Israeli police have reportedly made arrests in the burning of the Church of the Multiplication, in Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee, is where Jesus multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish to feed 5,000 of his followers. The church houses the block of limestone that is venerated as the stone on which the meal created by Jesus was laid. The reported arrest of Jewish religious students reminds everyone that such destructive extremism is not confined to Islam. While the world condemns ISIS for destroying ancient churches and sites, these Jewish students have actively sought to put their own religion in the same disgraceful company. The fire was set on June 18 and destroyed much of the interior of the monastery and the roof. The attackers left graffiti scrawled in red Hebrew lettering on a wall outside the Roman Catholic church read, “Idols will have their heads cut off.”
One has to ask (as with Islamic extremists) where these reported students are learning such hatred. After the fire, sixteen yeshiva students, reportedly West Bank settlers, were detained but later released. Some sites are stating that three students have been charged, but the government has lowered an effective gag order on the case. One site however has identified the men as Yinon Reuveni, Mordechai Gedalia Margalit, and Yehuda Yedidia Asraf. The site is seeking to defy the gag order but the names of these men are not confirmed and have not appeared on other sites.
I am unclear why the intelligence services would withhold the names of the arrested individuals. Clearly, their families and associates know that they have been arrested. The public has a right to know where these students were raised and taught in such extremist views. To its credit, the government made this case a priority and worked quickly to carry out arrests. Israel has a large secular community and has protected sites of other religions. The government however would serve the public interest (and its own commitment to maintaining diverse faiths) by greater transparency in this case and these arrests.
Karen S
Excellent points. Exactly. I just love how malcontents, like po, who usurp every liberty and possible advantage available to them in the West, can’t help from denouncing the very societies which afford them the luxury, liberty, freedom and opportunity of living within its midst. If the West is so abhorrent, why not take your ungrateful a$$ back to from whence you came? No, he wants this society to degenerate into the nightmarish pit from which he emerged. Unlike our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, who came to this country seeking better lives and freedom, who worshipped this land, immigrants like him are a disgrace and displace other deserving individuals.
bam bam:
It’s worse than being an apologist. People like Po work actively to enable the atrocities done in the name of extremist Islam. They try to shut down free speech by labeling anyone who criticizes setting a woman on fire in the name of Islam as “Islamophobic”, or claim that Israel is just as bad, or we are just as bad, or that if there is a murder in Cincinnati we cannot complain about ISIS burning a young Iraqi pilot and then dropping a load of concrete on top of him.
I don’t think people are falling for it anymore.
Israel has gotten this right – in the arrest and conviction of those extremists who commit violence. It is undeniable that this is not the reaction in any single other country in the Middle East. It’s too bad they don’t learn by example.
Meanwhile, Iran is threatening to nuke us unless we give them what they want in our negotiations to . . . prevent them from getting nukes. All the while, a rally in Iran was filled with people chanting the state line of “Death to Israel! Death to America!”
You know, that same line that they make kids in elementary school chant first thing in the morning in Iran.
BarkinDog – considering that many of Stephen King’s horror novels are set in Maine, that might be a good idea! 🙂
No one has excused this heinous act. We have expressed gratitude that Israel arrested and will prosecute the perpetrators, in contrast to what happens in the Middle East, where persecution of Christians and other faiths is state policy.
It is willful blindness to ignore how extremist acts by Jews in Israel are treated by their government compared with how extremist violence is handled by every single other Middle Eastern country.
This act was wrong and a tragedy, and I thank God that the perpetrators have been caught before they could do further carnage.
The extreme rat holes, found in the Middle East, extol and honor those who commit atrocities; they call them shahids and martyrs. Their photos are openly displayed on billboards and signs. They are considered heroes, to be honored and emulated. Israel, on the other hand, arrests those who are responsible for criminal behavior. They prosecute them and imprison them. They are vilified and used as an example of what will not be tolerated in Israeli society. What ever happened to the individuals who kidnapped and brutally murdered three innocent young boys in Israel? The Palestinian animals publicly praised the culprits and never sought to punish those responsible. They never even agreed to pursue them. Try as he may, poor, poor po, right on cue, the resident perpetual apologist for the mass beheadings, rapes, kidnappings and murders, seeks to equate Israel with his Muslim brothers. No comparison.
By the way, not that the facts ever get in the way of po’s rants, women are not denied access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Just like at his favorite mosque, women are separated from the men and worship there along with everyone else. I know, facts are a b&$#h!
“Religion poisons everything.” Christopher Hitchens (RIP)
Leave it to the “tinfoil hat contingent, typing away in some underground bunker in dirty underpants” who are soooooo eager to excuse anyone’s extremism as long as they are not Muslim.
Every country, including ours, have their contingent of extremism who would decapitate, murder and rape in the name of their idols, whatever idols those are.
Isis is not different from ultra-orthodox Jews who deem arabs less than human, shoot them on sight, and as recently happened for a 15 year old palestinian, kidnapped, had gas-oil poured down his throat and ran over repeatedly with a car. it is not different from the IDF which bombs homes and buildings known to house women and children, or which blows up 4 children playing soccer on the beach.
