Ediblog.com
American-Born Rabbi On Trial In Israel
By Ariel Natan Pasko
There they go again, those "wild weeds from Brooklyn," as former
prime minister Yitzhak Rabin called them, religious Jews and rabbis at that,
starting trouble in Israel.
Arik Ascherman is currently on trial along with two other Israeli activists.
They don't deny blocking the bulldozers, but said the demolitions were
illegal and he had a "duty" to stop them.
Were they trying to stop the bulldozing of "illegal outposts"? Not
a chance. No, it was Israel's bleeding heart liberals...
Reform Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman - leader of the left-leaning Rabbis for Human
Rights (RHR) - was charged with blocking police from demolishing illegally
built Arab structures in eastern Jerusalem in two incidents last year. His
co-defendants, Shai Eliezer Tzvi and Omer Ori, were charged with joining
Ascherman in the second incident.
Arabs around the country regularly build houses on vacant land or build
additions to existing structures, without getting the necessary building
permits. The Arabs - both "Palestinians" and Israeli citizens -
generally refuse to recognize Israeli authority to issue permits. And, since
every time Israel wants to enforce the building laws, Arabs, Israeli
leftists, and their international followers turn it into an
"international incident," Israel only infrequently carries out the
court ordered demolitions. Despite the protests, both houses were torn down.
Israel reunified the entire city of Jerusalem - its eternal capital -
including the eastern side, when it was liberated in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Palestinians claim the eastern part of Jerusalem - home to most of the
city's Arab residents and the location of Jewish holy sites - as the capital
of a future Palestinian state. With this conflict as a backdrop, Ascherman
said in an interview, "Our defense is basically that because the policy
is illegal and immoral, that it's a Jewish and Zionist duty to stand in
front of the bulldozers."
How could it be a Jewish and Zionist "duty" to promote Arab
"rights" in the Jewish People's Holy City?
The State Prosecutor Shlomit Landes, told the judge in the Jerusalem
Magistrate Court that the activists had illegally prevented police from
carrying out orders, and that the legality of home demolitions was not the
issue before the court. They simply broke the law, in trying to prevent the
police from carrying out orders due to Arab building code violations.
But Ascherman has international backing, the North American branch of RHR.
Simcha Weintraub, a Conservative rabbi from Brooklyn, presented a letter to
Israeli officials in the US, signed by more than 300 American rabbis in
support of Ascherman breaking the law.
A few months ago, MK Avraham Burg (Labor) turned to Attorney General Elyakim
Rubinstein with the intention of filing criminal charges against the
"Forum of Rabbis for the Jewish People & the Land of Israel",
numbering 500 religious leaders. The rabbinical organization had released a
statement, that the Israeli government does not enjoy popular support for
its policies vis-a-vis the Quartet's - US, EU, UN & Russia - Road Map
plan or to take any steps towards the establishment of an independent
Palestinian state. Burg claimed they broke the law with their statements and
interference in carrying out government policy.
Why hasn't MK Burg condemned Ascherman and Rabbis for Human Rights?
Back in October 2002, during the height of the Left's hysteria campaign
against "settlements," then Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg called
the people protesting at Gilad Farm in Samaria, "Jewish Hamas."
They were protesting the expulsion of people from their homes on legally
owned Jewish land, that for political purposes, the Sharon government found
convenient to expropriate, calling it an "illegal outpost".
If Jews protesting the theft of their property are "Jewish Hamas,"
what are Ascherman and his group? Where is Burg now?
At the same time, Meretz MK Yossi Sarid said, "All of the settlements
were created by law-breaking and violence and I hope the spread of this
cancer will end quickly. The outposts are worse than suicide bomb
belts." Does Sarid endorse Arab law-breaking, while condemning Jews?
What about the law-breaking of his friends, Ascherman and Rabbis for Human
Rights?
Illegal Arab building in Jerusalem or elsewhere undermines Israel's
sovereignty. Radical leftists, whether rabbis or not, who help the enemy in
wartime - Israel has been at war for over three years now - damage Israel's
image abroad and undermine it's resolve to win. Over 1,300 Jews have been
killed in the Oslo War. If Ascherman's actions strengthen the resolve of the
Palestinians to continue fighting - i.e. killing Jews - will Sarid now say
that Ascherman and his group are "Worse than suicide bomb belts"?
Where is Yossi Sarid now?
But worse, Ascherman and RHR are known to regularly support the Arabs living
in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. For example, following the murder of
shepherd Yair Har-Sinai in July 2001 by terrorists from Yata, RHR organized
a campaign to protest the Israeli Army's security measures imposed upon the
population of that hostile Arab village, Yata and the environs. It's from
that area, that the murderers of Har-Sinai, Dov Dribben, and 14-year-olds
Kobi Mandel and Yosef Ishran came. Ascherman has also admitted, according to
investigative journalist David Bedein, that his organization raised and
distributed money for Palestinian Authority-area Arabs, based on
recommendations by LAW - the Palestinian lawyers association - while LAW
spokesman Arjan El Fassad explained that monies received from RHR go to the
families of "martyrs" who were killed while attacking Israelis.
I guess that's a Jewish and Zionist "duty" also...
The Left in Israel is continually harassing the brave Jews who are building
up the Jewish homeland in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Yet, they seem to
overlook at best, and more often help the Arabs who are working to steal the
Jewish People's patrimony. This conflict, between the Jews and Israel on one
side and the Arabs - "Palestinians" - on the other, is being
fought on the political level, on the military level, and also on the
territorial level, house by house.
Arabs stealing land, or building illegal additions to their homes, is an
"Act of War". As for Ascherman and his group, I don't have words
strong enough to describe them, but the word "cannibals" comes to
mind.