Settler rabbi condemns mosque arson

[oberliner]

Jerusalem – Ma'an – The illegal Israeli settlement of Teqoa's chief rabbi condemned his fellow settlers for allegedly setting a mosque on fire early Friday morning in the northern West Bank village of Yasouf.

"This is just insanity, blasphemy, an insult to Judaism before Islam," Rabbi Menachem Froman told Ma'an over the phone.

"What settlers did does not represent the settlers, nor Jews," Froman added.

The rabbi vowed that a large group of Israeli settlers, including himself, would help the Palestinian village rebuild its mosque as penitence for "the crime that was committed by the settlers."

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=246056

[cali]

1. I suspect that this does represent the settlers.

And why the Rabbi thinks this is an insult to Judaism before Islam is beyond me. Other than that, good on him.

[elleng]

3. You don't understand why

'setting a mosque on fire' is an insult to Judiasm? Do I understand correctly?

[Violet_Crumble]

4. I think the way his comment was worded could make it misunderstood...

Because I know who he is and the interfaith work he's done, I took it to mean that what was done was an insult to the spirit of Judaism and it was done in front of Islam...

[elleng]

6. Thanks, Violet.

How's the air 'down there???'

[Violet_Crumble]

20. No worries, ellen...

Where's 'down there'?

[elleng]

31. Australia!!! as in 'Down Under!'

[Violet_Crumble]

38. D'oh! Sorry. I was half asleep when I replied!

Things are trundling along quite well down here. We've got a new conservative opposition leader that makes Bush look like a tree hugging greenie, thus guaranteeing at least one more term of a slightly left of centre Labor government :)

[Ken Burch]

8. Oddly enough, I saw a rerun of "NCIS" last night that gave a good explanation at one point

Ziva David, the Mossad agent who works with NCIS, is in a small-town hospital room with an Iraqi immigrant who is suspected of the murder of an Iraqi-American military officer. As she is questioning the man, a redneck local police officer comes in and starts making vicious anti-Muslim comments(even bringing up the "seventy-two virgins" comment)

Ziva beats down on the redneck cop, then tells him "when you insult HIS religion, you insult yours and mine", then forces the asshole to apologize.

(A few seasons later, Ziva ends up quitting the Mossad, and breaking with her father who is the director of Mossad, because she is sick of the brutality of him and the agency.)

(It's not that often that you can cite that show in a left-of-center discussion forum, but this time you can.)

[Violet_Crumble]

2. Rabbi Menachem is a supporter of the Palestinian people...

He's in no way representative of the extremist settlers....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Froman

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. indeed, Rabbi Manachem is not your typical settler Rabbi, I would suspect

Rabbi Froman has long been involved in interfaith dialogue with Palestinians and Muslims, and has participated in informal negotiations with many Palestinian leaders, including from Hamas. He argues that peacemaking efforts between Israel and the Palestinians must include the religious sectors of both societies. Froman conducted meetings with controversial Palestinian leaders, including with the late PLO Chairman and President of Palestinian National Authority Yasser Arafat, and the late Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. <3>. Froman maintains close ties with Palestinian leaders, as evidenced by a letter he sent to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about his last conversation with Yasser Arafat:

“ I remember my last conversation with him, close to his death, when he answered me with emotion: "You are my brother!" and of course it is possible to explain his emotion, that he wanted to tell me, close to his death, that the two nations – the Israelis and the Palestinians – are brothers, that if the fate of one improves so does the fate of its double. The president customarily would thank me for these blessings and would order that these blessings be publicized in the Palestinian newspapers so that the Palestinian nation will know that there are Jewish rabbis who are blessing them with blessings of peace. ”

Since the election of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Rabbi Froman stepped up his efforts to organize meetings between Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders. He has met and conducted negotiations with current Hamas leaders Mahmoud al-Zahar and Hamas's Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Sheikh Mahmoud Abu Tir, with the goal of drafting a ceasefire agreement that will end the killings in Gaza and the West Bank and lift the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Froman

[LeftishBrit]

10. Yes, he is a good man,

[ProgressiveMuslim]

13. Is he not the spiritual head of an illegal settlement?

I'm confused about this.

[Violet_Crumble]

22. He is, but you really need to read up about this guy. He's one of the good guys...

I've gotten a bit of a chuckle out of one or two folk in this thread who are currently acting so outraged that you aren't embracing him with open arms, even though he's the complete antithesis of everything those few posters believe in. Hell, he works together with Hamas officials on peace deals and respects the Palestinians as equals..

