UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Friday, June 19 2015
**The tribes continue to return to their homeland.
The scene at Ben Gurion yesterday as the Tribe of Menashe began to come home.
78 members of the Bene Menashe, one of the lost tribes of Israel that is lost no longer, landed at Ben Gurion airport yesterday to take up their new lives in Israel. The first of some 3000 expected in the next year, the Bene Menashe have been keeping their faith through the centuries in a remote area of Myanmar. The tribe was forced into exile more than 2700 years ago when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.
And where will the Bene Menashe be living? In the same place they were living 2700 years ago–on the Israeli Golan Heights.
As Absorption Minister Elkin said yesterday to the new arrivals:
“We are witnessing a historic moment in which one of the tribes of Israel has come home from far away, after 2,700 years of exile, to its property. It’s not just a beautiful piece of land. It is the home of your ancestors; the tribe of Menashe was located in the Golan Heights. Jewish tradition always strives to redeem the land and restore the property to its owner . . . Welcome back to your house. ”
Israelstreet welcomes the Bene Menashe home!
**The onslaught directed against former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren for his disparaging remarks about Barack Obama contained in his new book, Ally, have continued today. Joining Moshe Kahlon, we now Gilad Erdan, Tzipi Hotovely, and others.
Apparently the word was sent out from Washington that Oren should be condemned–and most have complied with one notable exception: PM Netanyahu.
**Following the outcry in Jerusalem over the holding of a Christian missionary conference there whose explicit mission is to proselytize Jews, the Jerusalem municipality has agreed that in the future, any event involving missionary activities must be approved by the Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem and the legal department of the city.
**If you can believe this, dear reader, the Jerusalem police have now prohibited any tourist or Jew from taking a bottle of water to the Temple Mount. The police are afraid that the bottled water would provoke the feelings of Muslims who are fasting.
Tourists turning in their bottled water at the base of the Mughrabi ramp up to the Temple Mount yesterday in an absurd kowtowing of the Jerusalem Police to Muslim “sensitivity.”
Can you believe this? Why in the world does the world tremble at “Muslim sensitivity?”
**The revelation that the Chairman of the Palestine National Beverage Company in Ramallah (the exclusive franchisee of Coca-Cola in Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria) is an ardent supporter of BDS has come as a shock to many.
It turns out that last September, Zahi Khouri wrote an op-ed for the Orlando, Florida Sentinel newspaper in which he stated:
“[The] non-violent efforts of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) advocates make sense as a means to force Israel to recognize that the occupation is not cost-free . . . Countries, like those in the European Union, could enforce their own laws against doing businesses with countries that violate human rights.”
Why is it a shock to find a Palestinian Khouri supporting BDS? Simply because BDS is now advocating a boycott against Coca-Cola. Khouri is supporting a boycott against his own business.
Meanwhile, the lawfare organization Shurat HaDin is warning that Khouri’s words violate U.S. and international laws concerning boycotts.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Captain Renault: Major Strasser has been shot…round up the usual suspects.
From the movie “Casablanca”
Your humble servant could not help but think of the above line from Casablanca yesterday, when the Israeli police announced they had “captured” the perpetrators of the arson and graffiti at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha on the shores of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).
A nun stands in a gutted room of the church.
But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.
Over the last five years, 17 Christian and Muslim churches and mosques in Israel have had arson and graffiti attacks. During the same time, at least 12 Jewish synagogues have also been torched and defaced.
You may remember one of the most dramatic cases of arson which occurred at the door of the Latrun Christian Monastery. In addition to damaging the door, graffiti was painted on the wall in Hebrew which referred to “Ramat Migron” and “Maoz Ester”. Police immediately went in search of a “young religious” suspect and proudly announced a few days later that a Jewish community member had been arrested and charged with the crime.
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However, it soon became apparent that the police had no evidence, and the man was eventually released.
In fact, only one person has been indicted in all of these attacks on synagogues, mosques, and churches–and that person was a Muslim in Nazareth who confessed to defacing a mosque in the nearby Palestinian settlement of Reina. In that attack, the man wrote “Am Israel Chai!” on the walls of the mosque in Hebrew. He later said that he did it “to provoke” the people in Reina.
Interestingly, during the past year there have been numerous Arab attacks on Christians in the Tiberias area. As investigative journalist David Bedein commented yesterday:
“When we hear the story of a Catholic institution being attacked in Tiberias and the police immediately arresting some yeshiva boys, instead of opening an investigation against Muslims, at a time when everyone knows that Arabs in Tiberias have been attacking Christians for months, and all of a sudden they ignore it and let the media only think that it’s Jews – there is something wrong with this story . . . There is no excuse to only blame the Jews and not even raise questions about possible involvement by Muslims.
All of which brings us back to the fire yesterday, and the response to it.
The arson seriously damaged the nun’s office, storeroom, reception room, and roof of the church. Starting at about 4 am, it took five fire-fighting teams almost three hours to contain the blaze. The actual worship area was only lightly damaged, but hundreds of books were burned. Hebrew graffiti found at the scene written on one of the walls read “False idols will be smashed.”
The response to the arson was swift and has been ongoing. PM Netanyahu, Public Security Minister Erdan and a host of others condemned the attack saying that the “full weight” of the law will be used to deal with those responsible. The Chief Sephardic Rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef said: “The deviant behavior of church arsonists in the north must be condemned absolutely, and they should be punished severely.”
As for church personnel, a representative named Matatias appeared on Israeli radio yesterday morning and blasted the police for not having solved all of the outstanding cases of criminal activity directed against churches. However, he was not quick to ascribe blame. When asked by the radio interviewer about the fact that the graffiti on the wall was in Hebrew, Matatias answered “Everyone can write in Hebrew, including me.”
As for the police, what did they do?
Because of the graffiti on the wall, they went on a “kipa” hunt, and found a hiking group of 16 religious boys from a yeshiva in Judea and Samaria in the area. Immediately, with no evidence whatsoever, the police arrested them all and announced that the crime had been solved.
Within hours, a lawyer affiliated with the hiking group accused police of racism, and threatened that the police would be sued if the boys were not immediately released.
In short order, they were–along with a police statement that there was no evidence linking the boys to the arson.
But the fraudulent Israeli police action was enough to produce these headlines from around the world:
From the International Middle East Media Center:
“Israeli extremists burn the church where Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes”
From “The Times” in London:
“Jewish youths set Galilee’s miracle church on fire.”
From the Palestinian news:
“Israeli fanatics burn church in Tiberias”
From a theological blogger:
“Radical Israeli Settlers have Burned the Church of the Loaves and Fishes in Tiberias”
Your humble servant is sick of the way that the Israeli police always rush to condemn and arrest religious Jews in Judea and Samaria. It is long past time for them to start doing their jobs and not merely “rounding up the usual suspects.”
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.