Frumteens on The Jewish Position Towards Zionism:
“Laying low” submitting to the nations
Not to defy the Nations of the world.
Why Arabs Hate Jews
Such a thing as a good Arab? (or: Do all Arabs hate Jews?)
Do the Nations have to be Against Jews for Moshiach to come?
More on Why Arabs Hate Us (or: The Fiction of “Taking an Uninhabited Land”)
B’avonoseinu horabim - בעבונותינו הרבים
We believe we will get Eretz Yisroel when Moshiach comes. Don’t Arabs hate us just for that?
Harav Duchinsky’s ZT”L Statement to the United Nations AND a Letter from Harav Yosef Chaim Zonenfeld ZT”L
On The Difference Between the positions of Satmar and “Agudas Yisroel”
Praying for Jewish lives; the mishebeirach for tzaha”l
On Giving One’s Life for Zionism
Zionists – Saving Jews?
The Position of Lubavitch
Rav Shach’s Position vs. Lubavitch’s Position
How can we trust Israel? Tzaha”l and other inyonim.
Ten Questions to the Zionists – Rav Weissmandel ZTVK”L
TORAH PROBLEMS With Zionism:
Mitzvas Yishuv Ho’oretz has Nothing to Do With Zionism
If Establishing a Jewish State is assur, why did Hashem allow it to happen? (and: were the wars nissim?)
Difference between Zionism and Purim and Yetzias Bavel
Three Questions on the Three Oaths
Are you saying we Shouldn’t Live In Eretz Yisroel At All?
Saying Hallel on Yom Ha-atzma’ut
The Balfour Declaration gave us the land, we didn’t take it [ourselves]. So what’s the problem?
Short Response on Rav Teichtal’s treatment of the Megillas Esther
Isn’t Hashem telling us he wants us to have Israel?
Isn’t it hypocritical for anti-Zionist Jews to take money from the Israeli government?
What’s wrong with celebrating the day Israel came back into our posession?
Refuting Zionist claims on the nullification of the Three Oaths
Not Just “The Chassidim” (or Just Satmar) are against Zionism
Definition of apikorsus
Frumteens on Zionism
Edited for clarity - no content
changed
- “Laying low” submitting to the nations -
http://www.frumteens.com/topic.php?topic_id=1497&forum_id=45&topic_title=Anti-Semitism+around+the+world&forum_title=Zionists%2C+and+Arabs%2C+and+Eretz+Yisroel&M=0&S=1
Jewel,
Please understand that, especially with regard to political issues and the rightfulness and wrongfulness of the actions of nations, there are many different versions of history, min hakotzeh el hakotzeh. In America, the American Revolution is depicted as a fight for freedom against tyrannical suppressors, and in the UK the same event is taught as an insurgent uprising of an ungrateful rabble against their founders. The very facts themselves are totally different depending on which history book you are reading.
Its called propaganda. Every nation does not want to admit it committed sins, and certainly
not that it was created in sin. So it will distort, twist, and even outright lie
about history in order to serve its own political agenda.
And those who grow up in that country, or those who believe that country's version of
history are going to accept the lies as truth.
Israel is no different. As a secular entity, the Israeli version of history is no more
accurate, and no more reliable, than any other nation's version of history, be
it Germany, France, America, or the Palestinians. There is no more honesty to be
attributed to the heretical and immoral Zionist leaders than there is any other
group of despots. The fact that Jews - even religious Zionist Jews - believe
without question the Israeli/Zionist version of history as if it were "Jewish
history" (it is even included in many religious Zionist Jewish History texts) is
both a tragedy and a crime, and is one of the symptoms of the replacement of
Torah perspectives with the non-religious, Zionist perspectives - just one more
manifestation of the replacement of the Jewish (Torah) " nationalism" with
Zionist nationalism.
If you want a real version of history, you will either have to do the objective research
yourself, or rely on the words of our Gedolei Yisroel, who are able to recognize
the petty propaganda tactics of secular political agendas.
And, not surprisingly, this chapter of history, when stripped of political agendas,
propaganda, and revisionism, matches perfectly with what our Gedolim have told
us about it as well.
Part of the Israeli/Zionist version of the relationship between the State and the holocaust
runs something to the effect of:
Six million Jews were killed because the Jews had nowhere to run, nobody would let them in,
and if they would have had a Jewish State there would not have been a holocaust;
the State of Israel is necessary for the survival of the Jews because where else
will they run if there is another holocaust.
"Before: anti-Semitism, wandering, persecution, holocaust, marching to death like sheep;
After: State of Israel, protection, safety, identity, "normalization", strength,
power, pride."
The real story is totally different. Not only would countless Jews have been able to emigrate
to other countries if not for the Zionist lobby on other nations not to let
the Jews in, and that they should either (a) emigrate exclusively to
Palestine, or (b) die in the crematoriums. The very real option of escaping to
other lands was often available but purposely foiled by the Zionists in order
force the Jewish people - and the nations of the world - to support a Zionist
State (this is documented in many places, see the eyewitness testimony of the
great holocaust hero, Rav Michoel Ber Weissmandel in Min HaMetzar and his "Open
Letter to the Zionists".)
But that’s just the beginning. The following is an excerpt from an article by Rav Yitzchok
Hutner ZTL (he gave it orally; it was written over by Rabbi Yaakov Feitman,
currently in Cedarhurst, NY) in the Jewish Observer, 10/77:
"It will be our task this evening to untangle the web of distortions about recent Jewish
history, which has already been woven, and uncover the Torah perspective which
has been hidden from us.
"To be sure, it will not be easy to regain this perspective. The thoughts that we will explore
this evening will be difficult to digest because of our long subsistence upon
the forced diet of public opinion. The creators of the powerful force of public
opinion are beyond the realm of our control and the mind-numbing results of
their influence are largely out of our hands. In order to achieve any hold on
the truth, we will first have to free ourselves form the iron-clad grip of their
puissance and open our minds and hearts to the sometimes bitter pill of truth...
An example of how public opinion can be molded - indeed warped - at the whim of powerful
individuals can be taken from a study of Russian history textbooks published
during the respective reigns of Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev ... Undoubtedly,
"public opinion" during each period, once the children's minds had been suitably
molded, reflected the thinking and the wishes of the state. While more subtle in
form, this ability to direct public opinion exists in democratic countries as
well. Thus, we already pointed out at the beginning that we must make every
effort to free ourselves from the powerful grip of public opinion, and must be
ever on our guard that our opinions of the true nature of world events be shaped
only by Torah views seen through Torah eyes.
Sadly, even in our own circles, the mold for shaping public opinion lies in the hands of the
State of Israel. And appropriate example of this dangerous process of
selectively "rewriting" history may be found in the extraordinary purging from
the public record of all evidence of the culpability of the forerunners of the
[Jewish] State in the tragedy of European Jewry, and the substitution of factors
inconsequential to the calamity that ultimately occurred.
To cover its own contribution to the final catastrophic events,
those of the State in a position to influence public opinion circulated the notorious canard
that Gedolei Yisroel were responsible for the destruction of many communities
because they did not urge immigration. This charge is, of course, a gross
distortion of the truth, and need not be granted more dignity than it deserves
by issuing a formal refutation. However, at the same time as the State made
certain to include this charge a historical fact in every account of the war
years, it successfully sought to omit any mention of its own contribution to
the impending tragedy. . . .
In 1923 Hitler wrote Mein Kampf . . . [which] was read by Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti
of Jerusalem, who found most significant alliances of modern times. . . Not only
did the Mufti visit Hitler and his top aides on a number of occasions, but
indeed with Adolph Eichmann, he visited the Auschwitz gas chamber incognito to
check on its efficiency.
The extent of the Mufti's influence upon the Nazi forces may be seen in a crucial decision
made by Hitler at the height of the war. Railroad trains were much in demand by
the Axis, and Hitler’s troops badly needed reinforcements in Russia. Yet, soon
after he landed in Berlin in 1941, the Mufti demanded that all available
resources be used to annihilate Jews. The choice: "Juden nach Auschwitz" or "Soldaten
nach Stalingrad" was to be resolved this way . . . Two months later (Jan 20,
1942) at the Wannasee Conference, the formal decision was made to annihilate all
Jews who had survived the ghettos, forced labor, starvation, and disease.
Of course, the mufti was serving his own perverted fears, which were the influx of millions of
Jews into Palestine and the destruction of the Mufti’s personal empire. Yet,
there can be no doubt that through their symbiotic relationship, Hitler and the
Mufti each helped the other accomplish his own evil goal. Eichman simply wanted
to kill Jews; the Mufti wanted to make sure they never reached Palestine. In the
end, the “final solution” was the same . .. At one point, Eichmann even seemed
to blame the Mufti for the entire extermination plan, when he declared, “I am a
personal friend of the Grand Mufti. We have promised that no Jew would enter
Palestine any more.” . . .
It should be manifest, however, that until the great public pressures for the
establishment of a Jewish State, the Mufti had no interest in the Jews of
Warsaw, Budapest or Vilna. Once the Jews of Europe became a threat to the Mufti
because of their imminent influx into the Holy Land, the Mufti in turn became
for them the incarnation of the Angel of Death. Years ago, it was still easy to
find old residents of Yerushalayim who remembered the cordial relations they had
maintained with the Mufti in the years before the impending creation of a Jewish
State. Once the looming reality of a State of Israel was before him, the Mufti
spared no effort in influencing Hitler to murder as many Jews as possible in the
shortest amount of time. This shameful episode, where the founders and early
leaders of the State were clearly a factor in the destruction of many Jews, has
been completely suppressed and expunged from the record. Thus it is that our
children who study the history of this turbulent era are taught that the Gedolei
Yisroel share responsibility for the destruction of European Jewry and learn
nothing of the guilt of others who are enshrined as heroes.
End quote.
In the next issue, Rabbi Feitman demonstrates from secular sources that the “program
of wholesale physical extermination [by Hitler of the Jews] began only after the
Mufti’s arrival on the scene”. And that until mid-1941, the official German
policy was forcing Jewish mass emigration from the Reich’s “vital space”. Only
at the Wansee interdepartmental conference, 2 months after the Mufti’s arrival
in Berlin, was the decree “kill all the Jews” formally made. Therefore, even if
Hitler would have implemented the “Final Solution” without the Mufti’s urging,
in a war that was being won by the Allies, there is no question that precious
time was lost by the Mufti’s machinations.
The Zionists tried to make sure the Jews would not escape the anywhere but Palestine because
they wanted a State; and the Mufti tried to make sure they would never reach
Palestine because he did not want the State.
Rav Michoel Ber Weismandel writes that at the beginning, the Gedolim urged Klall Yisroel to
take the “low key” response to Hitler’s decrees. AT the beginning, he writes,
his evil decrees were no better or worse than other evil decrees that Reshaim
had heaped upon us throughout history. That was terrible enough, and the
response urged by the Tzadikim was the response that saved us throughout Golus –
lay low, escape, but do not try to fight back as a sheep against the 70
wolves. That, Chazal say, is always counterproductive in Golus. In defiance of
the Gedolim, the Jewish Zionist leadership in other countries including America
heaped upon Hitler threats and declarations of defiance, in speeches and
articles, even blowing the Shofar in front of the German consulate at a rally,
declaring war on him in the name of Jewry. Chaim Weitzman announced on the radio
a “declaration of war” against Hitler by the Jews. This incensed Hitler and just
threw gasoline on the fire that was burning under the Jews in Hitler’s power. It
was then, when Hitler heard this “declaration of war”, that he went into one of
his epileptic seizures and cried out “Now I will destroy them; Now I will
destroy them”.
“Only through blood [Jewish blood!] – will the land be ours!” the Zionists said.
(For documentation of both the Zionist efforts – and success – in blocking the
exportation of Jews to anywhere in the world since it would undermine their
position of the Jews needing a homeland in Palestine, as well as their arrogant
challenges to Hitler which only contributed to his insane resolve, see “300
Discussions With Hitler”, by Roeshing, “Post Ugandan Zionism” by S.B. Bais Zvi,
also the writings of Hillel Kook and Kastner records, and more).
Then they lie, the Zionists, and say that it was the Tzadikim, the Gedolei Yisroel that caused
the deaths of so many Jews – with a blood libel that they didn’t tell people to
go to Israel.
As Rav Shach ZTL writes (Letters vol I, “Erezt Yisroel”) “Do not think that the holocaust
came because there was no Medinah”. He points out that Hitler could have come
into Palestine as surely as he went anywhere else – he was going to, but then BH
decided to go to Russia. The Medinah does not protect us from anything –
surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by enemies, with weapons that can rain
down upon a land and blow away whole cities at once, we should not think that
the Medinah will; protect us form a holocaust r”l. On the contrary, he writes,
the Gemora says that it is a Chesed that Hashem spread Jews all over the world,
as opposed to them being in any homeland, since they cant be collectively
targeted by their enemies.
- Not to defy the Nations of the World -
http://www.frumteens.com/topic.php?topic_id=1653&forum_id=45&topic_title=What+do+our+Sages+say+about+war%3F&forum_title=Zionists%2C+and+Arabs%2C+and+Eretz+Yisroel&M=1&S=1
Although all the great and powerful ancient nations are gone, the Jews, have survived.
This is because the Jews throughout the centuries knew the secret of survival. Jewish
survival, at least.
That is, whereas the other Nations survive based on who is stronger, where the Jewish
nation is concerned, it is just the opposite. For us to remain safe, we are
instructed by Hashem in the Gemora in Kesuvos not to defy the nations of the
world, even when we are right and they are wrong. We do not survive by
waging wars or by any show pf physical strength. On the contrary - the less we
are in conflict with the nations of the world, the safer we are. The more we are
in conflict with them, the more deadly it is for us. Regardless of how
physically "strong" we are.
This is how we have so miraculously survived two thousand years of Golus. By following the
instructions of Torah and our sages throughout the generations: Do NOT fight
with the Goyim.
If we do fight with them, we can only lose r"l. The Gemora says the result will be that Jewish
blood will be spilled "like that of game hunted in the field."
Writes Rabbeinu Bachya (Vayishlach): "So too we must follow the ways of our
ancestors, and to prepare ourselves to engage the [Goyim] with gifts and with
soft speech, and by praying to Hashem. But [to engage them] with war is not
possible, as it says (Shir HaShirim 2:7) 'I have made you swear....' Hashem made
the Jews swear that they will not confront the nations of the world in war."
Our policy has always been - and must always be - to make peace with our enemies.
Confrontation has always led to disaster. Says the Seforno (Berershis 33:4):
"And Esav rushed [to greet Yaakov] - His attitude reversed because of Yaakov's
giving in to him. As Chazal say (Taanis 20a) Achiyah HaShiloni cursed Klall
Yisroel that they will be like a reed that bends to every wind [Moderator's
Note: The Gemora says there that this "curse" of Achiya was better for the Jews
that the "blessing" of Bilaem, since a reed that bends, survives. Bileam
"blessed" them with the opposite.] Behold, if the Baryonim would have done so
[i.e. made peace with the enemy] in the days of the second Bais HaMikdash, the
Bais HaMikdash would not have been destroyed."
Says the Gemora in Pesachim (118b): "What caused the Jews to be scattered among the
nations? The wars that they desired." Explains the Maharsha, "We may explain
'wars' here according to its plain meaning, that is, during the first Bais
HaMikdash, if the Jews would have made peace with Nevuchadnezar, i.e. had
Tzidkiyahu not fought him, they would not have gone into Golus at all. And more
so during the second Bais HaMikdash, had the rebellious Jews listens to Rav
Yochana ben Zakai and to the sages of that generation, and made peace with
Titus, they would not have been a Golus."
Note that at the time of the Baryonim and Tzidkiyahu we were not yet even in Golus. But Golus
was imminent (See also Radak Yirmiyah 38:2). For Jews do not live by the
strength of their hands - that is Esav's lot, Yedayim Yedei Asav.
The Noam Elimelech (Bereishis 33) writes: "'So you shall say to my master, to Esav' -
Behold the holy Torah is teaching us how to behave in this bitter Golus, that we
are put under the hand of the nations, and we must accept the Golus with love,
until Hashem has mercy on us and quickly brings the everlasting redemption. And
as long as we are in the bitter Golus we are obliged to be subservient to them
[= the Goyim] and to refer to them as 'Masters'. This is [what it means when it
says], 'So you should say to my Master, Esav', meaning, we should refer to him
as master when speaking to him, and then, when he [nevertheless] continues to
hurt us more than what is deemed appropriate, with taxes and tariffs, he will be
considered a thief, and because of this Hashem will have mercy on us, for
it is sufficient that we subjugate ourselves to them and give them honor".
And, even when we did go to war legitimately (in the days of the Kings), it wasn't with an
"army" like we imagine today.
In the days of the Maskilim, some frum Jews ran to Rav Chaim Brisker with a comic strip from
some Maskilishe newspaper, which poked fun at the "old fashioned" Jews.
It showed Klall
Yisroel getting ready to go to "war." The rabbis got up in front of the entire
congregation and announced, OK, we are about to go to war. Anyone who is not on
a high spiritual level should leave now!"
Half the assembled left.
Then the rabbi said, "Anyone who is scared to go to war should leave now."
Another three quarters left.
"Anyone who recently got married - leave now!". More left.
This went on and on, until, in the end, there were only two people left to fight the war:
Rav Chaim Brisker and the Chofetz Chaim, all alone to fight against the Nations
of the World.
They ran to Rav Chaim with this asking what they should do in response.
Rav Chaim read the comic strip panel by panel. "Very good", eh said, when the Jews left
the recruiting group for the first time.
"Excellent", he said, when he saw that those who recently got married had to
leave.
"Perfect!" "Wonderful!" he said, panel by panel, as he read through the whole thing, till
the end.
"Everything is wonderful," Rav Chaim said when he finished. "Except for one thing, that they
forgot to write."
"what's that?" they asked him.
"We won the war."
The Seforim say that since the army is a dangerous place, in order to merit the shechinah to
be with them, the troops have to be on an extra high level. Immorality
automatically chases Hashem's presence from an army; the need for morality and
righteousness is intensified greatly.