Anyway, here's some information about him:

Why is Shin Bet Afraid of Rabbi Menachem Froman?

is an extraordinary person. He is an Orthodox rabbi who lives in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa. He was a co-founder of the right-wing Gush Emunim movement, yet broke with it after Baruch Goldstein’s rampage massacre. Despite this past history, he has very close relationships with Hamas. In fact, he negotiated for the release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin (later assassinated by Israel) from an Israeli prison, later becoming fast friends with him. He’s met with Mahmoud al-Zahar and the group’s leaders seem to like and genuinely trust him. He is a key figure in Jerusalem Peacemakers whose goal is to create an interdenominational dialogue involving spiritual dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All of these qualities make Froman a very dangerous guy to Israeli intelligence. Here’s how Arthur Neslen described what happened to Froman’s promising initiative by which Israeli peace activists and Hamas leaders would have jointly called for the immediate release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit:

The day before the tanks rolled into Gaza, Froman had been due to launch an extraordinary peace initiative at a news conference in Jerusalem with Muhamed Abu Tir, the Hamas MP, Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian minister for Jerusalem, and three Israeli rabbis.

The panel was to have made a collective call for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, the beginning of a process to release all Palestinian prisoners, and the immediate start of negotiations with Hamas on the framework for a peace deal based on 1967 borders.

They would also have announced that Jewish and Muslim religious leaders could achieve peace where Israel’s politicians had failed.

But the response from Israel’s security establishment was crushing.

Hours before the meeting was due to start, the Shin Bet detained Abu Tir and Abu Arafa and warned them not to attend the meeting. The news conference’s organisers were forced to contact the other rabbis — who were already on the road to Jerusalem — and tell them not to come.

Instead of a triumphant statement of mutual respect and dialogue, a subdued and gently defiant three-man panel fended off aggressive questioning from an unruly Israeli press pack.

Nelsen continues by pointing out that Froman’s efforts at finding common ground with Hamas is truly threatening to the Israeli government because it would put pressure on it to negotiate in good faith and make real concessions in order to achieve peace:

Two days after the news conference, Abu Tir and Abu Arafa were kidnapped by Israeli forces, along with a third of the Hamas cabinet. Four days later, Israel revoked both men’s citizenship and residency rights in Jerusalem. As the Jerusalem Post headline put it: Shin Bet foils Hamas-Jewish meeting.

An even more accurate headline might have been the one Israel National Radio’s Arutz Sheva website ran a few days later, pertaining to another story: The peace process is a bigger danger than Hamas.

In this opinion piece, Ted Belman said that “the threat of rockets raining down on Israel from Gaza isn’t nearly the threat that the peace process was and is” because peace talks would require Israeli concessions.

To give some perspective, Belman, one of the powers behind right-wing pro-Israel blog Israpundit actually finds the Qassam rockets fired into Israel useful in some warped way since it means (according to him) that there will be less pressure on Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2006/07/06/why-is-shin-bet-afraid-of-rabbi-menachem-froman/

[ProgressiveMuslim]

28. Good guys don't live in settlements. If he wants to live in the WB, he should live in the village

with the other WB residents.

[Violet_Crumble]

30. Actually, you've got a point there...

I hadn't really thought about it till I read through this thread again a few minutes ago. He shouldn't be part of the mechanism of occupation, and if he did what he does while living amongst the Palestinians or in Israel itself, I'd think differently than I now do. I applaud his views but wish he wasn't part of the settlement enterprise....

[Ken Burch]

7. Thanks to Rabbi Froman for speaking out

I hope he has bodyguards.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Good for Rabbi Froman

[ProgressiveMuslim]

11. Does the settler rabbi not think that forcing Muslism and Chrisitians to live under apartheid, to

support the settlement project is an insult to Judaism?

Dismantle your illegal settlements, move back over the green line, and THEN come help rebuild the mosque.

[oberliner]

14. Yes, he does

I'm kind of surprised that you don't know about this man and his work and would make the comments that you have made.

He supports many of the same things that you support with respect to Israel and Palestine.

But why does he have to move back over the green line? Shouldn't he be able to stay where he is and live under Palestinian sovereignty? Do you not feel that Jews should be allowed to live in Palestine?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

15. The presence of settlers TODAY results in apartheid for Palestinians TODAY.

Do you dispute that?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

16. So i have a hard time considering someone who takes advantage of Apartheid privileges a "friend."

[shira]

17. are you against land swaps in a future settlement? do you want strict June 4, 1967 borders?

...which also means not one Jew past the 1948 armistice lines?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

18. I am against apartheid. How do you feel about it?

[shira]

19. if no Jews can live beyond '67 borders or buy land there, isn't that apartheid?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

21. No, dear, it's not. Apartheid is a legal system with one set of rules and laws for the masters

and another for the (sorry, the only word I can come up with)"untermenschen."

As in... if you have "arab" license plates on your car, you can't travel on certain roads... those are whites... er... Jewish only.

