Israel is Bad for Jewish Ethics

Meet the New Goliath

By SAUL LANDAU
CounterPunch

".....John Ross recounts his experience when he went to Palestine to observe the olive harvest and seven, young men in yarmulkes "charged down the bare brown hillside swinging thick clubs and hurling large lethal stones, war-whooping in Hebrew their harsh curses upon the people of this lacerated land. I was standing with a Palestinian farmer and his family under a freshly-picked olive tree when they came for us and thus, I suppose, guilty of being a race traitor in their perverted vision."

As Ross began to run, "the savages [members of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's fascist cult] broke out of the trees and before I had time to turn towards them, they were upon me The first blow glanced off the small of my back and I tumbled to the red-brown earth, trying to cover my head with my forearm. The second smashed into my wrist and the blood began to spurt One Nazi youth picked up a large, jagged rock and advanced upon me with malice glowing in his evil, rabid eyes, hurling it from five feet away. I felt the painful crack against my knee and then they were pulling me to my feet, tearing my clothes and booting me down the hill like a punctured soccer ball.".....

Compare the thugs who put Ross in the hospital to the words of Mordechai Eliyahu, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel and key spiritual guide for Israeli settlers in Palestinian territory. In early June, he wrote to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He offered his decree: having compassion with the civilian population of Gaza is incompatible with protecting Israeli soldiers' lives. Those holding supposedly humane feelings imperil Israeli lives. The rabbi's son, Shmuel, interpreted this decree: "if killing 100 Arabs is not sufficient to stop the launching of Qassam rockets at Israel, then 1,000 must be killed. And if that is not sufficient, then 10,000, and 100,000 and even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."......

In front of Washington DC's synagogues, signs declare: "We support Israel in its struggle for peace and justice." Israel has shown little interest in either peace or justice. Its government knows no nation or group of nations would dare attack it lest it feel the wrath of a government well in tune with Rabbi Eliyahu's sentiments. Israel has become Goliath. Hopefully, an Israeli David will also emerge and guide his people toward peace and justice."