Our armies in the olden days had people like the Chofetz Chaim and Rav Chaim Brisker. We
had prophets who would give us "intelligence" regarding enemy whereabouts and
plans. We had an Urim V'Tumim that would tell us if we would win or lose the
war.
A "jewish army" is s totally different concept than a non-Jewish one. And that's when we do wage
war. In Golus, war is doomed to fail, backfire, and cause deaths of Jews like
hunted animals r"l.
Note: There is an exception. The above only applies when Jews are fighting to defend their
lives. But when there is a decree not to kill Jews but to make them
non-religious - a shmad - then, and only then, are we moser nefesh and take up
arms against the enemy (like we did on Chanukah). For such a war is not a war
for ourselves - it is a war for Hashem. We make Hashem's war ours, in such a
case. Not a single Jews needed to die by the Chanukah decrees - they only had to
give up Mitzvos and the Greeks would have been happy. As opposed to Purim, for
instance, where there was a decree to kill the Jews, there, we did not take up
arms, and instead plotted a peaceful, "political" solution (of course, after the
danger was over, and the government was on our side, we were able to "rise up"
against the leftover enemies. But the decree was not met by physical resistance
on the part of the Jewish nation.)
- Why Arabs Hate Jews -
http://www.frumteens.com/topic.php?topic_id=1491&forum_id=45&topic_title=Why+do+Arabs+hate+Jews%3F&forum_title=Zionists%2C+and+Arabs%2C+and+Eretz+Yisroel&M=0&S=1
We are. At least, in many places. All countries, including the USA, teach in their schools
their own subjective - sometimes false - version of history to justify their
country's policies. The American revolution, for instance, takes on a totally
different character when taught in the history classes in schools in the UK. The
very facts, never mind the interpretation, is so different.
Israel is not different. The are a secular country, and they teach what suits their country's
nationalistic position. And the Zionist movement needs to justify its
philosophical positions too, even from a secular viewpoint, since it is a
secular movement, so it, too, teaches things the way it wants.
The Arabs didn't always hate Jews. At least, not more - and usually a lot less - than the
Christians. If you check out the prior discussion in this forum, you'll see that
the Jews enjoyed a relatively (relatively) peaceful and friendly
relationship with the Arabs for two thousand years. Of course, there were always
evil or insane Arab warlords or leaders who persecuted Jews, but they persecuted
others as well, and the Arab governments as a whole were not at all interested
in harming the Jewish population within their own borders, or elsewhere.
Jews fought side by side with the Arabs against the Crusaders, and, all the way up till the
Old Yishuv, had a cordial relationship with their Arab neighbors (for a
description of the Arab-Jewish relationship in Eretz Yisroel in those days,
check out the ArtScroll book on Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, where it is
described vividly).
All that ended when the Zionists decided to take Eretz Yisroel to be a Jewish State. The Arabs
living there didn't like that at all. And the threats and intimidation and force
that the Zionists used against the Arabs certainly does not justify - but caused
- Arabs infuriation against Jews.
Even the Chevron massacre, which the Zionists use as "proof" that the Arabs hate Jews
even without any Zionism (since it took place before '48), was due solely to the
Zionist intimidation and threats and demands to use the territory around the
Kosel - it was that particular confrontation that sparked the massacre. Rav
Boruch Kaplan ZTL, husband of Rebitzen Vichna Kaplan of the BY, was a survivor
of the massacre. He made a tape which is available commercially, telling his
children what happened in Chevron. He said the Rabbonim begged the Zionists to
stop their intimidation and confrontation over the Kosel, but the Zionists would
not listen. "Shema Yisroel," one of them announced at an assembly of thousands,
"HaKosel Kosleinu, HaKosel Echad!" The Rabbonim warned them that the Arabs are
wild and if they continue this, there will be a massacre. but they didn't
listen.
The Arabs in Chevron got along very well with the Jews before that, he says. But when the
Arabs saw that their neighbors really want to take their land, they went nuts.
And the rest we all know...
Meir Kahane used the Chevron massacre as a "proof" that the Arabs are just anti-semites and
their hatred toward Jews has nothing to do with Israel, since there was no
Israel then.
He is lying. There was no Israel, but there were Zionists. There was the Haganah and the
Irgun, the Balfour declaration, there was terrible fighting and terrorism - both
by Zionists and Arabs - in the fight over the land. Kahane surely knew this. But
he wanted people to hate the Arabs and so he made up things about them.
Here in New York there is a large community of Syrian Jews. They will tell you that, up
until 1948, and very often even after 1948, their grandparents (or even parents)
lived fine in Syria. it was not easy to get out of the country, but they were
not persecuted inside of it. They were happy there. Until they were forced to
leave, because of the hatred that was ignited due to the middle east conflict.
The Zionists of course are not so comfortable teach their kids that their actions is what caused
the Arabs to hat us, because then a kid will raise his hand and ask "So why was
it worth it?" So they say, instead, that Arabs hated Jews forever, that their
hatred is due to Anti-Semitism, and that they always tried to kill Jews all over
and that they always will.
The history books written by more objective (less nationalistic) authors does in fact
reflect this (please see quoted above), and even the nationalist history cannot
avoid it, though they try to play it down as much as they can. In fact, the
"History of Middle East Conflict" on CNN's website http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/mideast/stories/overview/
does indeed mention that the Chevron massacre was due to some "conflict" over
the Western Wall. They didn't go into details. Rabbi Kaplan did. You should
listen to his tape (though its in Yiddish).
The Zionists (and Martin Luther King) went around telling people that they represent Jews and
Judaism, which told the Arabs that Jews and Judaism wants to go to war with them
for the land.
The Arabs are being taught that all Jews are cruel tyrants who want to kill Arabs and take
their land.
And Jews are being taught that all Arabs are terrorists that want to kill all the Jews.
They are both evil lies, but unfortunately, they are self-fulfilling prophecies. The more the
Arabs hear the lies about Jews the more they hate them, since they believe that
they have a legitimate reason to. And the more the Jews hear the lies about the
Arabs, the more they hate them, for the same reasons.
To the point where, today, the hate on both sides is so deeply entrenched, I don't know how
it can be eradicated. Good Jews I know tell me, when I tell them that it was
wrong to Boo Wolfowitz off the stage when all he said was that innocent
Palestinians are also being hurt - which is true - and even if you don't want to
hear it, why denigrate your best friend in the government (Wolfowitz is
exceptionally pro-Israel). The answer I hear from many is "There are no such
thing as innocent Palestinians!". Wow.
But if we keep on talking like this, eventually it will be true.
There is no question that the Arabs now want to kill Jews - but that is because they were
told - by Zionists and Arabs both - that the "Jews" hold they are
entitled to the land and Arabs gotta go - plus every action of the Israeli
government and military - and with that assumption, hatred grows.
None of this of course justifies the killing of Jews - even if you hate someone, you cant murder
them! But as the cycle of mistrust and hatred grows on both sides, it becomes
more and more impossible to even have peace.
And without peace, more and more Jews are going to die, c"v.
The Arabs are fully aware of the following quotes - which are published in both Arab and
Israeli sources ! Arab - to prove that the Jews are vicious enemies who want
to throw them out of their land. And Israelis - to show how they are not
intimidated by Arabs threats and how they will defend themselves against
terrorism and attacks from the Arabs.
Read the next post and imagine what effect it has on Arab children:
“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more.”
(Ehud Barak, Aug. 28, 2000 — when he was prime minister — reported in the
Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000.)
“The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs.” (Menahim Begin, in a speech to the
Knesset, quoted by Amnon Kapeliouk, in “Begin and the Beasts” (New Statesman,
June 25 1982.)
“When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” (Raphael Eitan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (New York Times, April 14, 1983))
“How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” (Prime
Minister Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.)
“There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.” (Golda Maier, June 15, 1969)
“The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was
fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed
after the war.” (Israeli Gen. Matityahu Peled, Ha’aretz, March 19, 1972.)
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have
taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that
interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti — Semitism, the Nazis,
Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: We have
come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” (David Ben
Gurion — the first Israeli prime minister — quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le
Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.)
Ben Gurion also warned in 1948: “We must do everything to insure they (the
Palestinians) never do return.”
Also from Ben Gurion, in response to the question about what they will do with the Palestinian
refugees: “The old will die and the young will forget.”
“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that. I want to tell
you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the
Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” (Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, Oct. 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.)
“We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz
Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the
ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.” (Rafael
Eitan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces — Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot,
April 13,1983, New York Times, April 14, 1983.)
“We must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinian refugees) never do return” (David
Ben-Gurion, in his diary, July18, 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s
Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.)
“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan,
and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Muslim regime is artificial and
easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then
we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We
then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” (David
Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff (From Ben-Gurion, A Biography by
Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978))
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all
social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.” (Israel Koenig, “The
Koenig Memorandum”)
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the
names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no
longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there
either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta;
Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal
Al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a
former Arab population.” (Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported
in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.)
“We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, ‘What is to be
done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture
which said ‘Drive them out!’” (Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin
memoirs, published in the New York Times, Oct. 23, 1979. 18.)
“There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high
percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance;
and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry
out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant.
(I) tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:...the need
to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a
non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this
fundamental position as early as 1940 (and) it is entered in my diary.” (Joseph
Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization Department. (From Israel: an
Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.))
“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements
because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don’t grab will
go to them.” (Ariel Sharon, addressing, as foreign minister, a meeting of the
Tzomet Party (Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998))
“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a
certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that
there is no Zionism, colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the
Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.” (Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot
of July 14, 1972.)
“Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the
process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out
discreetly and circumspectly.” (Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist
Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine, Complete Diaries, June 12,
1895 entry.)
Please note that the above quotes are widely known both among Israelis and Palestinians.
And they stir up nationalistic pride in both Israelis and Palestinians.
And they make both Israelis and Palestinians hate each ever more.
And I didn't even start with quotes from Kahane. (The difference is, though, Kahane was
illegalized by Israel. The above rhetoric was not.)
Our Gedolim warned them about saying things like this. The Torah holds that such statements
cause Jews to be killed, and generates anti-semitism around the world.
No, not all Palestinians are terrorists. Many just want to live a normal life in peace. And
you will find statements like that among many Israelis, including in the
government. But there are enough of those who say all Arabs want to kill all
Jews because it is their nature, that the more rational voices are drowned out.
And not all Jews are tyrants. But there are so many Palestinians saying that we are all
evil, that any semblance of reason that could have hopefully reared its head is
shot down immediately. Especially since the only "government" there is Arafat,
who is a terrorist, how in the world are the rational voices going to be heard?
And how long will they be able to survive?
(A few weeks ago, Arafat actually wrote a letter saying that he is aware of the difference
between the "beautiful values of Judaism and the peaceful relationship between
Jews and Arabs throughout history" versus aggressive Zionism. But nobody there,
including the coward Arafat himself, will publicize it.)
The whole thing is a big mess. The Arabs want to kill or drive out Jews and the Jews want to
kill or drive out Arabs. None of this would have happened if we would have
listened to the Gedolim.
The only question is, now what do we do?
No, not all Arabs hate Jews. So many do, and it is not because of their religion. If it
were, the religious ones (Muslims) would hate jews more than the non-religious
Arabs, but its not so. Arafat isn't even religious! That's right, he is not a
practicing Muslim. Not in the slightest. He is even married to a Christian! The
whole thing is political. The Arabs are hateful because their land was taken
from them, the way the Indians were hateful to white people. The only problem
is, those who are responsible for taking the land and making a State falsely
told the world - and the Arabs - that they represent Jews and Judaism. Even
though Judaism is a religion, not a political party, and the religious Jews did
NOT want to take the land and make a Jewish State (except for the Mizrachi) and
those that did want the State were not practicing Jews at all, and even
anti-Judaism, for political and financial reasons, they went around presenting
themselves as the representatives of Jewry.
They still do this. When Sharon gets indicted for war crimes in Lebanon, he says "This is an
attack on all Jews!". Ah, no, Ariel, it's not. It's an attack on YOU. I have
nothing to do with what you did in Lebanon, and neither does anyone else.
It's a Zionist trick to say all attacks on their policies and actions constitute anti-semitism.
The world gets sick of this, and hates Jews more when this happens. Nobody can say boo about
Israel doing something wrong because then you're an anti-semite. The world hates
this, and hates Jews more because of it.
So the Arabs - like many nations in the world - falsely believe that all Jews, and Judaism are
responsible for the fact that their land was taken. So they hate Jews.
Of course, this does not justify terrorism and killing innocent people. But this is the reason
behind the hate.
Before the Zionists came to Israel, the Arabs and Jews got along together relatively well.
In fact, we were better off living with the Arabs than we were living in Europe.
The Arabs treated us much better than the Christians, until the Zionists came
along.
What we can do is two things: One practical, and one spiritual. The practical advice comes form
the Satmar Rav ZTL (Divrei Yoel, Naso) and the spiritual from Rav Shach ZTL (Michtavim
Umaamarim, vol. I sec. 1).
Practical: We should let the world know that we do not support any actions that are against
the Torah, including the actions of the Zionists. We should try as hard as we
can to dismantle the propaganda that Jews are responsible for what happened in
the middle east. World Jewry and Judaism are not responsible for what the
Zionists do and have done, they are not responsible for the acts behaviors and
polices of the State of Israel, and the State of Israel does NOT represent Jewry
or Judaism.
It's like when a Jew is lets say convicted of embezzling millions of dollars. And he says "I
represent all Jews in the world. An attack on me is an attack on Jewry and
Judaism. Never again!" And as a result, the world hates Jews.
What would we do? We would say Hello, we have nothing to do with this guy. Judaism does NOT
condone stealing and we are not responsible for what this guy did, we preach not
to steal and we cant help it if we have people who disobey the Torah.
And if a murderer would say he represents Judaism, we would say heloo, we have nothing to
do with this.
And so since
the taking of the land and creating a Jewish State was, too, against the Torah,
and it is that which caused all this danger for Jews (Even the Zionists admit
that it was the creation of Israel that made the Arabs into enemies - see Five
Addresses, Rav Soloveichik, p.79), therefore we should say that Jews are not
responsible for the Arab problems, and we are not responsible for the occupation
of the territories, we are not responsible for anything but our own actions,
leave us alone, we didn't start this fire. Your fight is political - Zionist
Nationalists vs. Arab Nationalists, not religious. Jews are not part of this. We
are concerned about the lives of our brethren, the Jews, NOT the political or
nationalistic success or failure of any State or government that we were against
to begin with.
There are Arabs, even, who know this. Many of them have been preaching lately that their
fight is not with Jews or Judaism, it is a political/nationalistic fight with
Zionist aspirations, not Jewish ones. And that Jews are not the enemy.
We would think that when Arabs talk like this we would be happy - there were Germans that spoke
like this and saved Jews - we all know of some filmily or another who was hidden
in the attic of some German who believed that Jews aren't evil - but the
Zionists wont let the Arabs let Jews off the hook.
In the Jewish Press 2 weeks ago, a professor Howard Edelson wrote about some Palestinian woman
who wrote an article in a college magazine saying that Judaism is not Zionism,
that Zionism is the enemy not Judaism, etc.
Well Professor Edelson wouldn't have a Palestinian saying that Jews are not the enemy, so he
made sure to explain (to who? the Palestinan readers of the JP?) that Judaism
indeed is the culprit here and that Jews have a G-d-given "right" to Eretz
Yisroel (even in Golus), and that they have a moral and legal right to determine
everything pertaining to Eretz Yisroel, and that, basically, Jews are the
bosses, and nobody else has a say in the matter.
This kind of Hisgaros B'Umos, and flaming the fires of anti-semitism puts Jews all over in
danger. We need to counter this. We don't have to take responsibility for a war
that we didn't start, and policies that we don't have, and people who do not
follow our behaviors.
And any Arabs that say Jews are not bad should not be discouraged. Every German family that
saved a Jew in the holocaust allowed a whole new generation to survive. Whoever
saves even one Jew is as if he saved an entire world. Pushing Jews into the line
of fire like that professor did is something that we cannot tolerate. The lives
of our brothers is our most important concern.
The spiritual advice:
We must eradicate from ourselves many idolatrous attitudes. The main one is Kochi
V'Otzem Yadi - the idea that we are physically strong. the truth is, Jews in
Golus are weak. Hashem caused the Yom Kippur War "without a doubt" in order to
rid us of the idea that Israel is strong. The Arabs did stupid things and lost
the war, but Israel was on the verge of being defeated, Israel was weaker than
the Arabs - but Hashem made the Arabs slip up, due to no credit on Israel's
part. Israel just got lucky. Hashem did this to show that Israel isn't strong -
the "idea that Tzahal is an undefeated army has been shattered to bits".
We need to disabuse ourselves of the idea that Israel can defend itself. Only Hashem
protects us - not soldiers, not anyone. And to "flex our muscles" at the nations
just creates anti-semitism and endangers Jews. We must be subservient to the
nations in Golus, not annoy them, and accept whatever troubles the Golus and the
nations unfortunately meet upon us; physical resistance only backfires. We must
oppose any idea that defies the Nations of the world, even if we Jews are right.
We must not do anything to cause anti-semitism in the world, even in the form of
raised oil prices because of the Jews, for such things fan the flames of hate.
"The State of Israel is not the people of Yisroel - and even if something may be
in the best interests of the State of Israel, it may not be in the best
interests of the people of Yisroel." For instance, if Israel defies America's
commands, they are putting the Jews of America in danger. We are not a
self-ruling nation in Golus that we can say "America says this, we will say
differently". We are in Golus, America is not. We must not defy or fight the
nations of the world, for that creates anti-semitism and puts all of Klall
Yisroel in danger.
There is much more from Rav Shach ZTL on this topic, in the first section ("Eretz Yisroel") of
the first volume of Michtavim Umaamarim. It is definitely a must-read for all
Jews who want to know how to respond to the middle east crisis according to the
Torah. I have begun excerpting some of the material and posting it in its own
topic elsewhere in this forum.
Also infinitely valuable on this topic is Rav Elchonon Wasserman's Ukvesa D'Meshichah, included
in Kovetz Maamarim, and available in English (though I haven't seen it around in
years), called "Epoch of the Messiah." it tells us how we Jews must respond and
react to problems while we are in Golus, in order to save lives.