Extremism? Where else in the world will one’s marriage be deemed illegal unless one is a Jew marrying a Jew? Where else is in the world are women prevented access to the greatest prayer site?
Where else in the world will one racial group be arrested on a whim and locked up for decades without reason?
And if you think ISIS is different from you, friends, think again. You are the one who did or supported the unilateral action of bombing those ME countries you deem backward back into the stone ages, and this on false pretenses. IS ISIS really that different from when your own president, his defense secretary and his generals made it a point to say that this war, this illegal and immoral war on false pretenses that resulted in millions of dead people, and which led directly to the creation of this ISIS that we now decry, is a holy war, a war of our god vs their god?
Only hypocrites excuse for some what they blame others for. The same people in the ME who justified 911, and the same people in Israel who justified 3000 dead in Gaza, and the same people here who justify millions of dead in Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, are one and the same…and here they are right on this blog spewing their evil.
Karen: I did not know that Maine was that bad. I will stay out of there.
Oh, that’s just terrible. What a great loss.
The difference between Israel and the rest of the ME is that these extremists have been arrested and will be prosecuted. And, yes, the government needs to be transparent.
Persecution of other faiths is merely state policy elsewhere in the ME, where they have zero recourse.
I see that this article has summoned the tinfoil hat contingent, typing away in some underground bunker in dirty underpants, fantasizing about conspiracy theories and chips that the government has implanted in their rectums.
The crucial distinction, and one which is not being emphasized enough, is that the Israeli government did not hesitate in arresting these individuals. They will be prosecuted. These lunatics will be punished, as they should be. This is not a daily occurrence, and it makes news because of its rarity. Israel is one of the only places in that region where one can openly practice his religion, or his sexuality, unmolested. Try bringing a Bible into Saudi Arabia and see what happens. Try openly declaring that one is gay in one of these other repressive Muslim hell holes. Equating Israel, with any of its neighbors, declaring that all of these countries are equally intolerant and fanatical is a fallacy, used to paint all of these societies with the same broad brush. Anyone actually familiar with life in these countries knows better. Christians are leaving Egypt, Iraq, etc., en masse, because of the incessant persecution and violence against them, which include rapes, beheadings, kidnappings and murders, committed against anyone deemed to an infidel. No mass departures of Christians living in Israel. Could it be that life is safe for Christians in that country? Contrast this episode, where the culprits in Israel were swiftly arrested, with what transpires, on a daily basis, across the Muslim world, where no one is ever prosecuted for the churches burned to the ground, the mass beheadings, the kidnappings and the murders.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/zionismrejectszionism.jpg
Donald Trump is another Zionist Traitor / Enemy of America
Endorsing War Criminal / Mass Murderer, Liar, Thief Netanyahu
https://youtu.be/tm5Je73bYOY
9/11 was an Israeli Nuclear Attack
Bibi Netanyahu ordered the 9/11 Nuclear Attack on America
Quote from Veterans Today on March 12, 2015;
“Bibi Netanyahu is the Operational Head of the Khazarian Mafia (KM) and was the
one that ordered and supervised the Israeli Nuclear Attack on America on 9-11-01.”
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/03/12/shockwaves-part-iii
ISRAEL / ZIONIST JEWS & AMERICAN TRAITORS DID 9/11
Dr. Alan Sabrosky former Director of Studies, professor of the U.S. Army War College;
“It is 100% certain that 9/11 was a Mossad operation period”
The 9/11 Commission Report is a 571-Page Zionist Jew Lie
https://youtu.be/9wbhs3ekoxk
Donald Trump is a Zionist.
Whom of the presidential candidates isn’t owned by Israel?
All the candidates are Israeli / Zionist Jew Puppets
Don’t be fooled by Zionists Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. They are enemies to our country
Donald Trump “loves and supports Israel.” He is a traitor to our country. Israel did 9/11
I will not support Donald Trump. He is a Zionist Warmonger with blood on his hands
Donald Trump is not a super intellect / businessman. He is a super sell out of our country
Israel and American Zionist Traitors are the main problem in America
They are War Criminals, Mass Murderers, Liars and Thieves
War Criminals Obama, Biden, George W. Bush and Cheney are Zionists
Our whole political system and government are infested with Zionist Criminals
We know Israel & American Traitors did 9/11
A politician’s position on the official 9/11 story is a litmus test
If he or she states that they believe the official story they are stupid and corrupt
Israel & Zionist Jews are the Enemies of any real American
Donald Trump endorses Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the 9/11 Nuclear Attack on America
Meanwhile, our Liberal PC extremists are digging up Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis.
Extremists and theocrats no matter what their “faith” dangerous.
There is a lot of this going on, however, Israel is guilty of far more serious crimes. These extremists should be prosecuted to the max for the crimes. However, they bear little resemblance to the thugs of ISIS. There are Israeli extremists that would chop off peoples’ heads and do all the thuggery that is common to ISIS but they are few and luckily contained by a secular nation that would only suffer if it condoned it any more than it already does. Israel already walks a fine line. Luckily the majority of Israelis do want peace and coexistence. They simply have dug a hole so deep it seems impossible.
I wonder if these “Students” are familiar with the ancient Dura-Europos synagogue, which is covered with paintings of Jewish “saints”.