Blame Israel?
FOX's Neil Cavuto asks whether Israel should exist
Rabbi Weiss: This is the viewthat was shared throughout the past hundred years, when the whole movement ofZionism was created, the concept – the ideology – of transforming Judaism from spirituality, a religion, into materialism a nationalistic goal to have a piece of land, all the rabbinical authorities said this is antithetical with whatJudaism is all about – expressly forbidden by the Torah because we are in exile by God.
Cavuto: So, you shouldn’t have a state? You shouldn’t have a country? You shouldn’t have a government?
Weiss:We shouldn’t have a state. We should be living amongst all the nations as the Jews were doing for two thousand years as loyal citizens, people who are serving God, emulating God with compassion . . .
Contrary to what people believe, that it’s a religious conflict, we have been living for hundreds of years among Muslims and Arab communities without any UN human rights groups to watch…
Cavuto: Let me ask you this, Rabbi, was life better for the Jews prior to the creation of the Jewish state of Israel?
Weiss:100%. In Palestine, we have the testimony of the Jewish community living there and other lands that they were living in harmony and they pleaded with the United Nations, in the documents we have, the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem said we do not want a Jewish state. The Muslim, Christian and Jewish inhabitants were ignored with the creation of the State . . .
Cavuto: Neverthless, you might not have had a country per se, but you were not a stranger to being abused or slaughtered over the millennia, particularly as recently as fifty sixty years ago?
Weiss: There is an issue of being killed because of anti-semitism, and then there’s another issue where you antagonize and you create your anti-semitism through Zionism . . . in other words, it’s not a free for all – you knock out your neighbors windows and yell anti-semitism.
Cavuto: I know you are an orthodox Jew, what do traditional Jews think of that position?
Weiss: [The mainstream Jewish view] is that, true, we shouldn’t be having a state, but once it’s created the Zionist propaganda that the Arabs want to throw every Jew into the ocean and there’s a ingrained hate against the Jews, which they’ve convinced many Jews to believe, this is why they’re fearful of returning the land…
Cavuto: Well you can’t blame them, right, I mean you have the president of Iran who says the Holocaust never existed and if he had his druthers he’d destroy Israel and all the Jews.
Weiss: That’s also patently false. He has a Jewish community in Iran and they haven’t murdered them when they had the opportunity to . . .
Cavuto: So, you don’t take him at his word that he would try to kill Jews?
Weiss: He would [want] the dismantling of the political state of Israel. In fact, we went, a whole group of Rabbis this last year to visit Iran, and we were taken up by the leaders, we met with the vice president, he [Ahmedinejad] was in Venezuela at the time, we met with religious leaders, all of them stated unequivocally that don’t have a conflict with [Jews]
Cavuto: So as long as Israel exists, Rabbi, you think – just itching for trouble
Weiss: Jews are suffering, Palestinians and Lea are suffering . . . we pray for the speedy and peaceful dismantlment of the Jewish state.
Cavuto: It’s interesting Rabbi, you don’t hear that view often.
Anti Defamation League response:
Dear Mr. Cavuto:
We were deeply disturbed by your interview with Rabbi Yisroel Weiss of Jews United Against Zionism ("Blame Israel," July 25).
Rabbi Weiss is a representative of Neturei Karta, a tiny fringe ultra-orthodox Jewish sect founded on the idea that Zionism is literally demonic and responsible for many of the world's evils. Far from representing any mainstream Jewish perspective on the Middle East, members of Neturei Karta have a long record of extremist statements and support for anti-Semites and Islamic extremists, including, most recently, the President of Iran as he called for the destruction of Israel.
Neturei Karta represents an extremist ideology that is isolated and has no support outside of their small group. To present them on your program as having "another view" of Israel is outrageous and offensive. Neturei Karta spokesmen routinely call for the "dismantling" of the State of Israel and the empowerment of the Palestinians – who would then decide whether to allow any Jews to remain in their new state. They believe that a promised messianic age cannot begin until Zionism is eliminated from the Middle East.
By giving Rabbi Weiss a platform, you mislead your viewers and give the Neturei Karta unwarranted authenticity as a moral authority on the complex issues in the Middle East. Worse, you provide an extremist sect with a degree of legitimacy that they do not deserve. We urge you to re-evaluate the criteria used for issuing invitations to members of groups like Neturei Karta.
With the diversity of voices and views within the mainstream American Jewish community, and the wide array of experts on Mideast policy and diplomacy available as resources, there are plenty of views to be had on the current conflict without playing into the hand of extremists.
Our point is not censorship, but responsibility.
Sincerely,
The Anti-Defamation League
Cavuto: So, you shouldn’t have a state? You shouldn’t have a country? You shouldn’t have a government?
Weiss:We shouldn’t have a state. We should be living amongst all the nations as the Jews were doing for two thousand years as loyal citizens, people who are serving God, emulating God with compassion . . .