The world does not have to be against Jews for Moshiach to come. The only thing that has to
happen is that Klall Yisroel will do Teshuva.
And even if it were so, Jewish people getting killed is not something we should be happy about
even if it causes Moshiach to come. Moshiach's coming is G-d's job. Ours is to
fulfill the Torah, and the Torah wants us to make sure Jews live, and not to be
so cruel as to be happy when one dies - even if that happiness is because it is
a "sign" that Moshiach is coming. And that is true even if Jews are in danger of
being killed.
The Brisker Rav ZTL pointed this out by the Halachah that Moshiach cannot come on Shabbos, due
to the Techum. This shows, he said, that even if the Geulah could be brought,
and all the problems of Klall Yisroel would end, fulfilling the Torah - even one
Halachah - is much more important.
The Rebbe Reb Bunim of Prshyscha ZTL once said, similarly, that he could bring Moshiach, but
he will not. The reason is, because when Moshiach will come, there will be a
welcoming celebration, and all the Tzadikim will be sitting on the dais, and
right next to Moshiach will be the Godol Hador, the Yid Hakodosh of Prshyscha.
Moshiach will ask the Yid, "How did you finally do it? How did you bring me?"
"And the Yid will have to point all the way in the back of the room, where I will be
standing," the Rebbe Reb Bunim said, and he will have to say 'See that man Bunim?
he brought you'. "
And In that moment, the Yid Hakodosh will be embarrassed that he's such a big Tzadik, and it
took me, a simple Jew, to bring Moshiach.
To save the Yid HaKodosh that embarrassment, it is worth not to bring Moshiach.
Rav Schneur Kotler ZTL used to say over that story, and ad that it has a source in Chumash.
When Hashem told Moshe to bring the Jews out of Egypt, he said he doesn't want
to do it because Aharon will feel bad that he wasn't the Go'el.
Moshiach is a great thing, but not allowing pain to another Jew is even greater.
Nothing is greater than Torah.
Not bad moderator but not good enough. We should admit it straight out, if we're ever
going to find a solution to this bloodbath that's taking place in Eretz Yisroel.
THIS is why the Arabs hate us. Its because we took their land:
Moshe Sharett, the first Israeli foreign minister, wrote in 1914:
We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come
to conquer a country from people inhabiting it, that governs it by the virtue of
its language and savage culture ..... Recently there has been appearing in our
newspapers the clarification about "the mutual misunderstanding" between us and
the Arabs, about "common interests" [and] about "the possibility of unity and
peace between two fraternal peoples." ..... [But] we must not allow ourselves to
be deluded by such illusive hopes ..... for if we ceases to look upon our land,
the Land of Israel, as ours alone and we allow a partner into our estate- all
content and meaning will be lost to our enterprise. (Righteous Victims, p. 91)
In August 18 1948, Moshe Sharett wrote to Chaim Weizmann, explaining the Israeli government's
determination to block the Palestinian Arab refugees' return:
"With regard to the refugees, we are determined to be adamant while the war lasts. Once the
return tide starts, it will be impossible to stem it, and it will prove our
undoing. As for the future, we are equally determined to explore all
possibilities of getting rid, once and for all, of the huge [Palestinian] Arab
minority [referring to the Palestinian Israeli citizens of Israel] which
originally threatened us. What can be achieved in this period of storm and
stress [referring to the 1948 war] will be quite unattainable once conditions
get stabilized. A group of people [headed by Yosef Weitz] has already started
working on the study of resettlement possibilities [for the Palestinian
refugees] in other lands . . . What such permanent resettlement of 'Israeli'
Arabs in the neighboring territories will mean in terms of making land available
in Israel for settlement of our own people requires no emphasis." (Benny Morris,
p. 149-150)
In 1904, before Zionism matured into a powerful political force, Menachem Ussishkin stated that:
"[Land is acquired] by force --- that is, by conquest in war, or in other words, by
ROBBING land form its owner; . . . by expropriation via government authority; or
by purchase. . . [The Zionist movement was limited to the third choice] until at
some point we become rulers." (Righteous Victims, p. 38)
In April 28, 1930 Menachem Ussishkin stated in an address to journalists in Jerusalem:
"We must continually raise the demand that our land be returned to our possession .... If
there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place.
We must take over the land. We have a great and NOBLER ideal than preserving
several hundred thousands of [Palestinian] Arabs fellahin [peasants]."
(Righteous Victims, p. 141)
Soon after the 1967 war, Moshe Dayan wrote in his memories regarding the ethnic cleansing and
destruction of the 'Imwas, Bayt Nuba, Yalu, and big portion of the West Bank
city of Qalqilya:
"[houses were destroyed] not in battle, but as punishment . . . and in order to CHASE AWAY the
inhabitants . . . contrary to government policy." (Righteous Victims, p. 328)
In September 1967 Moshe Dayan told senior staff in the Israeli Occupation Army in the West
Bank that some 200,000 Palestinian Arabs had left the West Bank and Gaza Strip:
"we must understand the motives and causes of the continued emigration of the
[Palestinian] Arabs, from both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and not to
undermine these cause after all, we want to create a new map." (Righteous
Victims, p. 338)
In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote in his diary:
"We must expropriate gently the private property on the state assigned to us. We shall
try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment
for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our country. The
property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation
and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly.
Let the owners of the immoveable property believe that they are cheating us,
selling us things for more than they are worth. But we are not going to sell
them anything back." (America And The Founding Of Israel, p. 49 & Righteous
Victims, p. 21-22)
In October 1882 Ben-Yehuda and Yehiel Michal Pines, few of the earliest Zionist pioneers in
Palestine, wrote describing the indigenous Palestinians:
". . . There are now only five hundred [thousand] Arabs, who are not very strong, and from
whom we shall easily take away the country if only we do it through stratagems
[and] without drawing upon us their hostility before we become a the strong and
papules ones." (Righteous Victims, p. 49)
While the Zionist leadership was discussing the morality of "transferring" the Palestinian
people in December 1918, Yitzhak Avigdor Wilkansky, an agronomist and advisor at
the Palestine Office in JAFFA, felt that, for practical reasons, it was:
"impossible to evict the fellahin [Palestinian Arab peasants], even if we wanted to.
Nevertheless, if it were possible, I would commit an injustice towards the
[Palestinian] Arabs. There are those among us who are opposed to this form the
point of view of supreme righteousness and morality. . . .[But] when you enter
into the midst of the Arab nation and do not allow it to unit, here too you are
taking its life. . . . Why don't our moralists dwell on this point? We must be
either complete vegetarians or meat eaters: not one-half, one-third, or
one-quarter vegetarian." (Righteous Victims, p. 140-141 & America And The
Founding Of Israel, p. 71)
Chaim Weizmann wrote in a letter dated April 28, 1939 to the American Zionist
leader Solomon Goldman about the possibility of acquisition of a large tract of
land belonging to the Palestinian Arab Druze in the Galilee and eastern Carmel:
"The realization of this project would mean the emigration of 10,000
[Palestinian] Arabs [to Jabal al-Druze in Syria], the acquisition of 300,000
dunums. . . . It would also create a significant precedent if 10,000
[Palestinian] Arabs were to emigrate peacefully of their own volition, which no
doubt would be followed by others." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 167)
Ironically, what actually happened during the 1948 war was almost the complete
opposite. The Palestinian Druze Arabs were the ones who were permitted to stay
(among other minorities too like Shi'ites and Maronite Christians), especially
in and around the Haifa and al-Carmel area.
This was seconded by Avraham Katznelson, another influential Mapai leader, who also said:
"more moral, from the viewpoint of universal human ethics, than the emptying of the Jewish
state of the [Palestinian] Arabs and their transfer elsewhere .... This requires
[the use of] force." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 192)
As the Israeli Army was entering Eilabun (Palestinian Maronite Christian village) on October
30, 1948, the soldiers went on rampage in the village looting Palestinians
properties. In a letter dated January 21st, 1949 sent to the Israeli Minority
Affair Ministry by Faraj Diab Surur, the Eilabun's Mukhtar, along with other
village notables described the looting and the ethnic cleansing of their village
by the Israeli soldiers as the following:
"When the [Israeli] commander selected 12 youngsters (shabab) and sent them to another
place, then he ordered that the assembled inhabitants to be led to [al-]Maghar
and the priest asked him to leave the women and babies and to take only men, but
he refused, and led the assembled inhabitants---some 800 in number--- to [al-]Maghar
preceded by military vehicles. . . . He himself stayed on with another two
soldiers until they killed the 12 youngsters in the streets of the village and
then they joined the army going to [al-]Maghar. He led them to [al-]Frarradiya.
When they reached Kafr 'Inan they were joined by an armored car that fired upon
them [refugees] . . . killing one of the old men, Sam'an ash Shufani, 60 years
old, and injured three women . . . At [al-]Frarradiya [the Israeli soldiers]
robbed the inhabitants of IL 500 and the women of their Jewelry, and took 42
youngsters and sent them to a detention camp, and the rest the next day were led
to Meirun, and afterward to the Lebanon borders. During this whole time they
were given food only once. Imagine then how the babies screamed and the cries of
the pregnant and weaning mothers."
As the Israelis rampaged the friendly Palestinian village of Huj (northeast of Gaza), Yitzhak
Avira (an old-time Haganah Intelligence Service officer) registered a complained
against the continued destruction of the village. He wrote Ezra Danin (a member
of the 1st and 2nd Transfer Committees and a Haganah Intelligence Officer) on
August 16, 1948 that:
"recently a view has come to prevail among us that the [Palestinian] Arabs are nothing.
Every [Palestinian] Arab is a murderer, all of them should be slaughtered, all
the [Palestinian] villages that are conquered should be burned . . . I . . . see
a danger in the prevalence of an attitude that everything of theirs should be
murdered, destroyed, and made to vanish."
Danin Answered: "War is complicated and lacking in sentimentality. If the commanders believe
that by destruction, murder, and human suffering they will reach their goal more
quickly---I would not stand in their way. If we do not hurry up and do
[things]---our enemies will do these things to us." (Benny Morris, p. 167)
It is worth noting that Palestinian inhabitants of Huj had collaborated openly with the
Haganah and the Israeli Army before and during the 1948 war, however, such good
will did not save them from being ethnically cleansed. Similarly, Zarnuqa (the
hometown of the Islamic Jihad founder Fathi al-Shikaki) inhabitants had a
comparable experience with the Israelis, and paid the price of their
collaboration by being driven out of their village under the threat of the gun
towards neighboring Yibna. Sadly, Yibna's people, who were not yet occupied,
drove them back to Israeli occupied Zarnuqa, so they became unwanted people by
both sides camping in the wadis between the two towns. This is a typical story
of collaborators who outlive their usefulness. (Benny Morris, p. 127)
As the Israeli soldiers were occupying the al-Dawayima (northwest of Hebron), the solders
perpetrated a mostly unknown massacre on October 28-29, 1948. According the
Shabtai Kaplan, a MAPAM party member, and eyewitness accounts, he describe the
atrocity to Al Hamishmar editor as the following:
"The first wave of conquerors [89th Battalion of the 8th Brigade] killed about 80-100 [male
Palestinian] Arabs, women and children. The children they killed by breaking
their heads with sticks. There was no a house without dead," Kaplan wrote.
Kaplan's informant , who arrived immediately afterwards in the second wave,
reported that the [Palestinian] Arab men and women who remained were then closed
off in the houses "without food and water." Sappers arrived to blow up the
houses. "One commander ordered a sapper to put two old women in a certain house
. . . and to blow up the house with them. The sapper refused . . . The commander
then ordered his men to put in the old women and the evil deed was done. One
soldier boasted that he had raped a [Palestinian] woman and then shot her. One
woman, with a newborn baby in her arms, was employed to clean the courtyard
where the soldiers ate. She worked a day or two. In the end they shot her and
her baby." The soldier witness, according to Kaplan, said that "cultured
officers . . . had turned into base murderers and this not in the heat of the
battle . . . but out of system of expulsion and destruction. The lest
[Palestinian] Arabs remained---the better. This principle is the political motor
of the expulsion and atrocities."
Kaplan under stood that MAPAM in this respect was in bind. The matter could not
be publicized; it would harm the State and MAPAM would lambasted for it. (Benny
Morris, p. 222-3)
In 1891 Ahad Ha'Am opened many Jewish eyes to the fact the Palestine was not empty, but
populated with its indigenous people when he wrote:
"We abroad are used to believe the Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that
is not sowed ..... But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the country it
is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony
mountains .... are not cultivated." (Righteous Victims, p. 42)
Ahad Ha'Am published a series of articles in the Hebrew periodical Hameliz that
were sharply critical of the ethnocentricity of political Zionism as well as the
exploitation of the Palestinians peasantry by the Zionist colonists. Ahad Ha'Am
who sought to draw attention to the fact the Palestine was not empty territory
and that the presence of another people posed problems:
" ....[the Zionists pioneers believed that] the only language the Arabs understand is that
of force ..... [They] behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty,
trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and
even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous
tendency." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 7)
In a pamphlet under the heading line of "Truth from Palestine" published in 1891, Ahad Ha'Am
wrote of how Jewish settlers at the time treated the indigenous Palestinian
people:
"[The Jewish settlers] treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass
unjustly, beat them shamelessly for no sufficient reason, and even take pride in
doing so. The Jews were slaves in the land of their Exile, and suddenly they
found themselves with unlimited freedom, wild freedom that ONLY exists in a land
like Turkey. This sudden change has produced in their hearts an inclination
towards repressive tyranny, as always happens when slave rules." 'Ahad Ha'Am
warned: "We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as
a donkey-like nation that neither sees nor understands what is going around it.
But this is a GREAT ERROR. The Arab, like all sons of Sham, has sharp and crafty
mind . . . Should time come when life of our people in Palestine imposes to a
smaller or greater extent on the natives, they WILL NOT easily step aside." (One
Palestine Complete, p. 104) How accurate 'Ahad Ha'Am description was even after
more a 100 plus of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? The conduct of most
Israelis, especially in the occupied territories, is very much similar to the
way 'Ahad portrayed over a century ago.
Ahad Ha'Am warned that Jewish settlers must under no circumstances arouse the wrath of the
natives, he said:
"Yet what do our brethren do in Palestine? Just the very opposite! Serfs they were in the
lands of the Diaspora and suddenly they find themselves in unrestricted freedom
and this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the
Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them
without cause and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this
despicable and dangerous inclination ..."
The same lack of understanding he found in the boycott of Arab labour proclaimed
by Jewish labour ... "Apart from the political danger, I can't put up with the
idea that our brethren are morally capable of behaving in such a way to humans
of another people, and unwittingly the thought comes to my mind: if it is so
now, what will be our relation to the others if in truth we shall achieve at the
end of times power in Eretz Yisrael? And if this be the Messiah: I do not wish
to see his coming." (UN: The Origins And Evolution Of Palestine Problem, section
II)
Ahad Ha'Am returned to the Arab problem ... in February 1914 ... and he also stated:
"'[the Zionists] wax angry towards those who remind them that there is still another
people in Eretz Yisrael that has been living there and does not intend at all to
leave its place. In a future when this ILLUSION will have been torn from their
hearts and they will look with open eyes upon the reality as it is, they will
certainly understand how important this question is and how great our duty to
work for its solution." (UN: The Origins And Evolution Of Palestine Problem,
section II) But Ahad Ha'Am's plea went unheeded as political Zionism set about
to realize its goal of a Jewish State.
In the early 1920s, there was talks of Palestine being part of a large Arab federation, but
even Ahad Ha'Am said he would not remain in Palestine if that were to happen:
"Better to die in the Exile than to die here and be buried in the land of fathers, if that land
is considered the 'homeland' of the [Palestinian] Arabs and we are strangers in
it." (One Palestine Complete, p. 285)
There is much more. In the latest issue of the Jewish Observer, Yonoson Rosenblum writes about
the "Zionist Mythology", about how the Zionists make up history. The reason the
whole world hates us now is because we Jews are in denial that we were wrong
about what we did in Israel. Now its coming back to haunt us. The only question
is how we can do teshuva for it.
Moderator’s answer:
Zo,
No, WE Jews did not take their land. WE Jews, as represented by our Gedolei Yisroel, did NOT
WANT THE LAND - the Gedolim fought hard that the land should NOT be taken by the
Zionists. We are not responsible for what THEY did - the Zionists were the
biggest enemies of Jews and Judaism - they sabotaged rescue attempts in WWII
letting Jews die because it was better for their movement; they wanted first to
propose intermarriage as a solution to the "problem" of anti-semitism before
they suggested Zionism. Just as the Torah Jews can not be held responsible for
the acts of the Tzedukim, Karayim, the early Christians, the Yevsekzia and other
deviant "Jewish" groups, the Torah Jews are totally not responsible for the acts
of the Zionists.
It is true, that the Arabs hate us because of the Zionists, and that is agreed upon by
everyone who knows history - including Rav Soloveichik of YU, as quoted
elsewhere in this forum - that we all know. But the problem is, the Arabs blames
ALL of us for the acts of those who were OUR enemies as well - the Ben Gurions,
the Herzls, the Weissmans. They have usurped our identity, passed themselves off
as representing Jews and Judaism and now we all suffer.
If its not our fault why do we always say that Zionism (and other instances of Jews' sins)
perpetrated its crimes "bavonoseinu harabim"?
My initial understanding would be that its because our sins created the problems that
produced the Jews who rebelled against Torah, and our inability to preserve the
mesorah led to the breakdown of the truth and the flowering of anti-Torah
attitudes such as those put forth by Zionism.
Is that a legit interpretation?
Moderator:
That could be, but I suppose it actually depends on the intent of the person making the
statement. It’s like a posuk or something. "Our sins" may mean the collective
sins of Klall Yisroel, as opposed to the Torah Jews, or it could mean that we
did not have enough merits to prevent the Zionists from succeeding in making a
State, or it could mean tons of things.
The Arabs know that even the most anti-zionist Jews eventually believe that when the Moshiach
will come, all of Israel will belong to the Jews. This is simply not acceptable
to them. Whether the Jews have Israel now or next year doesn't matter to them.
