Have These Rabbis Erred?

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 here 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 encourged 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 fromt 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.

Quite Unsportsman-like Behavior

Jerusalem's Betar soccer team may find itself without fans in the stands for the next half-year, if the soccer federation's tribunal decides so.

Truth tell, ever since I've been in Israel I have never watched a soccer game from inside a stadium, especially in Jerusalem.  I love the game - on television.  Somehow, the ambience doesn't agree with me.  But, like Voltaire, I disagree with punishing someone for saying something, as unpopular as it may be to our left-wing dominated media and the wishy-washy politicians who didn't like the booing of Yitzhak Rabin's memory by Betar fans at Haifa last Sunday evening.

This evening, I watched an interview program on the subject (moderated by a longtime Channel One employee who, a few years back, jumped ship and became the Centrist Party's spokesperson - just to illustrate how "objective" our media is).  One guest, Professor Avi Ben-Tzvi, a sports enthusiast, noted, quite properly, that in the United States, unlike in Israel and many countries in Europe, no high chainlink fences separate the fans from the playing field and yet there is little, if at all, violence on the playing field of the sort we see at soccer games where fans pour onto the pitch.

However, as I wrote to him, every baseball fan has at one time or another in his life screamed out "Kill the Umpire!".  And, of course, that's the difference.  Language, even boisterous language, is protected in America.  Actions are not, if they are violent.

No violent action ocurred in Haifa.  There was booing and a few catcalls.  It was embarassing and uncalled for.  But it was not illegal nor violent. To call it, as the federation has done, as "unsporting behavior" and to punish the team and its income from ticket sales, is itself grossly unfair and maybe illegal.

To drag the politics over Rabin's legacy into the sports arena is silly.  Rabin played tennis so maybe there's an opportunity for a Rabin Cup playoff.  But soccer is another matter as is the ability of Israel's media to itself get violent in whipping up animosity to Betar and its supporters.

Holy Basin or Wholly Base?

A legacy of the 2000 Clinton Parameters is the term "Holy Basin" which refers to the area of the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, Mount Zion and some Christian holy places which will be administered under a special regime which implied internationalization.  His actual words were: "Arab areas are Palestinian and Jewish ones are Israeli.  This would imply the Old City as well". And he urged both sides to work on maps to creat maximum contiguity (okay, so that's a non-starter but he was President) and that each religion - not state - would be responsible for its own holy places.  There was also the Morantinos 'Non-paper' which dealt with Jerusalem and that stipulated that for three years the Temple Mount would be under international sovereignty including an Islamic state.  The Pals. would be custodians. Those proposals finally collapsed in 2001 when Barak announced that the Temple Mount would not be transferred to Arab sovereignty.

The Temple Mount is back on the agenda and on the table but this would be no Holy Basin and its future would be wholly base.  Haim Ramon speaks of a "special regime". Some people write of "the politics of verticality" in a vain search for a logical solution.

In the meantime, however, this past year the Temple Mount has been dug up without authorization and without proper supervision.  Artifacts have been either dumped or destroyed or stolen.  The continuing discrimination of Jews as Jews, rather than as non-identifiable tourists, stays in place.  The courts still consider the site too "sensitive" a place and therefore, despite laws protecting Jewish rights, the High Court of Justice protects the government, its police and other bodies who interfere with and who inhibit legal Jewish rights. 

There are perhaps a dozen or so groups, organizations and institutions dealing with the Temple Mount as a Jewish holy site.  All do good work in the field of education and strenghtening the Israeli public's consciousness towrds the location.  Hundreds ascend the Mount weekly for a short walk around in those portions outside the sacred precinct.  But there is no protest. 

Shurat Ha-Din is seeking to force that charges be brought against the Waqf for violating the law.  The Committee Against the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities appealed to the High Court of Justice.  But this isn't going anywhere fast.  This Thursday night, as every month, thousands will be encircling the Temple Mount gates, from the outside.

A protest movement needs to protest.  It must be seen and heard.  If the fate of Joseph's Tomb in Shchem and the Shalom-Al-Yisrael Synagogue in Jericho are to be avoided, if the Israel government wants Jews to be able to pray at the Western Wall, then something activist must happen.

I can inform you that suggestions have been made but lethargy or lack of funds or lack of excitement is hindering.

I hope I can be blogging on this subject in a more positive vein soon.