Today is still Day 14,250 of the Maintenance of the Immoral (and Illegal) West Bank Settlements and almost the 40th anniversary of the start of the immoral (and illegal) occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Within the borders of Hebron, one of the biggest Arab cities in the West Bank, are 120,000 Palestinians. In the old city of Hebron, there are 650 Jewish Israeli squatters and 30,000 Palestinians.
While I appreciate the quote from Isaiah that appears at the end of the last post, more applicable are these words from Ezekiel 22:3-8 from Acharey Mos, the Haftorah read on Yom Kippur. What message do Rabbi Levinger and his thugs take from reading this passage on one of their few days off from beating Palestinians and destroying their property?
“O city that sheddest blood in the midst of thee, that thy time may come and that makest idols unto thyself to defile thee. …therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the nations, and a mocking to all the countries. Those that are near and those that are far from thee, shall mock thee, thou defiled of name and full of tumult. Behold the princes of Israel, every one according to his might, have been in thee to shed blood. In thee have they made light of father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger; in thee have they wronged the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised My holy things and hast profaned My sabbaths…. In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken interest and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by oppression, and hast forgotten Me, saith the Lord God. Behold, therefore, I have smitten My hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee. And I will scatter thee among the nations, and disperse thee through the countries; and I will consume thy filthiness out of three. And thou shalt be profaned in thyself in the sight of the nations and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.”
Does Rabbi Levinger for even the slightest moment worry that God might consider that he and his thugs have shed blood and dishonestly and greedily gained by oppressing the Palestinian strangers? Does he ever worry that God might conclude that he and his thugs have forgotten God and might punish them by scattering them through the countries and allow them to be profaned in the sight of the nations? One could conclude that the Jewish Israeli Squatters in Hebron are already profaned in the sight of the (United) Nations.
Certainly Rabbi Levinger and his band of squatters have read this at least once every year. Deutoronomy 16:20 – “Justice, justice shall you pursue that you may live and inherit the land which God gave you” and the footnote in the 1980 Hertz Edition “(T)here is international justice, which demands respect for the personality of every national group, and proclaims that no people can of right be robbed of its national life or territory, its language or spiritual heritage.
Does Rabbi Levinger for even the slightest moment worry that God who they believe promised them the land might consider that he and his band of squatters are not pursuing justice and that they no longer deserve to live and inherit the land?
May their scattering will be the first step taken on the path to peace with justice for the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Micah.6:8 “He has told you, O man, Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God
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