"If You Voted for Hamas, Israel Has a Right to Kill You, Says President of NY Board of Rabbis"

[Comrade Grumpy]

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/israel-leader-rabbis.html

Video: If you voted for Hamas, Israel has a right to kill you, says president of NY Board of Rabbis
Philip Weiss on July 29, 2014 171

There was a pro-Israel rally of 10,000 people in New York yesterday, a half block from the United Nations, and Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner, the president of the NY Board of Rabbis, suggested that Palestinians who voted for Hamas are combatants who deserve to be targeted by Israel. He said:

"When you are part of an election process that asks for a terrorist organization which proclaims in word and in deed that their primary objective is to destroy their neighboring country and not to build schools or commerce or jobs, you are complicit and you are not a civilian casualty."

The crowd cheered. Kirshner went on to say that the Israeli army is “the most moral army in the history of civilization.” He ended his remarks with the word, Amen.

The rabbi did not make it clear how he would sort out Palestinians who voted for Hamas. In the last election in Palestine, in 2006, Hamas — the “terrorist organization” to which Kirshner was obviously referring– got 440,000 votes, 44 percent of the electorate, according to Wikipedia. Fatah won 410,000, the PFLP 42,000.

Senator Chuck Schumer and many Democratic congresspeople also spoke at the rally, on 47th Street. None were on the stage when Kirshner offered his spiritual counsel near the end of the gathering.

Below is the context for Kirshner’s remarks, beginning at about 3:00 in the video above. Kirshner (who was introduced as president but identified with three different titles, 1, 2, 3. of the New York Board of Rabbis) began by saying that the United Nations was condemning the killing of civilians in Gaza.

"Ladies and gentlemen let me make something very, very, very clear to all of you gathered. If you are wearing jeans and a t-shirt and you are carrying an AK-47, you are not a civilian, you are a combatant.

"When you welcome Hamas into your living room and allow them to launch rockets next to your sofa, you are not a civilian you are a combatant.

"When you are part of an election process that asks for a terrorist organization which proclaims in word and in deed that their primary objective is to destroy their neighboring country and not to build schools or commerce or jobs, you are complicit and you are not a civilian casualty.

"And lastly when you fail to heed the pamphlets, the phone calls, the text messages and the warning shots telling you to evacuate a building, and instead use yourself as a shield and use innocent children as a shield, you are not collateral damage. When you ignore those very moral warnings and align yourself with Hamas, you are a combatant."

As Adam notes, the statement could apply to anyone who voted in that election in 2006; I’m interpreting it to apply to Hamas supporters.

Elsewhere in the speech, the rabbi identified himself wholly with the Israeli government, saying that “we gave them freedom nine years ago,” referring to the end of the settlement program in Gaza.

Kirshner hosted Gov. Chris Christie at Temple Emanu-El, his conservative synagogue in New Jersey, last year. He spoke at the Israel lobby group AIPAC in 2009.

[geek tragedy]

1. Sounds like bin Laden's talking points.

This guy would be right at home in Hamas.

[SwankyXomb]

13. Hamas?

This guy would be right at home in 1930's Germany. Except for the, you know, Jewish thing.

[Ed Suspicious]

26. It read like that to me as well.

Lessons not learned. So sad.

[arcane1]

2. 'the Israeli army is “the most moral army in the history of civilization.”'

That's not saying much.

[Max power]

3. The guy just justified 9-11

[atreides1]

4. Let's get it over with

Let's just go scorched earth and totally eradicate the Palestinian people from the face of the earth...no one wants them, no one cares what happens to them, why are they even allowed to exist?

The US should stand up and support Israel...send in a carrier group along with a Marine amphibious brigade...lay to waste the entire area now known as the Gaza Strip, then send in the ground troops to mop up who ever survived, men, women, children! Why does it matter? If you read between the lines the Palestinians are no better then animals, this man of "God" believes that...as do many others!

It's what the Israelis and Americans want, it's what the Republicans and Democrats in Congress want, hell I'm beginning to think it's what the President of the United States wants...but none of them have the fucking courage to say it out loud!

So, let's get on board and help Israel to defend itself...it has that right, doesn't it? Israel for Israelis and those that are found to be acceptable!!!

[PFunk]

15. WTF!!!! This is one sick bastard!

Guy might as well call for the Israeli version of the finial solution on the Palestinians. Sheesh! And you wonder why a growing number of Jews are now distancing themselves from that country.

[lancer78]

25. Look at a map

of the vast reduction of Palestinian owned land. It is an eye opener. It is a final solution for the Palestinian problem.

[WillyT]

5. Because... Democracy !!!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. A piss poor man of God

You don't evacuate a building so Israel is justified in killing you because you are a combatant? You vote for a certain party that takes you to war and swears its hatred of the other side so that makes you a combatant? Virtually every civilian in any war that's ever taken place with an electorate that elected a government to power swearing hatred of their enemy and the promise to destroy them would be a combatant.

This guy wipes his ass with the Geneva Convention, particularly the Fourth convention that protects non-combatants.