They want it forever. There is a reason why you'll see anti-semitic cartoons of
chasidim in their newspapers or in their sbarro "museum".
Moderator’s answer: Um, The Arabs don't believe in our Moshiach, so they hold that without
Zionism, the land is and always will be theirs. Jews have always beloved in
Moshiach yet the Arabs were not out to kill the Jews until the Zionists decided
to take the land as a Jewish State.
STATEMENT TO THE U.N. SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON PALESTINE
July 16, 1947
Taken from the United Nations Trusteeship Library
1
The ancient right of the People of Israel to the land of Israel.
In approaching what is commonly called the Palestine problem and in trying to
find a just and suitable solution it is imperative that the history of the Holy
Land and its correlation with the Jewish people be viewed in their proper
perspective. Indeed from the day onwards on which the L-rd said to Abraham:
"Arise, walk through the Land, in the length of it and in the breadth, for I
will give it unto thee" (Genesis, 13, 17), this country was predestined to be
the land of domicile for the People of Israel. However, this predestination,
this divine promise, has its basis but in religion, for only loyalty to HIS laws
and teachings and fundamental application of that Law in Israel's public and
private life will entitle them to the name "People of Israel" and only then can
the term "Land of Israel" apply to this land as it is aid: "And ye shall be unto
me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19, 6) and further: "For thou
art a holy people under the L-rd, thy G-d." (Deuteronomy 7, 6). The
interrelation between the land of Israel and the people of Israel rise and falls
with the degree and intensity with which they fulfill the Holy Law. Past
experience proves that Israel fell easy prey to their enemies whenever they
deviated from the path prescribed in the Holy Bible, a fact to which the
chapters of the Bible bear eloquent evidence.
2
Unbroken settlement by Jews throughout the ages.
Hence, even after the dispersion, when Israel were scattered to the four corners
of the world to atone for their sins and prepare themselves for the great task
of being a holy nation and of being fit once again to live in the land of their
promise, Jews loyal to the tradition of their forefathers have not severed the
connection with the land even for short intervals. Though unable to fulfill all
the commandments while residing abroad, particularly those relating to the soil
of this land, they have constantly directed and arranged their prayers with
their faces towards the Holy Land in accordance with I King 8, 48: "And pray
unto thee towards their land."
Some Jews endeavoured to visit the Holy Land at least once in their lives and at later periods, when
transport and traffic connections became easier, these loyal Jews began to
return to the Holy Land to live permanently therein in holiness and purity and
literally applied the verse (Psalms 102, 14): "For thy servants take pleasure in
her stones and favour the dust thereof."
The relation between the people of Israel and the land of Israel being an ancient and permanent religious
tie, Providence has seen to it that throughout the long history of this land,
Jews were never to abandon it entirely. . . .
3
Good neighbourly relations with other sections of the population.
During no period of the immigration of such orthodox European Jews was any
opposition offered by the Arab population. On the contrary, these Jews were
welcomed on account of economic benefits and general progress that accrued to
the local inhabitants who had no fear whatsoever of being subjugated. It was
common knowledge that these Jews came but for the purpose of fulfilling certain
religious requirements and they had no difficulty in establishing a mutual
trust, and real friendship developed with all sections of the community. That
was the time when good neighborly relations existed between Jews and Arabs and
in particular Rabbis and eminent scholars who then lead the Jewish Community
were greatly esteemed and honoured by all inhabitants.
4
Palestine under the Mandate.
With the occupation of Palestine by His Britannic Majesty's Forces and after the confirmation of the
Mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations, which incorporated the Balfour
Declaration of 1917 a new era opened in the history of the Holy Land. We
Orthodox Jews whose forefathers promoted the development of the Jewish Yishuv
throughout the generations, who for many centuries constituted the most
important element of the Yishuv in the Holy Land, were always on the very best
of terms with all sections of the Community. We had hoped that the real purpose
of the Mandate would be the promotion of a "Home" to which Jews who lived in the
Diaspora might be able to return as their Home Land in order to live here in
accordance with the Commandments of the Almighty. It was upon the first
appearance of the Zionist organization as a political entity, created in and by
the spirit of reform, a spirit to which Orthodox Jewry is so utterly opposed
that the idea of the foundation of a Jewish state in the Holy Land was first
advanced.
Much trouble and endless bloodshed might have been avoided if the Mandate were to have been applied in
the manner hoped for by Orthodox Jewry.
In addition the various Jewish Communities in the country had been organized along traditional lines of
truly Jewish Law, by actively applying the Laws of Moses to the public affairs
of the Holy Land, we are convinced that the country would have remained at peace
and the dangers inherent in prevailing conditions might never have arisen.
Moreover, the colossal massacre of millions of our brethren at the hands of
Nazism during the second World War might have been averted to a very substantial
degree for many of them might have been able to live peacefully in the Holy Land
as there would have been not the slightest justification for the limitations of
Jewish immigration as have in fact been enforced during the last decade.
However, it is a regrettable fact that a serious blunder was committed at the time by recognising
first the leaders of Zionism and then the Jewish Agency as official
representation of the Jewish population and by handing the keys of immigration
to that body which consists of zionists and non-zionists who are united in the
opposition to the application of religion to public life and they have succeeded
in bringing to this country free-thinking people like themselves who blocked the
way of immigration to myriads of Orthodox Jews. Only after prolonged and
forceful representations supported by the Government of Palestine did they agree
to issue small numbers of certificates for immigration also to Orthodox Jews.
They have thus succeeded in strengthening their position by bringing in elements
of the population who were faithful to their aims and ideals and have founded
Jewish Communities throughout the country whose very spirit is contrary to the
requirements of Jewish Law and have thereby furthered their hold in the country,
by insisting on the creation of a Jewish state therein. This aroused the fear of
our Arab neighbors in connection with further Jewish immigration and thus
started the determined opposition on the part of the Arabs against Jewish
immigration.
5
Palestine as a State.
From the time of King Solomon to our very days the Holy Land was either united with Trans-Jordan or
attached to Syria or Turkey. Western Palestine was never a single and
independent entity and certainly a part of that cannot possibly constitute an
independent state, as envisaged in the various plans that are discussed from
time to time.
However, the basic reason for our opposition to an Independent Jewish state as that in prevailing
circumstances the officially recognised representation of the Jewish people does
not consider the authority of the Holy Law as binding in the public affairs of
the Jewish people. . . .
. . . .and it is contrary to the wishes of G-d to create a Jewish State. . .
6
Summary of Part I
Orthodox Jewry has not the slightest intention of subjugating any section of the population of the Holy
Land. We merely demand that the gates of Palestine be opened to all those Jews
who have no home and enable them to live here Jewish lives in accordance with
the commandments of the L-rd. However in order to avoid the continuation of the
untenable position as set out in the last paragraph of section 4 we suggest that
the keys of Jewish immigration be placed into the hands of the Government of
this country.
We furthermore wish to express our definite opposition to a Jewish state in any part of Palestine
RAV ZONENFELD’S ETTER:
The following is two letters from Rav Yosef Chaim Sonenfeld ZTK"L -- A heart rendering plea to the
Arab communities, post the 1929 - Zionist uprising. Explaining the Jewish
position on the matter at hand. I don't know if this is the particular letter
you were referring to above. But none the less, its one of them. This letter,
along with the translation of many more are all from and available @
www.jewsagainstzionism.com. (BTW, like I said before, I received permission from
them to distribute their material.)
Thanks Again, Dear Mod. for the CONSTANT Kiddush Shem Hashem, taking place on your website. It serves as
a strong encouragement, in today's dark ages. (And a kiyum of "UBearta Hara
Mkirbecha").
TRUTH AND PEACE
Rabbi Yosef Chaim onenfeld
After the disorders in Eretz Yisroel in 1929, the Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox Jewish Community, Rabbi
Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, zt"l, issued a touching appeal to the Arab population to
live in peace with the Jewish community, and assuring them that the Jewish
people have no designs on the Temple Mount nor Arab properties.
This appeal, presented in English translation, as printed in Arabic in the leading Arab newspaper as well
as in Loshon Kodesh in the Agudah weekly, Kol Yisroel on November 22, 1929.
It is fifty-seven years since the L-rd allowed me to ascend to the Holy Land, to take pleasure in its
stones and to enjoy its earth. Providence has permitted me to be a witness to
the rebuilding of the ruins of Jerusalem, may it be built and established, to
the expansion of its settlement beyond the city's walls. Houses were built and
neighborhoods were founded. They established charitable institutions,
foundations of Torah and service to G-d. Workshops were also established. Men
who live by the toil of their hands and by trade have ascended to our Holy Land.
During the days of my dwelling in the Holy Land, the L-rd has aroused the spirit of certain esteemed
individuals to fulfill the commandment of settling the land of Israel both by
working the earth in order to partake of its fruit and be satiated by its
goodness, and by fulfilling the commandments connected with the land. And with
His help, may He be blessed, settlements have been established in Judah and the
Galilee, which, afterwards, were a delight for me to walk through and give
praise and thanks to the One who establishes the border of the widow.
The "Western Wall", the place from which the Divine Presence has not departed, even in its ruination,
has been a place of refuge for all the inhabitants of the Holy Land to pour out
their hearts. Whenever a Jewish soul has thirsted for closeness to G-d, whatever
the supplication, whatever the prayer, he has gone to this holy place, and his
prayer has ascended to heaven and he was helped.
This holy place also serves as a tower for the entire world. The dispersed of Israel, in far off
lands, direct their hearts in prayer to this place where the Divine Presence
dwells, and when they are in distress, they turn to their brothers in Jerusalem
to arrange supplications for them by this "Western Wall".
There was no fixed time for this outpouring of prayer. Neither day nor night have the feet of Jews
ceased treading in this holy corner. I too, have been favored by the L-rd to be
among the visitors to this place. I too, have not, had a fixed time for this,
and many times my feet stood in this holy place, late at night, alone, and in
seclusion with the One who caused His name to dwell in this house. And all of
these decades even after the land came under the mandate of His Royal Majesty's
government, the government of Great Britain, may His Majesty be exalted, peace
and tranquility prevailed in the land. The inhabitants of the land who are not
the Children of Israel looked favorably upon the blossoming of the settlement.
Antagonism to religion, which, lamentably is prevalent in many lands abroad, had
no place in this sanctified land. The One who makes peace in His heavens had
spread the tabernacle of His peace over the land and the city which He chose,
and there was no violence or outrage in our streets. Our esteemed neighbors
honored the Jews, and the Jews respected the other inhabitants of the land. On
many occasions one group was helped by the other, as is fitting proper for
tranquil neighbors, who together desire the success of their community. Also the
Arabs knew and still know that the Jews seek their peace and well-being, and
bring a blessing upon the entire land. All of them together awaited the great
day of the L-rd, on which his Divine Presence will return to Zion, to restore
its sanctity and glory, as in days of old, to be a light to the nations and
kingdoms.
But behold now, woe unto us that such a thing has arisen in our days, a raging storming wind is turning
upon the Jews of the Holy Land. Hatred and slander is taking root, causing the
spilling of innocent blood and the destruction of holy settlements. The soil of
the Holy Land is saturated with the blood of pure, innocent souls, and the voice
of the blood of brothers cries out to us from the ground.
To our great sorrow, false accusations have been spread, invented by lovers of strife, which ascribe
evil intentions to the Jewish inhabitants in order to arouse anger and
vengeance, and to turn our quiet Holy Land into a battlefield and place of
catastrophe, G-d forbid. The severe consequences of the dispute and belligerence
bring a great loss to the entire community. And if the situation continues, G-d
forbid, any longer, it is liable to bring misfortune and ruin upon the entire
community and upon hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants.
I am eight years old today, and in the days of my old age, the L-rd has bound me to see the
destruction of the foundations of the settlement, which was built over a period
of many years, with the toil and sweat of men who sacrificed themselves for it,
and which was nurtured and reared by strong men, out of holy devotion and out of
a strong will to secure the foundations of a settlement in the Land of Israel.
I turn to all sections of the population of the Holy Land, and in particular to those who are not of the
Children of Israel and from the depths of my sad broken heart, I ask to have
pity on the Holy Land, and to say to the angel of destruction, "cease!" Remove
hatred from your hearts, and don't allow yourselves to be misled by the false
prophecies and seductions of men who, either with evil intent or because of
mistaken assumptions are trying to increase division among the various parts of
the population.
Don't turn your ears to slanders and false charges that are baseless. The Jewish inhabitants of the Holy
Land do not seek, G-d forbid, the harm of the rest of the inhabitants. They
desire, just as the other inhabitants of the land that which is good for the
land and good for all those who dwell in it. The Jews do not want to encroach
upon the rest of the inhabitants. The Holy Land is a beautiful land, in which,
with the growth of the community and its expansion, there is room for all of its
inhabitants to dwell in peace, without anyone interfering with his neighbor to
the slightest degree.
The Jews do not want, in any way, to take that which isn't theirs. And they certainly don't want to
contest the rights of the other inhabitants to the places held by them in which
they regard with honor and consider holy. And in particular there is no
foundation to the rumor that the Jews want to acquire the "Temple Mount". On the
contrary, from the time that, because of our sins, we were exiled from our land,
and our Holy Temple was destroyed, and we have been lacking the purity required
by the Torah, it is forbidden for any man of Israel to set foot upon the grounds
of the "Temple Mount", until the coming of the righteous Meshiach, who with the
spirit of the L-rd, which will hover over him, will rule righteously, for the
good of all creation, and will return to us the purity required by the Torah.
We request only that they leave us the most holy place that is left for us, as a refuge, the site of the
Western Wall, so that we will still be able to pour out our prayers before our
father in heaven, concerning any trouble that may befall us, G-d forbid, and
whenever a Jewish soul desires this holy place, without any disturbance and with
peace of mind, as was always the case.
I declare my words before everyone and I hope that all righteous peoples of the world will recognize the
justice of my words and because of this recognition will make every exertion and
explore every possibility to restore peace to the Holy Land, and to remove
suspicion and jealousy from the hearts of all the inhabitants. And then the L-rd
will take pleasure in our deeds and strengthen the work of our hands, in order
to see the building of our Holy Land, and its blossoming, for the enrichment of
the entire world, and then His Presence will dwell amongst us as in ancient
times.
Awaiting speedy alvation
Yosef Chaim onenfeld
TRUTH AND PEACE
The "Holy Land", upon which the eyes of the L-rd our G-d are from the beginning of the year until the
end of the year, the land from which comes forth blessings for all the peoples,
and in which the prophets of the L-rd foresaw the promises of the future and the
perfection of all humanity, and from which they called for the peace of all
creation, has groaned and cried for two years because of pain and insult, and it
soil, which is permeated with holy memories of purity of heart and morality of
character, has become a witness to racial hatred and strife between neighbors.
And the atmosphere of spiritual life is filled with suffocating clouds which
poison every understanding heart, and remnant of human love.
The prolonged controversy and dissention is repelling the Divine Presence and is removing G-d forbid, the
blessing of the L-rd from the beautiful and bountiful land, which is destined
and assured by providence. And in its place come aching souls, quarrels between
brothers, scheming hearts, lack of faith and trust in the L-rd, and mistaken and
misleading suspicions of one another.
As one of the elders of the "Holy Land", who has been privileged, with G-d's help, to be in this land,
now nearly sixty years, and who has been an eyewitness to years of tranquility,
security and complete peace between the inhabitants, I permit myself to turn to
all the inhabitants of the Holy Land, regardless of race or religion, the people
which the Divine Providence has given the privilege of dwelling in the land
which is holier than any other land, to ask them, from the depths of my broken
and said heart to have pity upon the bountiful land and upon the various ethnic
groups that dwell in it, to come together to rebuild the moral ruins and to
reestablish the broken fragments of humane feeling and divine ethnics, which
have been ruined and shattered during the last few years.
Uproot every grudge from your hearts. Remove the suspicions that come from false prophecies and
seductions which nest there, and pave the road to peace. The heads of the Jewish
People in the Holy Land will be the first to call for peace, and the hearts of
the leaders and heads of the Arab People will in turn be aroused to the
restoration of peace to the people.
The blessing of the L-rd will accompany the goodwill of the inhabitants. It will enrich and crown this
will with success and saturate the holy ground with the dew of life. And may we
be privileged to see the new light which the L-rd will cause to shine on Zion,
and nations will go by His light.
As the entreaty of one who awaits and
longs for heavenly ercy,
Yosef Chaim onenfeld
The positions of the Satmar Rav and Rav Aharon Kotler, and the Brisker Rav ZTL are all Divrei Elokim
Chaim. At Rav Aharon Kotler's funeral in Lakewood, the Satmar Rav gave the most
amazing hesped, and when the Satmar Rav was offered the job of Chief Rabbi of
Jerusalem (after the petirah of Rav Yosef Chaim Zonenfeld), he declined, and
when they asked him for a recommendation, he told them to ask the Brisker Rav.
They surely disagreed - very strongly sometimes - but they did agree that they
are all authentic Gedolei Yisroel.
As far as majority, its impossible to determine. According to the Satmar Rav, the majority was on his
side (!). he writes this in Vayoel Moshe. (He said that the Belzer Rebbe R.
Yisachar Dov, for example, is equal to many of his opponents put together.) Part
of this dispute is who counts as a godol and who's bigger than who to begin with
(did you include, Rav Yehuda Greenwald ZTL, for instance, in the cheshbon?). Its
impossible to determine majority here once you bring in the quality factor,
which you cant avoid.
He also says that the principle of "rov gedolim" does not apply in such cases, for various halachic
reasons.
Second, even within a given "camp" there are disagreements regarding various issues. The Agudah is not
a monolithic entity. Many Gedolim disagreed with others within the Agudah, and
what the Agudah decides to do when the dust clears does not mean that all their
Gedolim agreed with it. Sometimes, things are done in any political
organization, the Agudah included, that is explicitly against the wishes of
their Gedolim. The Satmar Rav actually mentions this - that the acts of the
Agudah do not necessarily represent the opinion of their own Gedolim - as a
reason not to consider those Gedolim as automatically supporting the Agudah. You
have to consult the Gedolim themselves to see what they say, and to determine if
their position has not been distorted or ignored by some laypeople (see also
Letter of Rav Chaim Ozer, printed in the back of the Igros Chazon Ish, the he
learned from "experience" that in organizations, the organization do not always
follow the wishes of their Moetzes. Rav Shach also has a letter to this effect,
almost duplicating, word for word, Rav Chaim Ozer's statments.)