Contrary to what people believe, that it’s a religious conflict, we have been living for hundreds of years among Muslims and Arab communities without any UN human rights groups to watch…
Cavuto: Let me ask you this, Rabbi, was life better for the Jews prior to the creation of the Jewish state of Israel?
Weiss:100%. In Palestine, we have the testimony of the Jewish community living there and other lands that they were living in harmony and they pleaded with the United Nations, in the documents we have, the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem said we do not want a Jewish state. The Muslim, Christian and Jewish inhabitants were ignored with the creation of the State . . .
Cavuto: Neverthless, you might not have had a country per se, but you were not a stranger to being abused or slaughtered over the millennia, particularly as recently as fifty sixty years ago?
Weiss: There is an issue of being killed because of anti-semitism, and then there’s another issue where you antagonize and you create your anti-semitism through Zionism . . . in other words, it’s not a free for all – you knock out your neighbors windows and yell anti-semitism.
Cavuto: I know you are an orthodox Jew, what do traditional Jews think of that position?
Weiss: [The mainstream Jewish view] is that, true, we shouldn’t be having a state, but once it’s created the Zionist propaganda that the Arabs want to throw every Jew into the ocean and there’s a ingrained hate against the Jews, which they’ve convinced many Jews to believe, this is why they’re fearful of returning the land…
Cavuto: Well you can’t blame them, right, I mean you have the president of Iran who says the Holocaust never existed and if he had his druthers he’d destroy Israel and all the Jews.
Weiss: That’s also patently false. He has a Jewish community in Iran and they haven’t murdered them when they had the opportunity to . . .
Cavuto: So, you don’t take him at his word that he would try to kill Jews?
Weiss: He would [want] the dismantling of the political state of Israel. In fact, we went, a whole group of Rabbis this last year to visit Iran, and we were taken up by the leaders, we met with the vice president, he [Ahmedinejad] was in Venezuela at the time, we met with religious leaders, all of them stated unequivocally that don’t have a conflict with [Jews]
Cavuto: So as long as Israel exists, Rabbi, you think – just itching for trouble
Weiss: Jews are suffering, Palestinians and Lea are suffering . . . we pray for the speedy and peaceful dismantlment of the Jewish state.
Cavuto: It’s interesting Rabbi, you don’t hear that view often.
Anti Defamation League response:
Dear Mr. Cavuto:
We were deeply disturbed by your interview with Rabbi Yisroel Weiss of Jews United Against Zionism ("Blame Israel," July 25).
Rabbi Weiss is a representative of Neturei Karta, a tiny fringe ultra-orthodox Jewish sect founded on the idea that Zionism is literally demonic and responsible for many of the world's evils. Far from representing any mainstream Jewish perspective on the Middle East, members of Neturei Karta have a long record of extremist statements and support for anti-Semites and Islamic extremists, including, most recently, the President of Iran as he called for the destruction of Israel.
Neturei Karta represents an extremist ideology that is isolated and has no support outside of their small group. To present them on your program as having "another view" of Israel is outrageous and offensive. Neturei Karta spokesmen routinely call for the "dismantling" of the State of Israel and the empowerment of the Palestinians – who would then decide whether to allow any Jews to remain in their new state. They believe that a promised messianic age cannot begin until Zionism is eliminated from the Middle East.
By giving Rabbi Weiss a platform, you mislead your viewers and give the Neturei Karta unwarranted authenticity as a moral authority on the complex issues in the Middle East. Worse, you provide an extremist sect with a degree of legitimacy that they do not deserve. We urge you to re-evaluate the criteria used for issuing invitations to members of groups like Neturei Karta.
With the diversity of voices and views within the mainstream American Jewish community, and the wide array of experts on Mideast policy and diplomacy available as resources, there are plenty of views to be had on the current conflict without playing into the hand of extremists.
Our point is not censorship, but responsibility.
Sincerely,
The Anti-Defamation League
posted by Mystic River at
2:28 PM
2 Comments:
Please be advised that your ill conceived decision to feature an individual who has defamed the memory of 6,000,000 victims of the Nazi Holocaust by adding fuel to fires of hatred of the Iranian government is an insult to your own viewers, their friends, neighbors and relatives. Your deviant guest does not represent any respectable organization, and his lack of credibility has raised the ire of every educated American familiar with the saga of destruction of European Jewry.
Weiss may or may not have been ordained. However, now he is a private person who represents a non-entity group, spreads lies, speaks irrationally, denies the truth, and demames the memory of those who were killed by the Nazies for no other reason than living as Jews.
Featuring him on FOX News is a disservice to your viewers, and a shame to your network.
Milton Markovitz
By
Anonymous, at Friday, December 29, 2006 2:55:00 AM
But nobody talked about Nazis or denying the holocaust. The topic is about Israel and the Palestinians.
By
Mystic River, at Friday, December 29, 2006 2:23:00 PM
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