Weiss: Zionism has created 'rivers of blood'

[TomClash]

When Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, visited Washington last week on the eve of the Purim holiday, he gave Barack Obama, the US president, what he considered a symbolic gift - a copy of the old testament book of Esther.

Netanyahu called it "background reading on Iran", since its story concerns relations with Jews in the Persian empire some 2,500 years ago.

It is considered by scholars to be mostly fiction, but for Netanyahu Esther represented justification for his stance against modern Iran.

”Israel must reserve the right to defend itself. And after all that’s the very purpose of the Jewish state. To restore to the Jewish people control over our destiny,” Netanyahu said.

But Netanyahu’s controversial reading of history, even his fight to preserve the state of Israel, are questioned by many of Judaism’s own religious authorities.

"This is against the will of the Almighty and this is not what it means to be a Jew," says Jewish religious scholar Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a spokesman for "Jews against Zionism", who believes that Israel as a state is not legitimate. He says that Zionism has created "rivers of blood" and he opposes the occupation of Palestine.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2012/03/201231083221669780.html

[aranthus]

1. So this is what the Arab world thinks is a "good Jew?"

Someone they can hide behind to caim that they aren't antisemitic.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Can't be...he is alive

[TheMadMonk]

5. And attitudes like both of yours (ON ALL SIDES) are the reason...

...The Jews got the living shit kicked out of them for the first 4000 years of Biblical history.

Why Romans kicked the living shit out of Christians for the first 400 years of their history.

Why there were centuries of Crusades and why the Middle East and Africa are exploding today.

Why the Balkans have been at war with themselves for 600 years.



It's always the dirty stinking rotten "OTHER" who is at fault. An "other" who justifies all bad behaviour towards them on "our" part, simply by refusing to do the right thing and accept OUR IMPOSED will.

[freshwest]

9. Agree with the OTHER problem. Understanding it's all we, us and everyone is half the work.

[aranthus]

16. I disagree. There is no "Us". Learn to respect the "Other."

The things that supposedly make us all "Us" are the things that make us animal. We all need food, shelter, air, etc. We have the same basic animal wants. But it is the things that make us different, that make us "Other," that also make us human. Values, religion, politics, philosophy. The truth is that we don't all want the same things, and we dont' all want them the same way. That's a good thing. Diversity is important to the survival of the species. That means genetic diversity and the diversity of ideas. People are never going to see the "Other" as anything but "Other." We can, however, learn to respect our right to our differences.

[freshwest]

18. Comment was directed to Mad Monk. Different words to disagree. Adios.

Disagreements and drama and conflict keeps threads going on message boards but solves little in real life.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. I suggest you take a look at the Hamas, Fatah and others

Who's stated purpose is to kill the Jews...

What mainstream Jewish groups make the same statements about Arabs or Muslims?

[oberliner]

13. Wow this is off the charts

Is this for real?

[holdencaufield]

6. Wow, Dude -- you caused the Crusades! NT

[holdencaufield]

4. I can't be antisemitic...

... I have some Jewish friends.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. What you said sounds very much like yr calling all Arabs antisemites...

I certainly hope that wasn't what you were trying to convey...

[aranthus]

14. Let's be clear.

I am certainly not saying that all Arabs everywhere are antisemitic. That would be silly. However, equally silly is the suggestion that a majority of Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East are not antisemitic. Especially those who laud Neturei Karta to hide their hatred of the Jewish state.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Yisroel Dovid Weiss

Yisroel Dovid Weiss (born 1956), a United States Haredi rabbi, is an activist and spokesman for a branch of Neturei Karta,[1] an anti-Zionist grouping of Haredi Jews. Based in Monsey, New York, he believes that observant Jews should peacefully oppose the existence of the Israeli state: "It would be forbidden for us to have a State, even if it would be in a land that is desolate and uninhabited."[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yisroel_Dovid_Weiss

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. Neturei Kartai = this will be completely ignored

[LeftishBrit]

10. Rabbi Weiss has the right to his views...

but we should note that in his case they stem from fundamentalism, not progressivism. He doesn't believe that the state of Israel should have been created before the coming of the Messiah.

As a taster of his general views:

'When we traveled to Iran, the humbleness we found ... it is a country where people are God fearing... they believe in God and they serve God... you can see the difference between that society and the society here – [depravity] is so great, where you have television, immorality, immodesty and so forth. Your children grow up with they say democracy but democracy originally meant freedom to serve God... but unfortunately today many are preaching freedom to exclude God, in other words free from God..."[8'

[aranthus]

15. The key difference is that his views are religous; not political or ethnic.

Last edited Mon Mar 12, 2012, 02:04 PM - Edit history (1)

He believes, for reasons of religious doctrine, that the Jewish people are not entitled to a state anywhere, yet. Not until God delivers Israel to them by his own hand in his own time. The typical "anti-Zionist" believes that the Jews are not a people at all, and are not entitled to a state, ever. The Rabbi has a right to his reading of the Torah. However, the holders of the latter view, which is antisemitic per se, gladly use people like Rabbi Weiss as cover. Unfortunately, Neturei Karta and its members allow themselves to be used that way.

[Igel]

19. Not just "not entitled to a state."

In a state of God-decreed humiliation, a sort of penance to learn proper obedience and humility. God gives them second-class status, who are they to argue?

Hence the emphasis on "humbleness." It fits well in an Islamic regime in which the Jews have Revelation 0.1 beta, Christians 0.1 alpha, and Islam is the final release 1.0 (with no upgrades possible, unlike that unauthorized revision Ahmediyya 1.1).

It also fits well with regimes in which there are pogroms against "Christ killers."

[Mosby]

17. this op is off topic and should be locked

Further this rabbi and his anti-zionist beliefs represent a tiny fraction of the jewish community, maybe a couple hundred at most and should not be taken seriously by anyone.