In such cases, you should follow your Rebbeim. If you are in doubt as to who you should have as your
Rebbeim, then you are fully entitled to follow those who find more favor in your
eyes. You have to choose somehow, and its better to choose based on who you hold
is bigger, or more correct, rather than whatever the newspapers say you should
do.
hadtosay,
I took the liberty of omitting the insulting rhetoric in your post.
I have no idea where you get this idea. I said no such thing. I said on the contrary, we should
pray and do all hishtadlus possible to save Jewish lives. End of story. Beyond
that, I haven't the foggiest notion of where you're coming from.
And regarding the Tzibur, it all depends on who you consider the Tzibbur. I assume you are
referring to the Mi shebayrach for the Tzahal that was discussed here. Just
because some people say it does not constitute the "Tzibur's" behavior. Part of
the problem here is that the Zionists believe that they have the power to demand
that everyone follow their approach and if they don't, they are guilty of "non-achdus"
or being "poresh min hatzibur". The fact is, the Modern Orthodox or Religious
Zionist camp does not constitute the "Tzibur" of Klall Yisroel. What they
do may be accepted or rejected by any Tzibur as they see fit. the fact that some
people do something is not a compelling reason to jump and do it as well. There
is no reason, except Zionism, to pray for the Chayalim any more than we pray for
all the other Jews in danger around the world. We pray for all of them
collectively. Just because some congregations decided to make a special Mi
Shebayrach for those who serve the Medinah does not mean anyone else has to
follow suit. If you're so interested in following the Tzibur, then why don't you
follow the Chareidi Tzibur that refuses to say it?
So many times on these boards people claim that everyone in the world has to do what they do,
or else they are "breaking achdus". Its such an absurd position I really wonder
if these people are really living in such a bubble hat they think they are Klall
Yisroel and everyone else must follow them.
People see things differently. Live with it. Until you can give me a decent reason to say
the Mi Sheberach in my shul, I see no reason to do it. The reason it is done
elsewhere has nothing to do with Ahavas Yisroel or saving Jews - for if so, ALL
Jews in danger would be treated equally - but rather a loyalty to the Medinah
that entails the provision of a special status to those Jews who serve it, above
all the other Jews in the world who are in equal or more danger, and whose
Tefilos and Torah learning in the face of that danger protects us all from our
enemies, as much as the chayalim. That's pure Zionism, and it has nothing to do
with me.
shmuel,
Jews are not allowed to give their lives for anything except to avoid the 3 Cardinal sins
[note from Moyshe: these are apostasy, sexual immorality, and murder].
You would not give your life to keep Shabbos. You would not give your life to keep Kosher. You
would not give your life to put on Tefillin.
Your life is more important to Hashem than any Mitzvah.
So what is your Heter to give your life for a Jewish State in Eretz Yisroel??????
Cant you see the anti-Torah attitude here? You are making Eretz Yisroel into an Avodah Zorah!
Please look and see - this is exactly why Zionism was considered Avodah Zorah by our Torah
leaders. Erezt Yisroel only has value within the context of the Torah. By saying
that you would sacrifice your life for Jews to own land in Eretz Yisroel is
giving ownership of EY religious value that is not within the Jewish religion,
because in the Jewish religion, your life has more value than ownership of land.
And that constitutes Avodah Zorah. ...
Absolutely real Avodah Zorah - see Rav Elchonon Wasserman in Ikvesa D'Meshicha. That is exactly
what he says.
If in the Jewish religion a certain act is prohibited but a person says he will do the act
for religious reasons then the religion he is following is clearly not
Judaism.
Its not as if he claims to have any Torah reason for being willing to extinguish a Jewish life
so Jews can own more land, its merely his imparting to owning the land some kind
of spiritual value that allows him to do this. In the Torah, there is no such
thing. He doesn't even claim to get this from the Torah. That equals real live
Avodah Zorah.
Even though people run after money and we call it "avodah zorah", they do not run after
money for religious reasons. If they would, then money would be a real,
live, Avodah Zorah.
The Zionists decided that the State would make Jews "like all nations" and end anti-semitism.
This of course, is baseless, and Kefirah against the Torah, since it attributes
the cause of anti-semitism to the Jews being different than other nations, the
opposite of the Torah's position.
Then, during the holocaust, they decided that having a State was the answer to prevent future
holocausts.
This, too, was based on the "nihiyeh k'chol hagoyim" heresy.
They allowed, and even caused, on purpose, tens of thousands, and maybe more - of Jews to be
killed in the Holocaust in order to be able to set up the claim that the Jews
"need" a homeland. Many Jews could have been saved by escaping to other
countries (who DID want to let them in, despite what the Zionist revisionists of
history say), but the Zionists sabotaged the rescue efforts, because if Jews can
be safe elsewhere, then who needs a Homeland? So in order to have their State
they allowed, and caused, countless Jews to be gassed and tortured.
Also significant (see Rav Hutner's article elsewhere in this forum) that at the
beginning of Hitler's power, he was perfectly willing to expel the Jews from
Germany and his "empire", not kill them. Influential, and perhaps vital, in
Hitler's decision to exterminate the Jews was the Arab Mufti of Jerusalem, whose
rule in Palestine was threatened but the massive impending influx of Jews from
Europe to Palestine.
So he influenced Hitler to kill the Jews instead of sending them away. Even if Hitler
would have done this on his own, the fact that the Mufti caused the acceleration
of this decision on Hitler's part meant the deaths of countless Jews who would
have been spared, since the allies were destined to win the war, and the longer
Hitler's decision was postponed the more Jews would have ben saved.
Also influential was the Zionist threats boycotts against Hitler (Chaim Weitzman
"declared war" on Hitler in the name of Jewry!). Please see the literature
quoted in the anti-semitism part of this forum, that such actions only enraged
Hitler more and caused him to show that he will "win" the war against the Jews.
The Zionists had no interest in saving Jews. They had an interest in making a State. After
all of this, they revised history, and produced the lies that the State saved
lives, and the reason there was a holocaust was because there was no State, and
it was the Gedolei Yisroel who caused the deaths of the Jews by discouraging
emigration to Palestine etc. etc.
Its like a protection racket - I put you in danger then tell you that you need me to
protect you, or else.
The Zionists know this is so. Or rather, "knew". Today, their false version of history is
taught in all Modern Orthodox and Zionists institutions, and it is believed by
tens of thousands of innocent Jews who have grown up on this poisoned "mother's
milk." The reason it is so hard to tell Zionists that they are against the Torah
even though it is clear as day, is because they have this block in their head
that tells them "We need Israel or else there will be another holocaust".
Israel did not save us form a holocaust. Zionism was part of the cause, in the sense that Jews
could have been saved in numerous ways if not for their direct efforts, as well
as the effects of their threats and boycotts that enraged the enemy, as well as
the making a deadly enemy out of the Mufti (who, prior to the Zionist threat to
his regime, got along peacefully with the Jews in the Old Yishuv - see Rav
Hutner quoted above).
The more level headed ones - such as Rav Soloveichik and others - concede that the State causes
deaths of Jews but it is "worthwhile."
And beside all of this, we are not talking about making a State, we are talking about the above
poster's religious position that he would gladly give his life for the State.
For Shabbos, he would not give his life; for Kashrus, also not. But for the
State, he would. That is plain Avodah Zorah. Even Eretz Yisroel can become an
Avodah Zorah if you wrench it out of its Judaic context and give it your own,
Nationalistic one, complete with new "halachos" and values, such as "dying for
your homeland."
Question: “What do you mean, the Zionists sabotaged rescue efforts? I never learned that!”
Please see Min HaMetzar of R. Michoel Dov Weissmandel, and the other sources quoted in these
forums, that the Zionists lobbied other nations NOT to let the Jews in when they
wanted to, and refused opportunities to have Jews ransomed from Germany unless
they go to Palestine. Either they go to Palestine or let them die in the gas
chambers, was their answer, when there was an opportunity to send Jews form
Germany to France for money. There are several such instances. The Zionists
wanted Jews to be killed and unsafe all over the world because then they would
be forced to create a Jewish State. To this end, they did their best to make
sure that Jews would not be able to be safe anywhere unless they came to
Palestine.
As I said, the Gedolei Yisroel were against creating a State of Israel, and this includes
Lubavitch. In fact, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Sholom Ber ZTL was one of the
most extreme and outspoken opponents of the State of Israel, for many reasons,
but first an foremost, because it is against the Oaths that G-d made us swear to
wait for Moshiach before we take Eretz Yisroel.
In a famous letter (printed in Ohr Layeshorim p.57) the Rebbe Rav Sholom Ber ZTL writes:
"Regarding the Zionists and their camp, I will answer in short: First, even if they were
followers of Hashem and His Torah, and even if they will be successful in their
goal [of creating a Jewish State], we cannot listen to them in this, to make a
redemption by our own power, for isn't it true that we are even not allowed to
"put pressure" to bring the time of redemption by praying too much for it (as
Rashi says in Kesuvos 111a, see also Medrash Rabbah Shir Hashirim 2 "I made you
swear.." [i.e. the Oaths - MOD]), all the more so with actions and physical
means. That is, we are not permitted to leave the Golus through our own power.
Not from this [creating a State] will come our redemption and freedom, and
especially since this is against our real desire, for our entire desire and hope
is for Hashem to bring Moshiach speedily in our days (Amen) and the Geulah will
be through Hashem Himself, as the Medrash says, that even a redemption by Moshe
Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen will not last, all the more so a Geull by Chanaya
Mishael and Azaryah ... and in this current Golus we have to wait only for our
redemption and our salvation from Hashem Himself, not through human beings ...
"Signed, your true friend, who is waiting for G-d’s salvation soon ... Sholom Dov Ber"
The next Lubavitcher Rebbe was equally opposed to the Jewish State.
The last Lubavithcer Rebbe, however, changed the tradition of his predecessors in this
issue as well, and, although he could obviously never say that he is in favor of
the State of Israel, for anyone who says that was branded total persona non
grata by Lubavitch tradition - he kind of avoided the poetically incorrect (but
Halahcicly correct) view of his predecessors. I found the following description
of the Lubavithcer Rebbe's change in his tradition on a Lubavitch website
(http://www.chabadonline.com/scripts/tgij/paper/Article.asp?ArticleID=1263)
"Although the previous two Lubavitcher Rebbes were fierce opponents of political Zionism,
there is a letter from 1959 in which the Rebbe responds with great respect to
"His Excellency, Mr. David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel."
"The Rebbe, who modified the Lubavitch stance from anti-Zionist to non-Zionist,
maintained a warm correspondence with Ben-Gurion, even when having one early
exchange about the "Who is a Jew" debate that exploded some 30 years later."
(emphasis mine)
This was one of the great claims that the Satmar Rebbe ZTL had against the last Lubavitcher
Rebbe, that he refused to take a stand on this issue, which was so important to
his predecessors the previous Lubavitcher Rebbes, and instead chose to be very
politically correct and wishy washy.
I mentioned in the Other / Lubavitch forum that a writer once asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe
(Rabbi Menachem Mendel) point blank "what do you think of the Satmar Rebbe's
views on the State of Israel?"
The Lubavitcher Rebbe was in a corner and avoided the question. He said "What difference does it
make what I think of the views of a man I don't know about a place I have never
been?" He added, that the issue does not concern him.
SO of course, officially Lubavitch is very anti-Zionist, and anti-State of Israel. You will
never ever see a Israeli flag or a Yom Hatzmaut celebration in Lubavitch (I
hope. Though nowadays you never know). But you will also not hear them ever
repeat the stance of traditional Lubavich before it was "modified" by the past
Rebbe and became politically correct.
I once saw an article in "Midstream", a Conservative magazine, taking Lubavitch to task for
"hiding" from the non-religious Jews that they are so buddy-buddy with, the fact
that they are so very anti-Zionist. If the non-religious would know this about
them, the magazine charged, they would never follow Lubavitch.
They are probably right, and that is probably the reason why the lubavithcer Rebbe
"modified" the Lubavitch hashkofo. Or at the very least, he made sure never to
commit himself to it on the record.
As far as rabbis who hold that the land is ours and we have to kick out all the Arabs,
those are two things. That the land is ours cuz G-d "gave it to us" via
"miracles" is total religious Zionist philosophy. Nobody else including
Lubavitch holds like this. And to throw out the Arabs, well, the first to say
that was Teddy Herzl in his diary (1895), followed by the so-called "iron wall"
approach by Jabotinsky, and lastly, Meyer Kahane. The Lubavithcer Rebbe never
said such a thing. Not even the last one.
Its not so hidden - that's what Hashem gave us Gedolim for - to point out things in Torah
that we, who don't know how to learn as well, miss. This is a small but decent
example of what makes Rav Shach ZTL a Godol Hador as opposed to the rabbis who
signed that letter [Moyshe’s note: Letter from Lubavitcher rabbis supporting
Jewish military action in Israel].
Learning is not merely collecting information. It involves understanding it deep and sharp as
well. And the Torah is as infinite as Hashem, so there is no limit to its depth.
One of the things that put Rav Shach ZTL above and beyond his contemporaries was his
ability to point out to us things in Torah that we miss. This case is a very
simple but useful example:
The Halachah says that if a goy comes to steal from you, you are allowed to assume he is such
a Rasha that he will also kill you, because the fact that he is willing to rob
innocent people shows what kind of person he is.
Now at first glance that may look applicable to our situation in Israel today; and that is
what the Lubavithcer rabbis (and also the Rebbe) see.
But if you are a bigger lamdan than they are you will reason:
(1) If the reasoning behind the Halachah is because a robber is so evil, then obviously it
applies only to someone who wants to rob someone, but not to someone who was
robbed and is sneaking in to the robbers house to take back what was
robbed from him. Such a person is not as evil as a robber.
(2) If that is true, then if someone believes he was robbed and that the item he is
stealing is his, and he is trying to retrieve what he believes is his, then even
if he is mistaken and it is not his, the halachah would not apply. Since the
halachah is based on the fact of his willingness to steal from others, you have
no proof that such a person is willing to steal form others. Or at least, that
in this particular instance, he is willing to steal from you.
(3) If so, then the Arabs, who clearly believe, rightfully or wrongfully, that the land is
theirs, do not fall into the category of people in that Halachah, which is,
someone who wants to take something that he knows is not his.
Its pretty simple, and the rabbis in Lubavitch cannot see this because due to their
unfortunate state of Hashkofo and personal sinah, they will not accept Torah
from Rav Shach ZTL, even though all he did was point out to them the error of
their ideas.
Hashem gave us Torah which is hard to decipher - that's a problem - , but He also gave us
Gedolim to decipher that Torah for us - that's the solution. If someone cuts
themselves off from the Gedolei Hador, like Chabad did, they will be left with
the problem but no solution.
So while the whole world sees that the idea of those Chabad rabbis is a mistake, they will
not change, because NOT admitting that Rav Shach caught them at a mistake is
more important to them than following the proper path.
Question: Why can’t the Lubavitch stance be justified on
the basis of pikuach nefesh?
Because it is not at all clear that striking a deal is not better than sticking it out and
continuing the deaths forever r"l, even though the Zionists claim it is so, and
two, that is even from this-worldly point of view; but we are also told by
Chazal that when engaged in a nation vs. nation type of confrontation in Golus,
Jews will gain by retreating and running, not confronting or even defending. SO,
as Rav Elchonon Waserman writes, judging national tactics in Golus by
conventional political standards used for Non-Golus nations is like measuring
distance by the quart, or weight by the mile.
Mod, how can we trust the leaders of the State of Israel when they tell us that a war is
necessary? They are not religious and as such have no ne'emanus according to
halachah. And the article you cited from Rav Hutner clearly shows that they are
in the habit of lying to the Jewish people in order to further their own
political agendas regarding Pikuach Nefesh issues,, even to the point of
rewriting Holocaust history. And then we see that they are even willing to have
Jews killed in order to further their political agendas, like they did in the
holocaust, and then turn things around and blame it on the Gedolim. So if they
are willing to kill Jews and lie to Jews and they have no reliability halachicly
anyway, then how can any soldier go to war and risk his life, as well as being
willing to kill others, based on the word of these Jews liars and criminals?
Mod: You are absolutely correct. We cannot trust them. They have lied to us in the past,
causing countless deaths of Jews for their own political agendas or dreams of a
"Greater Israel", while making us believe that there was a need to save Jewish
lives living in the country. Please see Rav Shach's letter posted in the
"Zionism" topic in this forum. We have no reason to believe them when they say
that they "need" to send Jews to war. They may or may not need it, you'll never
know.
Their own generals have admitted this.
When Israel attacked Syria, they claimed that Syria was a serious threat to their security
and thus to the lives of the Jews living in Israel. Moshe Dayan, who was the
Defense Minister in 1967, explained, 10 years later, that the whole idea was a
scam - Syria was not a threat to Israel before 1967. Quote: "I know how at least
80% of the incidents with Syria started. We were sending a tractor to the
demilitarized zone and we knew the Syrians would shoot." Dayan said that the
reason Israel attacked Syria was a desire for more land, not to save any lives
at all. The strategy was (agains quote): "to grab a piece of land and keep it
until the enemy will get tired and give it to us" (Yediot Achronot 4/27/77).
And from another one: “The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June
1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff,
which was born and developed after the war.” (Israeli Gen. Matityahu Peled,
Ha’aretz, 3/19/72.)
So they want more land and send Jewish lives into war, while telling the people
that they are doing so for security reasons.
Sending Jews into such a war is nothing less than murder.
And even where a war may be for security reasons, writes Rav Shach, you never know if the war
could have been avoided and security could have been attained by peaceful means.
What they say doesn't mean anything.
Comment: “In the end a soldier will, in the larger picture of things, be saving Jewish lives,
and I think as long he's doing that L'Shaim Shamayim, and not because some
"liars and criminals" said so, it's ok.”