You can fete the rabbi above all you like. I don't give a crap what he writes. If he drives his yellow-plated Israeli car on Jews-only roads, I don't think he's morally better any any other illegal settler.

Any Isralei settler who is sitting on land illegally gained, in defiance of international law, is involved in a criminal enterprise. Even if he wrings his hands while doing so.

Want to be a friend to the people of Palestine, rabbi? Take your fellow Tekoans, and the growing system of Apartheid laws that are designed to ensure your superior status, and GO HOME.

[oberliner]

23. There are no Jewish-only roads

Please stop repeating that lie.

It'd also be great if you'd stop with the Nazi terminology.

[Violet_Crumble]

24. What do you call them then?

Is there some term for those roads and the system where Palestinians are banned from them that you prefer?

[Violet_Crumble]

47. Kick for Oberliner...

If yr going to appear and carry on about what people shouldn't call those roads, at least have the courtesy and honesty to tell us what terms would be acceptable to you...

[ProgressiveMuslim]

26. What's the official terminology for victims of apartheid? I'll be happy to use it.

A pile of feces by any other name stinks as bad.

[Violet_Crumble]

29. Yeah, I want him to tell me what term for those roads he does approve of...

I get a bit sick of the constant attempts to whitewash and sanitise what is a revolting and discriminatory system...

[ProgressiveMuslim]

33. The only terminology I could find was "the coloreds?"

I don't think Oberliner would be comfortable with that.

[shira]

36. nice OTT demonization folks

[Violet_Crumble]

37. I think *No Palestinians Allowed" roads is factual...

It also does the trick of showing just how ugly and discriminatory they are...

[shira]

25. they're Israeli roads which all Israelis, including Arabs, can use

As for the settlements, Israeli Arabs can live in them too - or else sue for discrimination if they are barred in any way from doing so.

And you're wrong - it's definitely apartheid to bar Jews from living in the W.Bank or prevent them from buying land there.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

27. Leave it to Shira to find a way to paint the practitioners of apartheid as the victims.

[shira]

32. well, it's definitely apartheid in the minds of the faithful who can't be bothered by the facts

[ProgressiveMuslim]

34. Even you can't deny what is there for all to see Shira.

Spin until you're a dervish. Doesn't change the facts.

[shira]

35. deny what? is it a fact that there are "jew only" roads?

Is it a fact that only Jews can live in W.Bank settlements?

No, those aren't facts and we all know it.

It is a fact that Jews cannot buy land in the W.Bank (death penalty to those who sell to Jews).

=========

Are you able to distinguish between fact and fiction?

[Mosby]

39. You never answered the question

Do you think Jews should be able to live in the future state of Palestine?

Yes or no.

[Violet_Crumble]

40. I'll answer that one as it's so easy a question...

Yes, of course they should be able to live there in exactly the same way that Israel allows Arabs to live in Israel.

[Mosby]

41. I wonder if PM feels the same way. nt

[Violet_Crumble]

42. I can't see any reason why not...

I just want to make it very clear that what I support is NOT for any Jew to be able to live there just because they want to, nor for extremist settlers to be able to stay. What I support is immigration policies similar to those of other states where the state itself makes the decision on what individuals can live there and become citizens.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

43. Would Jews who respect the people and land of Palestine be welcome in a Palestinian state?

I can't see why not.

Will there be gated communities for Jewish religious zealots that use disproportionate resources and create the need for Palestinians to be subject to checkpoints and other modes of Israeli segregation and humiliation?

I certainly hope not.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

44. Shira, do you dispute that the presence of settlers in the WB today is probably the largest

single stumbling block to achieving peace?

Why in the world would you respond to my stating that with... "won't you allow land swap?"

[shira]

45. of course...there were no settlers prior to 1967 and there was no peace then

Every settler was taken out of Gaza 4 years ago and peace isn't any closer.

Believe me, I'd love to think that if the occupation and settlements ended, peace would be achieved.

So I take it your answer is 'no', as in no land swaps - just strict 1948 armistice lines?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

46. Using your logic, one could say then, there was no Israel 100 years ago, and there WAS peace.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

12. 6 Palestinians injured at mosque arson protest

Nablus – Ma'an – Six Palestinians fainted after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli military during a protest east of Salfit on Friday.

Abed Ar-Rahim Musleh, head of the village council, said they were hospitalized in Salfit. He described their injuries as light.

Residents took to the streets in Yasouf, a village in the northern West Bank, after Israeli settlers set fire to a mosque earlier the same day and spray-painted hateful and threatening graffiti there.

Soldiers opened fire when the crowd arrived near the illegal Tapouh settlement, which was built on Yasouf village lands.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=246012