You may recall how recently an array of high ranking Israeli officials in the Netanyahu government, including National Security Council head Ya’akov Amidror and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, briefed ultra-Orthodox rabbi and Shas leader Ovadia Yosef on the proposed war with Iran in the hopes of receiving his blessing. Both the war (which Netanyahu reportedly wants before the U.S. presidential election) and the need to get nod from a religious leader were criticized, including by some of us who noted the extreme views of Yosef. Now, Yosef has called upon Jews to pray for the death of Iranians and the destruction of the nation of Iran. Now we have spiritual leaders is both countries calling on God to annihilate whole countries as examples of divine and moral justice.
Yosef told his followers that good Jews should pray for destruction of the enemies of Israel, particularly Iran and Hezbollah. The lesson in morality came with his weekly sermon and specified that the prayers should arrange for the annihilation of the Iranian during Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year). Apparently just to be clear in the prayers to avoid the annihiation of similarly sounding countries, Yoseh stressed “When we say ‘may our enemies be struck down’ on Rosh Hashana, it shall be directed at Iran, the evil ones who threaten Israel. God shall strike them down and kill them.”
With Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also calling on God to destroy Israel, we have perfect agreement on one point from both sides: God is being who can be called upon to kill millions in the name of faith. These guys both sound and look remarkably alike.
As noted in the earlier blog, Yosef has long espoused extreme and hateful views, including likening Palestinians to snakes and calling for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to “perish from this world” and describing non-Jews as “born only to serve us”. This is the person that the Israeli government wants to bless the upcoming war . Of course, as noted earlier, the scheduling of a new war against Iran before the U.S. election would be a transparent effort to use the American politics to guarantee support for the war on the assumption that neither candidate would want to risk alienating the Jewish vote and campaign donors. At a minimum, Israel would expect that the U.S. would help pay for the war — if not immediately than in a later mix of loans and military assistance. We could then ultimately find ourselves in a third war, particularly if Iran strikes U.S. assets in response to an Israeli attack. Of course we will have the comfort of knowing that Ovadia Yosef says it is all perfectly moral.
Source: Haaretz
Ralph, are you familiar with Rabbi Lerner and Tikkun magazine? They have online presence, as well. I read that source ss well as Jewish World Review and find that gives me s reasonably good balance of viewpoints.
mespo,
Do you think the war in Afghanistan should have ended some time ago? Do you think we could be helping to create more enemies in Muslim countries with our perpetual wars and our drone strikes–which often kill innocent civilians?
mespo,
Perpetual war is the only threat to whatever is left of our “democracy.”
Wars against tiny countries that can’t fight back, do not make anyone safer. Those wars serve to enrich war contractors, reduce our freedoms, and deplete our infrastructure.
Bin Laden was in Pakistan, our ally. You know, the nuclear-armed country that gave the bomb-making info to North Korea, Iran, and Libya?
Yet we are still in Afghanistan, doing…what, exactly?
And how would Iran be a danger to us? Same way Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Panama and Cuba and Granada were/are?
Just bust up one more defenseless country, and we’ll be fine?
Oh, and you want to ask Jefferson whether we should nuke Iran?
Jefferson, who owned 130 slaves? I don’t think he’s an expert on current events.
You’d need to fill Jefferson in on some details, like how the U.S.A. overthrew the government of Iran in 1953, at the behest of U.S.A. and British oil companies.
And how the U.S.A. is the only country to use nuclear weapons in war. And is now terrified of its shadow.
bill mcwilliams: Wow, When your buddy the Fuhrer spoke of creating the great Aryan race he stated the Jews were vermin and needed to be eliminated first. Unlike 99% of the population in this world, I actually read it. So did Churchill which caused him to be so incredulous when politicians continued to appease this madman. You’re the first person to ever call me a neocon, but you also got my name wrong. Must be cocktail hour.
R.S.
What’s the source for your claim that “Hitler said he wanted to exterminate the Jews in Mein Kampf. He got pretty close.
Where in M. K. did he say that? I think you made that up…like a good Neocon would.
Elaine M:
Yes on Afghanistan; No on Iraq.
mespo,
Do you think the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have helped to make our democracy a safer place?
Ralph Adamo,
I am very aware of all the hate groups out there who aim their anger at Jewish people. I would be surprised if there is one commenter here who doesn’t. These groups however also aim their anger at non-white people, at non-Christians other than their ‘brand’, at non-heterosexual people and often at Democrats/Liberals, at women etc. This is why I also visit the Gay Memorial site not far from the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Hate groups often hate more than one group of people. The difference you may say lies in the vast numbers of Jewish people who died as a result of this hatred, and that would be an understandable argument. In my view all groups that are hated and at which violence is directed deserve my support. Most white supremacist websites and others in the US don’t just ‘hate’ Jewish people; they just about hate anybody who don’t look, think or act like them.
