'red book' of the Gush Emunim cadres.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>The link between the two Kooks is the key to understanding Gush Emunim: the father is known mostly through the son, and the son is adorned with the halo of the father. While the father's view that the messianic era had begun was not taken seriously in his own day, his son now supported it with a program of messianic political activism. He saw in the rebirth of the Jewish state the first step towards the coming of the Messiah. All its institutions were means to a messianic end: its government and army were Kadosh (Holy).<br><br>The war of 1967 was a turning point in the tortuous process of Messianic redemption. Nobody was more prepared to build on what they believed God had handed them than a group of rabbis who had come under the son's influence in the Center.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>They included Moshe Levinger, Haim Druckman, Eliezer Waldman, Ya'akov Ariel, Shlomo Aviner, Avraham Shapira and others who were to become household names in Israel over the next thirty years. For them, the biblical texts were no mere literary heritage, but constituted a living title-deed.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Every advance of the army recalled the promise, 'Every place on which you set foot shall be yours', anticipating some future time when 'Your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the Western Sea'</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> (Deut 11.24).<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>On the final day of the war some of these rabbis carried their mentor to the Western Wall, where Rav Kook declared, 'We announce to all of Israel, and to all of the world that by a divine command we have returned to our home, to our holy city. From this day forth, we shall never budge from here'. Since the dimensions of Eretz Yisrael were those of Genesis 15, rather than of pre-1967 Israel, Jews were obliged to fulfil the 'commandment of conquest', by settling in the whole land and defending Jewish sovereignty over it.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Such settlement had redemptive and messianic meaning, and would mark a Jewish renaissance. It was a sacred activity, and <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>those engaged in such a holy enterprise had 'souls equal to the supreme zaddik' (the most righteous Jew)</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. <br><br>The first settlements were founded by young rabbi graduates of the Center. Under their influence, the superficial nationalism of secular Zionism was giving way to a religious Zionism, issuing in the popular slogan, 'There is no Zionism without Judaism, and no Judaism without Zionism'. The settlements dotting the landscape of the West Bank in every direction are a testimony to the success of their enterprise.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Messianic Salvation & the Palestinians</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>...<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Like the first wave of Zionist conquest in 1948, the period since 1967 has been a catastrophe for the indigenous population. The establishment of a Jewish state in 1948 involved the eviction of the majority of the Palestinians, and the destruction of most of their villages, and the relentless use of force and state terrorism, wars and military operations since. The extension of the Zionist dream into the religious realm continues to involve the daily humiliation of the indigenous people and a litany of other atrocities. But, in the view of religious Jewish Zionists, and not a few foreign Christians, this is a small price to pay for the benefits of messianic redemption - especially when someone else is paying.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>...<br><br>As early as 1913, the behavior of Zionists towards the Palestinians made Ahad Ha'am fear for the future if Jews ever came to power. In a letter to a settler in Palestine he wrote 'If this be the "Messiah": I do not wish to see his coming.'<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sabeel.org/old/news/newsltr8/index.htm">www.sabeel.org/old/news/n.../index.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>