Answer: Your assumption that he will be saving lives in the larger picture of things is what
is in question here. A war for territory or conquest causes loss of lives, even
if it may cause the possession of land. Sending Jews in to such a war to die and
to kill is nothing but murder, and we should oppose those who do such things.
And if the war is not valid Halachicly then it doesn't matter if you do it "l'shem shamayim" -
you have no right to put your own life or the lives of others in danger because
of some idealism. And if Hashem says it is wrong, then which "shamayim" are you
doing it "l'shem"??
More importantly, what we "think" is not good enough to permit the spilling of Jewish
blood. Please note that people who would not dare to answer anything more than
"I don't know" when you ask them to Pasken sheailos about Milchiger dishes
washed with Fleishige sponges, or business law, gladly have opinions about the
Halachic validity of sending Jews to the deaths. That is an incongruity caused
by the Yetzer Horah.
Comment: “As far as I am aware (please tell me if I'm wrong), at the moment the Israeli army
is *not* working at conquering more land, but rather trying to stem the ghastly
flow of suicide bombers. I believe that at least, is a valid fight.”
Answer: That's what the Israelis say. Most of them, anyway - not all. Who knows if its true?
There are others who say - even in the government - that the current activity in the
territories is punitive, designed to "punish" the Palestinians in retaliation
for the bombings, as opposed to merely weeding out terrorists. If this is true,
then their actions, as per logic as well as Chazal's rule of Hisgarus B'Umos
will most likely just enrage the Palestinians more, generate more Palestinian
nationalism and prove to the Palestinians that the Israelis are tyrants, which
will just generate more bombings, in both the short and long term, continuing
the cycle of violence and bloodshed and deaths of Jews.
There are those who say - even in Israel - that the activities are excessive, and include things
that should not be done, and are being done only to "show the Palestinians who's
boss", to beat them into submission. If that's true, then it will do more bad
than good.
Political motives - and the emotional demands of an understandably, unfortunately
desperate and hurting Israeli population (a voting population!) to their
leadership to do something about the terror. And political ambition - the desire
for votes and the loyalty of his party - plays a role.
Then there's the issue of the "Greater Israel" - "redeeming the land" - and all that Zionist
stuff. Those ppl hold that its worth losing lives to maintain territory.
Meaning, they will make settlements even if those settlements cause the loss of
lives by enraging the Palestinians more, and they will attack even if it will
cost lives of soldiers as well as encourage other terrorist activity because its
worth it if they can be bosses over all of Greater Israel.
Then there are the more critical people who say that Sharon is just trying to instigate the
Palestinians in order to make an excuse for an all-out war designed to get rid
of all of them.
All these things may be factors in the decision to wage war. How in the world can we know
what the truth is? Certainly the world of these politicians - atheists with no
love for Klall Yisroel but much love for their political careers and their
values that run contrary to the values of the Torah - doesn't prove anything.
And their words are all we can go on.
And even after all that, the bigger question is: Was there a way to avoid the bloodshed,
even if it means giving back something? That is the big question. And if the
answer is "yes" then going to war is simple murder of Jews.
And the people who are in charge of those decisions cannot be relied upon to make them
properly.
The following is from the great Tzadik, Rav Michoel Ber Weismandle ZTVKL, who dedicated his
life to saving Jews from the Holocaust. He also spent much time trying to negate
the efforts of the Zionists to prevent Jews from being saved, because if Jews
are saved from the Holocaust and do not go to Israel, then it would show that
there is not such a need for a Jewish State. So the Zionists put in much effort
and were successful in making sure that other countries do not let in Jews, in
order to "prove" that Israel is needed. This is well established history, that
the Israelis revisioned after the war. The sources are not anti-semitic, but
rather Torah sources. All of our Gedolim agree that this happened. As do the
secular books. Only the pro-Israel/Zionist history is different. Rav Weismandle
was a Tzadik Yesod Olam. These are his words of anguish:
TEN QUESTIONS OT THE ZIONISTS
1. IS IT TRUE that in 1941 and again in 1942, the German Gestapo offered all European Jews
transit to Spain, if they would relinquish all their property in Germany and
Occupied France; on condition that:
a) none of the deportees travel from Spain to Palestine; and
b) all the deportees be transported from Spain to the USA or British colonies,
and there to remain; with entry visas to be arranged by the Jews living there;
and
c) $1000.00 ransom for each family to be furnished by the Agency, payable upon
the arrival of the family at the Spanish border at the rate of 1000 families
daily.
2. IS IT TRUE that the Zionist leaders in Switzerland and Turkey received this offer with the
clear understanding that the exclusion of Palestine as a destination for the
deportees was based on an agreement between the Gestapo and the Mufti.
3. IS IT TRUE that the answer of the Zionist leaders was negative, with the following
comments:
a) ONLY Palestine would be considered as a destination for the deportees.
b) The European Jews must accede to suffering and death greater in measure than
the other nations, in order that the victorious allies agree to a "Jewish State"
at the end of the war.
c) No ransom will be paid
4. IS IT TRUE that this response to the Gestapo's offer was made with the full knowledge that
the alternative to this offer was the gas chamber.
5. IS IT TRUE that in 1944, at the time of the Hungarian deportations, a similar offer was
made, whereby all Hungarian Jewry could be saved.
6. IS IT TRUE that the same Zionist hierarchy again refused this offer (after the gas chambers
had already taken a toll of millions).
7. IS IT TRUE that during the height of the killings in the war, 270 Members of the British
Parliament proposed to evacuate 500,000 Jews from Europe, and resettle them in
British colonies, as a part of diplomatic negotiations with Germany.
8. IS IT TRUE that this offer was rejected by the Zionist leaders with the observation "Only
to Palestine!"
9 IS IT TRUE hat the British government granted visas to 300 rabbis and their families to the
Colony of Mauritius, with passage for the evacuees through Turkey. The "Jewish
Agency" leaders sabotaged this plan with the observation that the plan was
disloyal to Palestine, and the 300 rabbis and their families should be gassed.
10. IS IT TRUE that during the course of the negotiations mentioned above, Chaim Weizman, the
first "Jewish statesman" stated: "The most valuable part of the Jewish nation is
already in Palestine, and those Jews living outside Palestine are not too
important". Weizman's cohort, Greenbaum, amplified this statement with the
observation "One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Europe".
There are additional similar questions to be asked of these atheist degenerates known as
"Jewish statesmen", but for the time being let them respond to the ten
questions.
These Zionist "statesmen" with their great foresight, sought to bring an end two two-thousand
years of Divinely ordained Jewish subservience and political tractability. With
their offensive militancy, they fanned the fires of anti-Semitism in Europe, and
succeeded in forging a bond of Jew-hatred between Nazi-Germany and the
surrounding countries.
These are the "statesmen" who organized the irresponsible boycott against Germany in 1933.
This boycott hurt Germany like a fly attacking an elephant - but it brought
calamity upon the Jews of Europe. At a time when America and England were at
peace with the mad-dog Hitler, the Zionist "statesmen" forsook the only
plausible method of political amenability; and with their boycott incensed the
leader of Germany to a frenzy. And then, after the bitterest episode in Jewish
history, these Zionist "statesmen" lured the broken refugees in the DP camps to
remain in hunger and deprivation, and to refuse relocation to any place but
Palestine; only for the purpose of building their State.
The Zionist "statesmen" have incited and continue to incite an embittered Jewish youth to
futile wars against world powers like England, and against masses of hundreds of
millions of Arabs.
AND THESE SAME ZIONIST "STATESMEN" HEEDLESSLY PUSH THE WORLD TO THE BRINK OF ANOTHER TOTAL WAR
- REVOLVING ENTIRELY AROUND THE HOLY LAND.
What may befall the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, of the Arab crescent, Europe, or the USA;
is of no concern to these Zionist leaders. The rising anti-Semitism in the
Western World is the product of their "statesmanship".
Under the guise of "love of Israel", the Zionist "statesmen" seduced many Jews to replace
devotion to the Torah and its Sages with devotion to the scoundrel who founded
Zionism. It is of no little significance that Herzl originally sought conversion
of the Jews as a solution to the problems of the Diaspora. When he realized that
this was not acceptable to the Jewish masses, he contrived Zionism as a
satisfactory alternative!
A look into history reveals that this very same type of "statesmen" opposed the call of
Jeremiah the prophet to yield to the minions of Nebuchadnezzar at the
destruction of the first Temple. Five centuries later, Rabbi Yochonon Ben Zakai
appealed to the people to surrender to Titus the Roman to avoid bloodshed. The
"statesmen" rejected this appeal, and the second Temple was destroyed by the
Romans. - And now for the past fifty years, the Zionist "statesmen" rebuff the
leadership of our Sages; and continue in their policy of fomenting
anti-Semitism. When will they stop?? Must every Jew in America also suffer?? -
Even the Nazi monsters had more sense, and gave up their war before all Germany
was destroyed. The Zionist "statesmen" ridicule the sacred oath which the
Creator placed upon the Jews in the Diaspora. Our Torah, in Tractate Kesuvos,
folio 111, specifies that the Creator, blessed be He, enswore the Jews not to
occupy the Holy Land by force, even if it appears that they have the force to do
so; and not rebel against the Nations. And the Creator warned that if His oath
be desecrated, Jewish flesh would be "open property", like the animals in the
forest!! These are words of our Torah; and these concepts have been cited in
Maimonides' "Igeres Teimon", "Be'er HaGola", "Ahavas Yehonosson", and in "Toras
Moshe" of the Chasam Sofer.
IT IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT ALL THE SAGES AND SAINTS IN EUROPE AT THE TIME OF HITLER'S RISE
DECLARED THAT HE WAS A MESSENGER OF DIVINE WRATH, SENT TO CHASTEN THE JEWS
BECAUSE OF THE BITTER APOSTASY OF ZIONISM AGAINST THE BELIEF IN THE EVENTUAL
MESSIANIC REDEMPTION.
Yidden - merciful sons of merciful fathers - how much longer must holy Jewish blood
continue to be shed??
The only solution is:
1.The Jewish people must reject, outright, a "Jewish State".
2.The Jewish people should accept the US compromise.
3.We must depose the atheist-Zionist "statesmen" from their role as Jewish leaders, and
return to the faithful leadership of our sages.
4.We beseech the Nations to open all doors to immigration - not only the doors of Palestine.
5.Peaceful, non-Zionist religious personalities in Palestine, (particularly from the native
population) and their counterparts in the Diaspora, should engage in
responsible, face-to face negotiations on behalf of the Jewish people, with the
British and the Arabs; with an aim of amicable settlement of the Palestine
issue.
Every Jew is obliged to pray to the Blessed creator, for in Him lies all our
strength. Let us bear in mind that our prayers be forthright. One should not
entreat the Creator to provide a banquet on Yom Kippur, and one can not perform
a ritual ablution with a dead bug in his hand. Similarly, we should avoid the
untenable position of the robber who prays for Divine help in carrying out his
crime. We should pray that Zionism and its fruits vanish from the Earth, and
that we be redeemed by the Messiah with dispatch.
A prisoner is released only when he has served his time, or if he is pardoned by the President
for good behavior. If he attempts escape and is apprehended, his term is
lengthened, besides the beating he receives when he is caught.
Faithful Jews - for over three and one-half thousand years, in all parts of the world, through
all trials, our grandfathers and grandmothers marched through seas of blood and
tears in order to keep the Faith of the Torah unswervingly. If we have
compassion for ourselves, for our women and children, and for the Jewish people,
we will maintain our golden legacy today. We have been sentenced to exile by the
King of Kings because of our sins. The eternal blessed be He, has decreed that
we accept the exile with humble gratitude until the time comes, or until we
merit His pardon through repentance if we seek to end the exile with force, G-d
will catch us, as our sages have forewarned, and our sentence becomes longer and
more difficult.
Many times in the past have segments of our people been defrauded by false messiahs - but none
of the false messiahs has been as fallacious and delusory as the lie of Zionism.
With our historical experience as our guide, no retribution has been or will be
greater than the retribution for giving credence to Zionism. If we wish our
exile-sentence commuted, we must appeal through repentance; and through total
physical and spiritual observance of the Sabbath, laws of family purity, and
study of Torah.
Let it be clearly understood that never in Jewish history (even in the time of Jeroboam or
Achav) have such hostile atheists stood at the helm of the Jewish people as
today.
How can we plead to the Almighty for mercy while we tolerate these vile, "wicked" leaders
as spokesmen! Beloved brothers - let us cleanse our ranks and cleanse our midst;
let us entreat the Almighty through prayer, repentance, and fulfillment of
mitzvos that He alone redeem us, His people, immediately.
May Hashem our G-d avenge the blood of all those who perished in the Holocaust !
May we merit to see them once again with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our
days !
TORAH PROBLEMS With Zionism:
I heard a story about Rav Kook. Once when Rav Kook came to America to speak at a mizrachi
fundraiser he slept over by a rosh yeshiva's house (non-mizrachi). At the dinner
the people asked him how he can sleep over by someone who disagrees with him and
this was Rav Kook's (paraphrased) reply.
With you, I agree on one mitzvah, but we disagree on 612 others, with him I
agree on 612 and argue only on one.
Out of 613, is it a really big deal to argue on one or two?
Moderator’s answer:
It depends. Sometimes disagreeing on one mitzvah can make you an Apikores. Depends on what
you mean by disagree, why you disagree, and the method that was used to arrive
at the disagreement. Example: There is a shitah in the Gemora (R. Hillel,
Sanhedrin 109b) who holds Moshiach isn't coming! The Sefer HaIkarim (Ch. 1) says
he was not an Apikores; yet the Divrei Chaim (YD 105) rules that if someone says
that the Ohr HaChaim's commentary on Chumash was not written with Ruach haKodesh,
he is an Apikores!
But I don't see what this has to do with the question someone asked, and my answer. The question
was is it right or wrong and I said it was wrong. What does this have to do with
the lesson of your story?
As for the story itself, assuming Rav kook was talking about Zionism, I don't understand
what Mitzvah of the 613 he was referring to. If he means the Mitzvah of living
in Eretz Yisroel and the disagreement is whether it applies nowadays, that is
not the issue.
The issue is the oath that Hashem made us swear that we will not violate the integrity of the
Golus by taking Eretz Yisroel before Moshiach comes. That means making it a
Jewish nation. The Mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisroel is fulfilled if you live
in Eretz Yisroel whether or not it is a Jewish nation. So you can hold the
Mitzvah of Yishuv Eretz Yisroel applies nowadays and still be against Zionism.
One has zero to do with the other. It is a popular scam to try to connect the
mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisroel, which is referring to individuals living
there under whatever government happens to own it at the time, to Zionism which
means that Jews should own it. They have zero to do with each other.
Everyone wants the Golus to end. Prayers of return to Eretz Yisroel have nothing to do with
Zionism either. The objection to Zionism is not that they want the Golus to end
but rather they have jumped the gun by doing what is only permitted after Golus
is over while it still is not. It is the same sin that was committed by the
tribe of Efraim when they left Egypt early. Everyone wanted to leave Egypt. But
because they left before the time, they were hunted down and completely
annihilated in the desert. Even though they "only disagreed" about one issue.
It's like having a patient on a life support system. We all pray and say tehillim for him
to recover. We cry and do whatever we can to cure him. But nobody will dare
unplug the life support before he is ready. That's killing him.
So too with the Golus. There is a purpose to the Golus. The ultimate purpose of the world is the
days of Moshiach. Everything until then, including Golus, is preparation. Jews
need to be dispersed all over the world in order to sanctify it all, which
prepares it for Moshiach.
The Golus is like a life support system for the world. We all want it to end, but someone who
says "Hey! You've been praying 2,000 years for Eretz Yisroel, now's your chance
to take it!" is like someone who comes into a hospital and sees everyone
praying.
"What are you praying for?" he asks.
"For the choleh to get off his life support system", they answer.
"Foolish people! Why are you praying so much? Just watch! I can do it!" says the man.
And he goes over to the machine pulls out the plug and says "See? Your prayers have been
answered!".
That's Zionism. It's pulling the plug on Golus before the right time. If Jews do this, the
Gemora says, Jews will die. "Hunted down like animals" is the exact quote. And
it's happened in the past, to the Bnei Efraim.
None of this has anything to do with any of the 613 Mitzvos.
Not everything Hashem allows He approves of. G-d allowed 6,000,000 Jews to be murdered not long
ago, yet would you say that means G-d supports Hitler c"v?
That's first of all. Second, I do not agree that the wars were Nisim. Nisim are not things that
happen against tremendous odds. Nissim are when something happens against the
laws of nature. So in other words if someone falls off a roof and lands on the
only bush on the block, that's not a Ness. If he falls off the roof and starts
flying, that's a Ness. The odds of the NY Mets winning the 1969 World Series was
a lot less than the IDF winning their wars. Yet nobody would claim that was a
Ness.
But that is really not the point. It doesn't matter if the victories were Nissim or not,
because Nissim do not prove anything. The Gemora in Avodah Zarah says that sick
idol worshippers used to get cured through miracles done by their priests. The
Gemora says that Hashem allows it because "haba l'tameh poschin lo" - someone
who wants to do wrong is given opportunity to do so.
Sometimes, as in the above case, miracles are designed as Nisyonos - tests to tempt us to go
off the derech. These Nissim are usually done on behalf of evil doers, and our
response is supposed to be "Even though a miracle was done for these people, it
is the Yetzer Horah that has been allowed to perform this miracle, and I am not
impressed."
When the opponents of the Ramchal heard about his supernatural experiences, they were not
impressed. "Maybe the miracles are from the Satan", they said.
The Ramchal answered that the Satan's miracles are designed to seduce people into believing
in ideals that are against the Torah. Therefore, if a miraculous revelation of
torah knowledge happens - which is what the Ramchal experienced - it makes no
sense that such a miracle would come from the Satan.
But chas v'shalom, we should never ever use the fact that a miracle was done for someone
as "proof" that G-d supports them. That's precisely what the Satan is trying to
make you do.
Example: Chazal say that the Dor Haflagah shot arrows into the air to "attack Hashem." These
arrows came down soaked with blood. They therefore thought that they had
successfully shot G-d.
