By Yisrael Medad
I respect Rabbis. When they deal with Halachic issues which certainly do include what is called “politics”. However, I do think someone erred in affixing the signatures of the two Chief Rabbis of Israel to the document of the “Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land”.
I have dealt with the matter is great detail in My Right Word but Arutz Sheva media consumers need just a bit more. The Rabbis erred and here are some reasons I think so.
As we know, Secretary of State Rice encouraged the organizers to have their conference now to dovetail (no pun intended) with Annapolis. The document aids her in her efforts to wrest Jerusalem and more from Israel. That’s the first reason the Rabbis should have stayed clear.
Secondly, the use of “occupation” was quite intentional. In the preamble we read:
“Palestinians yearn for the end of occupation and for what they see as their inalienable rights. Israelis long for the day when they can live in personal and national security.”
The Pals. (remember? I don’t use the word “Palestinians” unless I am quoting from another source) conceive of “occupation” as applying not only to Judea and Samaria and, of course, Jerusalem (and more about that later), but to all of Israel. All of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and most of Fatah hold to that line. Moreover, if one agrees that there is an “occupation”, then that is an agreement that Israel is in the “disputed territories” illegally. In Jerusalem, in Hebron and in Shiloh – as criminals. That’s reason number two.
Reason number three, as I mentioned, is that the Temple Mount for the Pals. is the most significant symbol, nationalist (the Crusaders and salah A-Din’s victory over them) and, of course, religious, in that the El-Aksa concept supplants the Jewish Temple, which the former and present Muftis all say never existed, at least not on Mount Moriyah. But more importantly, if no Jewish/Israeli presence is up on the Temple Mount, no Jew will be able to pray down at the Western Wall.
Reason number four is Rabbi David Rosen. He’s a concessionist. And a ba’al-gavinik. At his site, you find out that his been knighted by the….Pope. That he works for the American Jewish Committee, no friend of Israel in YESHA. That he claims, as Chairman of the International Jewish Committee, an unknown body to most of World Jewry, to represent, get this, World Jewry in its relations with other world religions. Ain’t that so pompous. This is the man that led Rabbis Metzger and Amar (and She’ar-Yashuv Cohen?) up, er, down the garden path.
Rabbi David Rosen, a nice guy with whom I’ve met and discussed matters and even debated in front of visiting groups a good few years back, succeeded in laying a semantic ambush for the Rabbis Chief.
The Pals. can yearn for whatever they want but Jews in their historic homeland are not occupiers. We are not foreign invaders. We are in Jerusalem, Hebron and Shiloh by right Diplomacy is not what Rabbis trained for and they should have been more wary.