The Omnipresent Enemy
Darren 11.54: For that statement, you win the prize.
Elaine:
I’d like more social spending but in a fundamentalist crazy world, I’d say our survival takes priority. The world is still a scary place for democracies: Fundies don’t like ’em; tyrants want them to just go away and leave them alone; and those living under subjugation use the as aspiration much to the dismay of the other two.
mespo,
One thing I’d say: The world is a different place today. Maybe Jefferson would be less likely to involve his country in a nuclear war than you suppose. Speaking for myself–I am war weary. I’m tired of spending our country’s treasury on wars while our infrastructure crumbles and we can’t seem to find the money to support education, needed services to our citizens, social programs that help millions of Americans–both young and old.
Houston Tax Lawyer:
Smart guy that Lincoln. Maybe we could find a place on a mountain for his likeness or maybe a statute by a reflecting pool.
Blouise:
I think Jefferson would involve himself anywhere our interests were involved whether it aided the other country or not.
You can be dragged or you can run up ahead and still in both cases you are going in the same direction.
mespo,
“The best information we had” led us to wage a preemptive war against Iraq. We don’t always get the truth from our leaders or from our press/media. I’d add that the Bush administration–as I’m sure other administrations–knew/know how to use the press to get the public to support their positions. Think Dick Cheney, Judith Miller, and the New York Times. That is just one example.
… of course at that time we weren’t Rome ….
Hello. Back from vacation and finding the latest blogs, as usual, very interesting. The comments about the blogs are of course a source of entertainment. Some leave me elated, others with dismay and still others make me laugh out loud, or is that LOL?
The two latest blogs about Israel remind me of the situation I find myself in since many years.
I grew up in Belgium and from an early age was introduced to the Holocaust, both through stories and powerful, indelible images. I have always been a supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel. In Europe I was sometimes called a “Jew lover” and was often the only one in a group who spoke out in support of the Jewish people. I still believe that Belgium helped fight the Germans (Germs, as my mother still calls the citizens of Germany) out of pure self-preservation, not because the Belgians liked the Jews or felt badly about their deportations.
Throughout the last few years I have grown very upset with some of the policies and public statements coming from the Israeli Zionists and I am disgusted at the latest one your article describes.
It is however quite ironic that I now have been a called an anti-Semite in the US for criticism of Israeli governmental policies and actions. The love for Israel by many Evangelical Christians in the US is, to me, some kind of a farce, in as much as I understand it. Where were all those good Christians when Hitler wiped out 6 million Jewish people (and, yes, gays, gypsies, disabled people…)?
To me, there is not that much love involved as much as some other ‘weird’ religious notion that Armageddon will happen in the region where many of the world’s Jewish people live. At the same time, those Evangelicals are trying mightily to convert Jewish people to their brand and tell them they (Jews) won’t make it to the ‘promised land’ upon death unless they convert. It’s all been good for business though. After all, isn’t it always about business and power the most in most conflicts?
I will defend the Jewish people all I can when it comes to their right to self-defense. I don’t support the notions of the religious right, including the Jewish religious hard-liners. I guess I’ve become a left-wing Jewish supporter; another label?
“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.” Sound familiar. From Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
mespo,
He also had very good spies working for him in France.
“Elaine/Blouise (and other simultaneous great minds) 😉 :
I think Jefferson would be in favor of anything that insured our national security and base it on the best information he had. I have no doubt he’d launch a strike on them to stop a strike on us.” (mespo)
But would he allow another country to drag us into their conflict? That was the beauty of his performance during the Louisiana Purchase time frame … everybody was yammering to side with England or side with France, even a few yammers for Spain because of Florida.
@Idealist707, I see that you look to Rense as a source of information. Rense is a rabid-anti-Jewish website filled with made-up garbage. But seeing that you seek lies and wish to see attacks on Jewish people, I will direct you and other Leftists, Nazis, Skinheads, Far Right-wingers, IslamoNazis, Islamopanders on this website to another site that I’m sure you will enjoy and find enlightening. It’s not as subtle in its anti-Jewish and anti-Israel as Jonathan Turley’s website, but I’m sure you’ll find the “insights” and discussion refreshing:
http://www.stormfront.org/