This was clearly a miracle. It was not "kishef" -- for the evil doers themselves were
fooled. so who was doing the kishef? But the miracle implied a lie. Nobody can
shoot G-d. So what happened?
Obviously, the Yetzer Horah was given permission to seduce these archers into thinking they
killed Hashem. This was their Nisayon.
Throughout history, evil doers have had miracles performed for them. I remember shortly
after the Gulf War I was in Israel attending a Kiruv session, where a
representative from one of the largest Baalei Teshuva Yeshivos spoke for a group
of non-frum Jews.
He spoke about the "Nissim" of how the scuds fall on Israel but didn't kill anyone, and that
they should be impressed by this.
It was the wrong thing to say, and he got his head handed to him. A little guy with a
mustache visiting Israel from Australia raised his hand and said that before
coming to Israel he was visiting Saudi Arabia, and there he attended an Arab "kiruv"
session, where they also spoke about "miracles."
They mentioned a time where Arafat's little private plane crashed, blew up, and killed every
single one of the passengers except him. He walked out of the wreck. (I remember
when this happened - it was about 1990).
There were numerous such incidents where Arafat was miraculously saved from his blown up
boat, and where he evaded a fleet of fighter jets by losing them by driving away
in a Volkswagon.
At least some of these stories I know to be true.
So what's the point?
The Arabs' point was "See? G-d is on our side!"
The answer is that G-d allows evil doers to have their share of miracles, too. Not through
Kishef, but through Nissim. But these are Nissim, as the Ramchal says, performed
by the Satan to seduce us into believing anti-Torah ideals.
Miracles do not prove what side Hashem is on.
The Jews who stayed in Bavel - I assume you mean the Tultilians - were justified in doing so.
They sent Ezra a letter explaining that they their not going to Eretz Yisroel
was not due to any religious inadequacy. Ezra accepted their letter, and we have
actually made it into one of our daily prayers -- that is, Emes Vayatziv. That
was the text of the message sent by the people of Tultilia to Ezra, telling them
that despite their not going to Eretz Yisroel with him, they too know that the
Torah is "Emes vayatziv ..."
We are using the word "ness" in two different ways. Everything that happens in the world is a
"ness", but it is not the same as a "ness" that breaks the rules of nature, and
even within that catagory of "ness" there are different levels.
***
The miracle of Chanukah of "rabim b'yad m'atim" was not merely the underdog army beating the
stronger army. The Chashmonaim consisted of about ONE DOZEN people, who routed
the entire Greek-Syrian army. That's a miracle.
There are other opinions of the quantity of Chashmonayim army, as well as opinions about our
being assisted by non-Jewish troops as well. But everyone agrees that it was
more than just a weaker army beating a stronger one, but rather a ridiculously
impossible espisode that could not have happened al pi derech hatevah.
On Purim, too, it wasn't the unlikelihood of what happend that told us it was a Ness, but
rather the Neviiim and the tradition that Chazal say we had throughout the
generations that Hashem would make a Ness for us on purim that told us that what
happend was a Ness. Meaning, it was not suppsoed to happen according to the way
hashem set up the world, and Hashem "changed His plans" in order to save us.
When people say "it was such a ness" it is a figure of speech, not really a Halachic ruling.
Often in our lives the Hand of G-d is clear as day. There are things that happen
to us that make it clear that Hashem runs the world. But that does not
constitute a Ness. Not the l'mmalah min hatevah type of ness, anyway.
You don't want every unlikely episode in your life to be a Ness. We try very hard to make sure
that our life is NOT governed by such Nissim. Nissim, Chazal say, reduce a
person's merits. When Hashem, makes a ness for you, you have just lost lots of
reward for Mitzvos. It's a very expensive proposition when Hashem bends His own
natural laws for us. So if it saves lives, it is worth it. Others say that is
the Ness makes a tremendous Kiddush Hashem, the merit that we incur by being
inspired to be more frum cancels out the merits that we lose from obtaining the
miracle. But like when someone gets a job in a very unlikely manner and they say
"it was mamesh a ness", he doesn't mean a real ness, and he doesn't want it to
be a ness, hopefully.
Even regarding the Ness of Chanukah, this principle applies. The Ramah rules that if you forget
to say Al HaNisim in Bentching on Chanukah, you should instead add afte
bentching the words "Harachamon hu yaaseh lanu nissim" - May the Merciful One do
miracles for us."
The Tevuos Shor disagrees. It's wrong to say such a thing, he says, since we do nto pray for
Hashem to make us miracles. His proof: The Mishna states that if a man prays for
his pregnant wife to have a boy, it is a useless prayer, since the gender of the
embyo is alrady determined in the mother's womb.
Asks the Tevuos Shor, but why can't he pray for the gender to miraculously change? Obviously, he
concludes, we do not pray for miracles to happen.
The Yeshuos Yaakov defend the Ramah against the Tevuos Shor's claim. It's true, he says,
that we don't ask for miracles. And the reason is because miracles reduce
person's merits.
But that's only miracles like a supernatural sex change of an embyo in a mother's womb. It's not
worth losing so much Olam Habbah to have a boy instead of a girl, which is all
anyoen gains from this Ness. But a ness like that which happened on Chanukah,
which was public and obvious to everyone, and therefore created such a Kiddush
hashem and such an inspiration that whatever merits we lost from the Ness we
gained back on our own merits.
So its a Machlokes whether to say that Horachamon. But everyone agrees that we do not
recognize, nor do we want, our everyday lives to be governed by supernatural
miracles. Every day, "natural" miracles are fine, but the miracles that disrupt
nature need some kind of justification for it to be worth the price....
Only a small amount of Jews - about 1,500 - went with Ezra to Eretz Yisroel. The rest did not. It is
possible that Coresh only gave permission to Yehuda to come back; or,
alternately, it is possible that Coresh did give all Jews permission to return,
but the rest of the Jews did not return because they held that the decree of 70
years of Golus and its current end (through prophesies and pesukim) only applied
to Bavel. And therefore, they did not go up to Eretz Yisroel with Ezra because -
this is a quote - "they did not want to end the time of Golus early".
So, first, the Jews knew the Golus was over because of the prophecy of 70 years. Second, even though
Coresh gave permission to all Jews to return, those to whom the prophecy and
pesukim that told them the golus was over did nto apply, refused to go back,
because that would be ending the golus early.
Besides this, there is a tremendous difference between the permission Coresh gave and the Balfour
declaration. That is, in Coresh's time, the ascent was not resisted by the
nations living in Eretz Yisroel at the time. As opposed to 148, where, although
it's nice that the British allowed the Jews to return, but the nations living in
the land at the time adamantly refused to allow it. The rebellion against the
nations in 1948 was not against England or China or Canada - it was taking the
land against the will of its then-residents. In fact, less than 24 hours after
the establishment of the State of Israel, the combined forces of the neighboring
Arab nations attacked them, creating such a bloodabth that 6,000 Jews were
killed in - which equalled one percent of every Jew living in Eretz Yisroel at
the time. Who says this is called a peaceful ascent?
Second, the Balfour declaration is NOT a blanked permission slip for the Jews to come and take over
Eretz Yisroel. Althoug htat's what the Zionists said then, they were told time
and time again - by the governments of the nations they wanted support from -
that it is not so. Please see the websites quoted in my post on Life / Other /
Israel / 9 February 2001 8:26.
1)Isn't the Gemara about the oaths Aggadda and not necessarily Halacha?
2)Isn't it only an individual opinion, not unanimously stated?
3)Isn't there an equally authoratative opinion elsewhere in the Gemara (I think
Sanhedrin 97) that the Jews will return to Eretz Yisroel BEFORE Moshiach
arrives?
Moderator:
1) No.
(a) By defintion, Halachah is something that it says you are prohibited to do. Here it
says you may not take Eretz Yisroel before Moshiach or else Hashem will allow
Goyim to kill Jews like animals. Thats Halachah.
(b) "It's Agadah" doesnt mean to ignore it. According to Rabbeinu Tam in Sefer Hayashar
Agada is binding unless it is against Halachah. And even according to the others
who hold Agada is not Halachicly binding per se, it surely reveals to us lesson
of what Hashem wants in this world. So if the Gemora says HASHEM DOES NOT WANT
YOU TO DO THIS OR ELSE YOU WILL DIE, even if it is not Halachicly binding, it
surely shows that doing it is not going to make Hashem happy.
(c) The Oaths are quoted L'Halachah in numerous sources, including but not limited to:
Responsa Rivash #110, Responsa Rashbash #2, Megilas Esther on Sefer HaMitzvos of
Rambam (#4 - Regarding whay the Rambam does not count the Mitzvah to live in
Eretz Yisroel in his list of Mitzvos), Ramban (Maamar HaGeulah #1 regarding why
all Jews outside of Bavel - the majority of Jews at the time - did not go to
Eretz Yisroel at Coresh's call), Rambam (Igeres Taimon - warning peple not to
violate the Oaths or else face grave danger), Maharal (Netzach Yisroel 24)
writes that even if the Goyim try to force us to take Eretz Yisroel for
ourselves during Golus, we must allow ourselves to be killed rather than take
violate the Oaths.
(d) The Bnei Efraim, who escaped from Egypt early, were all annihilated in the desert, Chazal
say, because they violated the Oaths. That clearly shows the results of
violating them.
2) No. The Oaths are stated unanimously. There is no opinion in the Gemora or Chazal
anywhere that disagrees.
3) No. On the contrary, Sanhedrim 98a says as long as Jews have governments or kingdoms,
Moshiach will not come.
5. Are you saying we Shouldn’t
Live In Eretz Yisroel At All?
Nobody says or ever said that you are not allowed to live in Israel. Even the Neturei Karta
lives in Israel!
No, no, no. The claims against Zionism arise primarily out of the violation of the Oaths that
say not to make Israel into a Jewish State until Moshiach comes. Or to "start"
the National return to Eretz Yisroel in any way.
During Golus, Jews are supposed to live all over the world. There are opinions in the Rishonim
(most well known is the Ramban) that there is a Mitzvah nowadays to live in
Eretz Yisroel, and there are equal and opposite opinions (most well known is the
Tosfos and, according to Megilas Esther, the Rambam) that say there is not
Mitzvah nowadays to live in Eretz Yisroel.
Every person needs to decide where he can serve Hashem best, adn thats where he should be,
whether nit be in Eretz Yisroel or elsewhere.
I once asked Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky ZTL if he holds there is a Mitzvah to live in Eretz
Yisroel nowadays. He said "Yes."
Then I asked him "So why are you living in Chutz La'Aretz?"
He said "What will be with the Yidden?" (meaning his Talmidim and those he has an influence on
here)
So I said "So tell them to go to Eretz Yisroel too!"
He answered, "Not everyone should go. Its easier to bring up children here. Especially
girls."
This was in 1978.
So of course not, nobody says you should leave Eretz Yisroel. It is great to live there. The
problem isnt living there - thats far from a problem! - the problem is making it
into a state or beginning a national, end-the-golus type of ascent.
[Saying that defeating our enemies was a ness] wont work either. First, even if it was a
Ness, and why in the world would you say it was a Ness since even the non-Jewish
governments such as USA predicted a possible win by Israel in that war and
something that is predictable according to nature is by definition not a Ness -
but even if it was, who's the "we" that was saved? Klall Yisroel? Nope. 6,000
Jews died in that war that would not have died if they woud not have tried to
wage it in the first place. Never miond all the jews that have been killed there
in the past 50 years - barring COmmunist Russia, they exceed the number of Jews
murdered everywhere else in the world put together in the past 1/2 century. So
who say you "won" the war? In terms of life, mre and more Jews are nebach
murdered in cold blood daily by the Arabs - bloodthirsty murderers - because the
land that they were occupying was taken from them by force. In terms of Jews
being saved, Yom HaAtzmaut caused just the opposite. Even the Zionists admit
this. Here is a quote from the "Five Addresses", by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik,
p.79:
"There has always existed a hatred of the Jew amongst the peoples of the world. Whoever was
in power, Esau or Yishmael, Christians or Moslems, they pursued us. Nonetheless,
in the history of jewish persecution the Moslems were always relatively better
then the Christians. We do nt find tragedies such as the Jewish martyrology at
the time of the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, or the Chmelnicky massacres,
in the annals of our communities in Islamic lands.
"The position has now been radically reversed. While among the Christians one hears voices of
soul searching, tens of millions of Moslems, in particular Arabs, have become
Amalekites and Nazis who have engraved on their banner the call: 'Come, let us
cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more a
remembrance" (Ps. 83,5) - far be it. it is unnecessary to dilate on this; we all
know the facts.
"What has brought about the wave of hatred that has engulfed the Moslem world? We all know
it is the founding of the State of Israel."
And the following is from a pamphlet called "Facts About Israel: History",
published by the Israel Information Center of the Israli Information Center in
the U.N., p.22:
"The Jewish national revival and the efforts of the Jewish community to rebuild the country
were opposed from the outset by extremem Arab nationalists. their strong
resentment erupted in periods of intense violence in 1920, 1921, 1929, and
1936-1939 . . . Attempts to reach a dialogue with the Arabs, undertaken early by
the Zionist endeavor, were ultimately unsuccessful. Henceforth, Zionism and Arab
nationalism were polarized into a potentially explosive situation. recognizing
the opposing aims of the two national movements, the British, who had already
once partitioned the territory under the Mandate (1922) recommended a further
partition (1937), dividing the land west of the Jordan River into two states,
one Jewish and one Arab. the jewish leadership accepted the idea of partition
and empowered the Jewish Agency to negotiate with the British government in an
effort to reformulate aspects of the proposal. The Arabs were uncompromisingly
opposed to any partition plan."
(See also the history of Jewish-Arab conflict in on these boards at:
http://bbs.shemayisrael.com/anything/Topic.asp?topic_id=239&forum_id=14&Topic_Title=Arabs&forum_title=Jews+and+the+Other+Nations
It's just that the Zionists hold its worth the price in blood to create a State. Rav
Soloveichik continues in the above speech to say if Israel becomes a religious
Jewish STate then it sworth the price in blood, but if not not.
But blood is definitely the price that we've paid for the State. And we continue to pay
today.
Rav Ovadaih Hadayah ZTL in Responsa Yaskil Avdi mentions this (in general)as a reason NOT to
say Hallel even if you believe in the State.
Secind, even those who "won" and survived the war are only those Jews who were in Eretz
Yisroel at the time - not all Jews in the world. That would NOT justify all Jews
saying Hallel. We only make naitonal Hallel-days when ALL of our nation was
saved. Clearly, the Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut is in "honor" of the founding of the
State of Israel, which is no reason to say Hallel.
Third, and most important, is that the victory of that war by Israel created the State of israel,
which according to the Torah should not ahve happened. So imagine sayign Hallel
on the day, for the occasion, of a successful rebellion against Hashem and His
Torah. Because the rebels succeeded in going against Hashem, you will say Hallel??
First, the Balfour declaration never promised us Israel as a Nation. Although the Zionists
said it did, they were told time and time again that it is not so. At
www.whistlestop.org/study_collections/israel/large/folder4/isd07-4.htm you will
find a letter from Freda Kirchwey to Chaim Weizman. The following is an excerpt
therefrom:
"The Jews based their claim to the right to go to Palestine on the Balfour Declaration....
"The question of a "national home" can be subject to many interpretations. it is hard to
bleieve that the British government, using the words "national home" in 1917 had
any idea that there shouold be created a Jewish State in Palestine withotu
regard to the rights of the large Arab majority living there".
Also, the following memo by Frank P. Corrigan, titled "Summary of the Palestime Problem"
at www.whistlestop.org/study_collections/israel/large/folder4/isd08-1.htm
"The legal claims stem first out of the Blafour Declaration. This was a political paper
that promised the Jews a 'home' where they might feel safe from persecutions
from which they had for centuries been the victims. CLosely examined, this does
not constitute much grounds for the legal establishment of a sovreign Jewish
State in Palestine. The Jews have read into it much more than it contains."
In fact, the Balfour Declaration was originally drafted by ther Zionists. They (July 1917)
wanted it to say, "His Majesty's government accpets the principle that Palestine
should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people.."
But Lord Balfour did not agree to that. What it said instead (October 1917) was "His
Majesty's government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people...".
A big difference. A 'national home' is not necessarily a sovereign state, and "in"
Palestine does not mean, as they wanted it to say, [all of] "Palestine".
Second, the UN is not a Sanhedrin Hagadol whose opinion has Halachic validity. The quesiton is,
the residents of the land at that time - vast majority were against the Jewish
State - the rebellion was against them, not the Americans or the Italians.
Moreover, the Maharal, Rav Yonason Eyebushitz and others state clearly that the Oaths fobid us
to take the land even if given to us willingly by the Nations. Maharal (Netzach
Yisroel 24) adds that even if the Nations try to make us take back Eretz Yisroel
during Golus, we should rather give our lives and die than actually take it from
them.
Rav Teichtel's treatment of the Megilas Esther is terribly incorrect and misleading.
He writes (p. 149, 150) that the Megilas Esther bases his opinion on Tosfos in Kesuvos 110b in the name
of Rabeinun Chaim that nowadays there is no Mitzvah to live in Eretz Yisroel.
Then he says:
"However, ALL THOSE WHO FOLLOWED TOSFOS REJECTED THE WORDS OF RABBEINU CHAIM FROM HALACHAH, see Shelal...."
Now he is correct that the Shelah disagrees with Tosfos, which makes it a Machlokes, which we all knew
before. There are those who reject the Tosfos, for sure. But his statement that
all subsequent authorites rejected Tosfos from Halachah is simply a joke. The
follwoing is a partial list of places where you see he just isnt telling the
truth:
(1) The Taz (EH 75) brings the Tosfos without mentioning any opposing positions,
indicating that he rules like Tosfos l'halachah
(2) Kneses Hagedolah (EH 7 Hag' BY 20) brings many poskim that rule l'halachah like Tosfos
(3) Noda Beyehuda (206) writes that the reason the Baalei Tosfos lived in Chutz La'Aretz and not Eretz
Yisroel was b/c they held l'halachah like Rabbeinu Chaim.