[strategery blunder]

31. It's even worse than that :(

So let's say you do follow the instructions, the warnings, the pamphlets, the phone calls, the text messages, and evacuate the building...

You evacuate yourself to a designated UN civilian shelter...

You follow the instructions of the occupying army to the letter...

And on top of that all, you voted for Fatah and not Hamas back in 2006...

Yet you are still a combatant because the most moral army in the universe said so!














Do I really need this? --->

[loyalsister]

7. So depressing

The responses of many US citizens to this conflict makes me so so sad. My impression is that some have dehumanized the people in their minds to a point that they respond as if they are rooting for an action hero in a movie or a sports team.
I guess it's boring to want to see people live lives that are ordinary enough that they don't constantly fear dying.
That's not to say that they aren't true believers. I just don't understand how- no matter how justified a person feels that they can so callously disregard the pain this causes people as they lose their friends and loved ones and lack stability and security.

[randome]

8. But...but...religion has nothing to do with this.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

[Bettie]

22. Totally off topic, but I have to ask

What is your plan for the poor little squirrels?

[riverwalker]

9. imagine trying to negotiate with him

no wonder its such a mess.
Remember when the world vilified Yassir Arafat? Hell, he looks like a regular Gandhi now.

[malaise]

10. But it's OK to vote for Bibi

the war criminal
What a disgusting comment

[HooptieWagon]

12. I'll bet the Rabbi does fund-raisers for the baby killers....

.. the psychopathic scum bag.

[countryjake]

11. Note that no mention was made of the Reconciliation Agreement...

that was signed between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization on April 23, 2014. The pact that turned both the governing and administration of the Gaza Strip back over to Abbas and provided for new elections to be held there this Fall.

Hamas, Abbas' PLO announce reconciliation agreement 4/23/2014
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Hamas-Abbass-PLO-announce-reconciliation-agreement-350195#!

Hamas and Fatah announced Wednesday that they have reached a “historic” agreement to end their differences and form a Palestinian unity government.

The announcement came one day after a senior PLO delegation arrived in the Gaza Strip for talks with Hamas leaders on ways of ending the Hamas-Fatah dispute and achieving national reconciliation...


The latest agreement, which was signed at the home of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, states that the two sides would work toward implementing previous accords reached in Qatar and Egypt.

It calls for the establishment of a Palestinian unity government within five weeks. Six months later, the Palestinians would hold long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections.

How the West Chose War in Gaza By Nathan Thrall July 17, 2014
Gaza and Israel: The Road to War, Paved by the West
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/opinion/gaza-and-israel-the-road-to-war-paved-by-the-west.html

Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans’ passage to the outside world.

Yet, in many ways, the reconciliation government could have served Israel’s interests. It offered Hamas’s political adversaries a foothold in Gaza; it was formed without a single Hamas member; it retained the same Ramallah-based prime minister, deputy prime ministers, finance minister and foreign minister; and, most important, it pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel.

(bolding mine)

[MohRokTah]

14. That's an incredibly asinine statement to make.

By that same logic, Teabaggers have the right to blow away anybody who voted for Obama.

Fuck that moron.

[pscot]

16. Sounds fair to me

Very fair.

[regnaD kciN]

18. I hope…

…you accidentally left off the tag.

[regnaD kciN]

17. You know what this reminds me of?

The rhetoric from al-Qaeda back in late 2001 on how, although the Quran forbids the killing of civilians, none of those who worked in the WTC (or, by extension, anyone else in the U.S.) could be considered a civilian, as they were all complicit in The Great Satan's war against Islam.

[Electric Monk]

19. It is the exact same rationalization for dehumanizing the other side. The exact same. nt

[KG]

20. religion -LOL

[WilliamPitt]

21. Belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.

-- Thomas Paine

[ann---]

29. Oh, I love that!

[countryjake]

23. Why Hamas Won Gaza - Bill Clinton

[conservaphobe]

24. Any loon who claims we invited 9/11 will suffer a bad case of cognitive dissonance. nt

[Scootaloo]

27. All hate and no thought. n/t

[ann---]

28. Oh, those adorable

sweet "Chosen people of god." Would god really choose savages? I doubt it.

[Hissyspit]

30. Children can vote in Gaza?

[singerj]

32. Rabbi Kirshner had me arrested for playing songs of peace

Real courageous Rabbi - he had me arrested for celebrating Shabbat with songs of peace - anti-Israel protestors targeted our synagogue after he spoke out at the UN - and I was like the Walmart greeter after people passed the ugliness of the protestors and the police, welcoming them to our shul.

Mr. Tough on Hamas decided to take out the fact that temple members were mad at him for bringing attention to our synagogue and his own stress of being followed, filmed along with his wife and little kids, and threatened by the protestors, on me - and he had me (the rabbi lied but no one died) and this shows why I was [link:http://bit.ly/NotGuiltyAtTheTemple|

[marble falls]

33. Such a good first post! Welcome to DU!