(4) Tumas Yeshorim 66 quoted in B'er Haitev EH 75 defends Tosfos' position l'halachah and says since
it is a legitimate Machlokes, nobody can demand that someone go to Eretz Yisroel
if he doesnt want to.
(5) Korban Nisanel (Kesuvos 110b) brings the Machlokes Tosfos and Rambam both as legitimate opinions
(6) Bais Shmuel (Even Haezer 75:20) brings both Tosfos and his opponents l'halachah.
Now these sources are not really big secrets. Its unlikely that Rabbi Teichtel
did not open a Shulchan Aruch to see the Taz and Piskei Tshuva etc. This is
simply more dishonesty, hiding information from the reader in order to come up
with his predetermined conclusion.
Please do not accept the Sefer Aim HaBanim Semeichah as a serious Halachic work.
[emphasis editor’s]
Are you saying that because we don't have prophets anymore we aren't allowed to have Eretz
Yisroel. Maybe Hashem wants us to but he doesn't communicate through prophecy
but shows it through the Jewish people winning the wars.
Answer: The halachah says differently. You can't change that.
Secondly, considering the fact that Israel has suffered an average of one war every 10
years of its existance, and that despite the fact that the Jews living in Israel
are much less in number than the Jews in chutz la'aretz, since the founding of
the State, more Jews were killed in Israel than everywhere else in the world put
together, terror is constant, with no end in sight, and the massive Chillul
Hashem committed and anti-Torah policies held by the government continues
unabated, I do not think that winning wars can be considered a conclusive sign
of Divine approval.
And what's winning a war mean anyway? It means, like in the War of Independence, that 6,000
Jews were slaughtered - a total of one out of every hundred Jews in the total
poluation - but the "war" was "won". Such victories hardly proclaim Divine
approbation.
World events can be read any way you like. They prove nothing, especially when the Torah
states clearly otherwise.
As far as benefitting from the crime, there are three opinions about this among our Geoldim.
1) Your opinion is that of the Satmar Rav ZT"L. Those who follow this opinion do not take any money from
the Israeli government, do not vote in the Israeli elections, and of course do
not participate in the government (which would make you an accessory after the
fact, according to them).
2) Rav Aharon Kotler ZT"L. Held that even though the Medinah should not have been made, now that it is
here, we cannot allow the non-religious to grasp the control and influence of so
many Jews, therey making it much worse. It is a Mitzvah, he held, to vote in the
elections, to particiapte in the government, and use whatever influence exists
out there to make sure that the Ratzon Hashem is not violated more than it
already has been.
3) The Brisker Rav ZT"L. Those who follow the Brisker Rav do not vote in the elections, do not take money
from the government, but do not consider doing so an outright aveirah. "Voting
in the Israel elections is not as big an Aveirah as the Satmar Rav holds and not
as big a Mitzvah as Rav Aharon holds," the Brisker Rav said.
Because the Torah prohibits it.
Secondly, the Zionists lobbied and fought hard to make sure no other countries would allowe
Jews in, so that they would later be able to claim that the Jews need a State.
They even sabotaged politically numerous attmepts to save Jews, such as the deal
Germany offered to ransom Jews for monet, and send them to Spain. The Zionists
repsonded that unless the refugees go to Israel, let them die. "Only thgourh
blood shall the land be ours" they said. Rav Michoel Ber Weissmandel ZTL, the
great hero of WWII records how he the Zionists allowed their own people to
escape and live, and purposely left other Jews to die. Their reason, they wrote,
was after the allies win the war, there will have to be a decision as to whether
to make a Jewish State, and unless many Jews die, it will be harder to convince
the world that they need a State of their own.
Jews have also been shot and killed purposely by Zionists, as in the sinking of the Altalena
and the murder of its passengers.
Since then, the Zionists have continued to devalue the lives of Jews who do not share their own
political views. Check out the following article:
Israel Denied Shelter to Left-wing Argentine Jews During Junta Rule
Hadashot (Israeli Hebrew newspaper), 28 Sept. 1990
The Israeli government could have saved hundreds of Argentine Jews, who were murdered or
kidnapped during the rule of the generals between 1976 and 1983, claims Marcel
Zohar in his book Let My People Go to Hell, soon to be published by Zitrin.
The military censor this week decided to at last permit the publication of the book, except
for several paragraphs which, so he claimed, might endanger certain person's
lives or harm Israel's relations with other countries. The publisher, Ben Zion
Zitrin, is about to offer the book to foreign publishing houses.
Zohar, who was Yedi'ot Aharonot [an Israeli evening newspaper] correspondent in Argentina
between 1978 and 1982, describes how the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency
and other official bodies refrained from processing immigration applications
from Jews with left-wing background, in order to preserve Israel's good business
and political links with the ruling junta. In the same period, arms sales worth
about one billion dollars were concluded between Israel and Argentina. According
to Zohar, both Likud and Labour leaders shared in the conspiracy of silence.
His book recounts the struggle which took place between Danny Rekanati, the immigration
official based in Argentina, and the Israeli ambassador, Ron Nergad. Rekanati
tried to help persecuted Jews escape from the country, while Nergad, according
to the book, complained about his activities. The unwritten instruction was to
refuse any help to Jews defined as 'too left-wing'.
The late Menahem Savidor, who was Knesset chairman at the time, admitted to Zohar that he
had prevented a public Knesset debate on the situation of Argentina's Jews at
the government's request in order not to harm Israel's crucial links with
Argentina. The prime ministers of the period covered, would not discuss the
book. Yigal Alon and Moshe Dayan, who were Israel's foreign ministers then, are
no longer alive. The foreign ministry refused to cooperate or to open its
archives for the period.
The famous, failed interdependancy"
Zionist wishful thinking about the Oaths is maybe the easiest of all Zionist
claims to expose as a fraud. For a drush it's cute, but as Halachah its just
ridiculous.
First, the comparison to all those Oaths you mentioned is silly. In all those cases, mutual Oaths were
made, by party "a" for the benefit of party "b" and by "b" for the benefit of
"a". So if "a" violates his oath which was supposed to benefit "b", then "b" can
violate theirs. It's a simple concept of making a deal - I'll help you if you
help me.
But the Oath that G-d gave us not to rebel against the Goyim was NOT for the sake of the Goyim, but
for our OWN sake, that we dont end Golus early. It says this in every single
interpretation in the commentaries about the Oath. It was not for the sake of
the Goyim but for us. So just because the Goyim violated their Oath and hurt us
does nto mean we can violate another one and hurt ourselves more!
But besides that there is no comparison between these Oaths and all the reciprocal Oaths found anywhere,
the whole idea is disproven by even a cursory glance at our Seforim:
Shevet Efraim left Egypt in violation of the Oaths. Egypt surely violated their
Oath when they tortured Jews for centuries. Yet Ephraim, Chazal say, were all
hunted down and killed in the desert for violating their Oath by leaving Egypt
early.
The Oaths are brought down l'halachah in Rishonim and Achronim as viable and very real. This, despite
the fact that the Goyim have been violating their Oath for thousands of years.
The Rambam in Igeres Taimon warns the Jews not to violate the Oaths, or else. He writes there that
the Jews are suffering an evil, persecuting government that commits atrocities
and wars against the Jews, and therefore the Jews should watch out not to
violate the Oath by rebelling against them. It's clear that even though the
Goyim violate their Oath we cannot violate ours.
The Medrash Aichah says clearly that the Romans violated their Oath, yet the generation of Bar Kochba
was punished Chazal say because they violated the Oaths.
The Maharal writes that even if the Goyim force us wuth torturous death to violate the Oath, we should
rather submit to torturous death than violate them.
And the Gemora itself disproves the idea, since the Gemora says that the reason Chazal commanded us
not to go from Bavel to Eretz Yisroel is due to the Oaths, even though Bavel
violated their Oath for sure with the atrocities they committed during the
Churban (The Shulchan Aruch writes that the Brachah of Vlamalshinim was enacted
to praise Hashem for destroying the evil kingdom of Bavel).
The Gemora then asks on R. Zaira who says that the Oaths only include not taking Eretz Yisroel
forcefully, but the Oath not to rebel against the nations is nto included. The
Gemora could easily have answered that Bavel violated their Oath and therefore
our Oath of rebelling against them is null. But the Gemora says no such thing.
R. Avrohom Galanti (Zechus Avos) brings a story of the people of Portugal who wanted to defend themselves
against the government by making a rebellion. The government then was making
forced SHmad and all sorts of persecutions. They asked the "shem hameforash" and
were told not to do it because it would violate the Oaths.
There is much more, but this is a sample (credit to the Satmar Rebbe ZTL in Vayoel Moshe I:75 for the
above sources).
And besides all this, the second Oath, nshelo yaalu b'chomah has nothing to do with the Goyim, and woud
not be dependent on the Goyim's Oath anyway. The Maharal and R. Yonason Eyebushitz
write that even if the Goyim give us permission to ake Eretz Yisroel we are not
allowed to do it. Better we should die than take Eretz Yisroel, the Maharal
says.
What I wrote above is not rocket science. It's pretty obvious. Takes no genius or encyclopedic knowledge
to understand it. Anyone who learns about the Oaths is immediately confronted
with the reality that they Goyim violate dtheirs but we still cannot violate
ours.
It's just plain dishonesty that would make people come up with this.
Oh, and there is NO religious obligation to "conquer the land" in Golus, on the
contrary, it is a religious prohibition. Wherever you copied that piece from,
the writer couldnt be more off base.
13. Not
Just “The Chassidim” (or Just Satmar) are against Zionism
(Why do the Mizrachi schools teach that anti-Zionism is a small position limited to
chassidim?) Well, the mizrachi places do that because if they would teach that
(a) it was not only the chasidim who did not want the medinah but every single
godol in the entire world, except for the mizrachi, and (b) it was not merely
looked at as a disagreement in halachah or hashkafa, but mizrachi was looked at
by the others as a deviant movement, off the derech, to be opposed as dangerous
to klall yisroel, and (c) Rav kook and ravneria themsleves were far from
universally accepted as gedolim at all, then their school's values are a little
less appealing to their audiences. someone may ask "hello, why do i need to be
on the side that the chofezt chaim, rav yosef chaim sonenfeld, rav chim brisker,
the chazon ish and the other greats of the generations considered off the derech?
Rav Elchonon Wasserman, who was not a chosid, but rather the greatest student of the chofetz
chaim, wrote that having a Jewish State is likely to be the worst disater to
klall yisroel in history of their golus (he was killed before '48).
None of the above mentiones giants were chasidim. They were all passionately
against Zionism. The Brisker Rav (who was so not a chosid) said that the State
of Israel was made specifically to cause Jews to become non-religious.
When you learn Mishna Brura, do they tell you that the author of that sefer, who you are using
as a halahcic authority for so many issues, considered the hashkofos in your
school to be off the derech?
And (if you are a boy), when you learn Gemora, that the author of Kovetz Shiurim, who you
respect as one of the greatest roshei yeshiva of the 20th century, said that
religous Zionism is nothing but religion coupled with avodah zorah?
Even if the Mizrachi wants to say that all these Gedolim were wrong, they are guilty of
deception by describing the oppostiion to the Medinah by saying "the chasidim
were against it."
The halachic "reasoning" of the zionists in creating the state has been discussed here, at
length. Its bogus. That should not surprise you. You have learned, I am sure,
about the great torah scholar - greater than Rav kook and Rav Neirah - named
Korach, who had 250 heads of Sanhedrin on his side, who ended up literally in
the pits of hell? Or of Yeravam ben Nevat - who was destined to sit right next
to Dovid Hamelech in Gan Eden, who later led Klall Yisroel to avodah zorah? Or
the great Torah scholar, miracle worker, the SHabse Tzvi y"s, who was a flase
messiah, and who G-d allowed to live long enough for us to see him, in the end,
convert to Islam?
Judaism teaches - and nobody disagrees with this - that great rabbis can go off the derech, and
become even the worst reshayim in the world, and even so, still seem like they
are right. Korach had many followers, great Torah scholars. But because their
claims were indefensable, they and their group were considered responsible for
following them.
The claims of the Zionists have been disproven over and over again. They are actually outlines
in detail on these boards. It is a pity and a crime that the Zionist schools
keep teaching those outdated and disproven ideas as if they have not been
shredded by the great Gedolim of the past century.
Yes, Mizrachi did have some great Talmidei Chachamim, but when it comes to the idea of
Zionism, the same objective reasoning that recognizes them as Talmidei Chachamim
to begin with, recognizes the absurdity of their position in this area. That is
the exact same phenomenon that has happend throughout history with those other
major league Torah scholars who went off.
And for those who are not on the level to recognize the halachic absurdity, it should be
enough that the great Gedolim considered it such. Rav Shach ZTL writes that if
G-d asks him why he was against zionism, all he has to do is point to the
chofetz chaim and say "because he was."
http://www.frumteens.com/topic.php?topic_id=4696&forum_id=13&topic_title=charedi+vs+dati+%28tzioni%29&forum_title=Basic+Judaism&M=0&S=1
Question:
I was talking to my Rabbi about Torah Umada, in particular we were discussing something a particular Rabbi
said. I said, "This is such apikorsus!" (It really was. He was equating science
and Torah and saying that each is only a partial truth and we need both to make
any sense of anything.) Anyway, when I said that my Rabbi told me that it was
not appropriate for me to say that because you have to be very careful about
those kinds of things. It is not so poshut to call someone an apikores as they
are very rare now in days. Someone has to be a very knowledgeable person to be
an apikores. So basically, how can you, despite all your reasoning and gemorahs
feel secure calling a movement apikorsus. Also, in another forum, someone said
all of Modern Orthodoxy is wrong and you (or maybe another Moderator) said that
you can't say a movement is apikorsus or anything like that, you can only call
people that. How do you reconcile that with what you just said about Zionism
which is a movement?
Response: There is no such thign that you have to be very knowledgeable to be an apikores - that is mythology. It says such a thing
nowhere.
Please see Mishna Brurah Biur Halachah #1 for a definition of what Apikorsus is. You may
alos want to see the Sefer HaChinuch on lo sasuru acharei levavchem, which is
the source (unattributed) of the Mishna Brurah.
For an at-length explanation, elsewhere on the boards it is explained. Do a seacrch for
apikores or Apikorsus, and variations thereof.
Neither I nor any other Moderator ever said that you cannot refer to deviant ideologies as
Apikorsus.
In our particular case, the list of Torah authorities who referred to Zionism as
Apikorsus, Avodah Zorah, or other such terms is much too long to list. Please
see the Zionism forum for a partial roster.
The quote above, that you are referring to, is from Rav Elchonon Wasserman ZTL, in Ikvesa
D’Meshichah. He said "Nationalism is avodah zorah; religious nationalism is just
avodah zorah togetehr with religion."
The other quote above was form the Chazon Ish ZTL. It can be found in Maaseh Ish Vol. 1, on the
section about the holocaust. He said, "There are indeed religious APikorsim
nowadays. They are those who say that the Gedolim were reposponsible for the
Jews dying in Europe (i.e. WWII), and those who celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut."
As careful as you have to be before you accuse someone of Apikorsus, you have to equally, and
even mroe careful, not to think that what is Apikorsus is not.
An Apikores is like a child molestor in that regard. Before you accuse someone of being one you
better know what youre talking about. But if you know someone is one, and you
tell people he's not, thats even worse.
Question:
I was always taught that a real apikorsus is someone who knows kol hatorah kula and still doesn't believe.
You're saying that's [not] the proper definition mod. What is it then? I'm
sorry, I don't think I want to open a mishna brurah to find out. [note: the
loshon of the M”B is: “Apikorsus hu kol machashavos zaros sh’heim heifech da’as
haTorah,” Apikorsus is all strange thoughts that go opposite of true
Torah-Knowledge.]
Response: There is no such thing. The idea that an apikores has to know kol hatorah kulah and reject it is mythology - it comes ex
nihilo out of the fertile minds of wishful thinkers who want to justify
apikorsim. Try as I might, I cant even begin to figure where this absurdity
comes from.
We discussed this on the site:
http://www.frumteens.com/topic.php?whichpage=1&pagesize=15&forum_title=Halachah+vs.+Hashkafa&topic_title=&forum_id=33&topic_id=159
Beyond that, also considered an apikores is someone who disagrees with any of the 13 ikarim,
regardless of how much Torah he knows.
Apikorsus is simply anything that is against Daas Torah. Thats what the Mishna Brurah writes.
Question:
The person a page or two back who was trying to say that you have to know a lot to be an apikoires... perhaps s/he meant that you have to know a lot to have the *din* of a full-fledged apikoires? I spoke with my Rosh Yeshiva who (if I recall correctly) told me that many gedolim (including the Brisker Rov, who said nebach a apikoires iz oich a apikoires) are of the opinion that most ppl who believe in apikorsus today don't know enough to actually be considered apikorsim l'halacha. I believe you quoted elsewhere on this site that the Chazon Ish says that's why we can't do things today like cause them to die: because we don't know how to present Judaism today in a way that will be mechayev them for their disbelief.
Moderator:
There is no Halachah anywhere that says anyone has too know any amount of Torah in order to qualify as an Apikores. That means a full-fledged Apikores with all the ramifications. It is a myth. Nobody holds like that.
The only possibility is if someone holds that a Tinok Shenishba does not have the status of an Apikores - but that has nothing to do with not "knowing enough". It has to do with his disbelief not being his own choice but foisted on him.
And even that is what Rav Chaim Brisker (not the Brisker Rav, who was his son, R. Velvel), said is nto so. "nebach an apikores is oich an apikores" is referring to a total Tinok Shenishba. Although he cannot get punished for his misdeeds, he also cannot get reward for what he did not do. And if he does not believe, then he cannot receive the benefits of believing. And being part of Klall Yisroel and getting a share in Olam Habah is one of those benefits.
The Chazon Ish is a totally different story. He does NOt say that people are nto Apikorsim. He says that the Halachah of Moridin Vlo Maalin does not apply - and even that has nothgin to do with how much someone "knows" but rather because we do nto see open miracles today, and we are not able to effectively give tochachah. But that is not to say that those people are nto Apikorsim - one has nothing to do with the other.
