I am writing this with a heavy heart. Having pen friends (and personal friends) on the left and on the right, I have come with time to one simple motto – my friend must be a mensch first. And last. Everything else is secondary. And I have consistently avoided fiery political rhetorics attacking this or other side, unless we are talking about absolute moral imperatives. It seems to me that looking for common ground is a better alternative.
But the last case, that of a learned professor* cursing a senior IDF officer, using words suitable for a souk brawl and expressing wishes more consistent with addressing an absolute evil the likes of which I can hardly imagine – this case just broke the seal.
Police opened on Wednesday a criminal investigation against Professor Hillel Weiss for his bombastic public statements against Judea Division commander Col. Yehuda Fuchs during Tuesday’s evacuation of the Hebron marketplace.
Weiss cursed Fuchs, saying “may his wife be a widow, his mother bereaved, and his children orphans.”
From another source:
The professor also said that the security officers who carried out the evacuation are “worse than the Germans.”
He said more, and I heard part of the recording of his hateful “speech” on the radio today.
Now, we can do what we have always done: ignore the hateful outburst from the mad ultra-right-winger as we ignore the hateful outbursts from the mad supra-left-wingers as relatively harmless (and don’t you just enjoy the similarity of the curses?) venting of steam by some really not dangerous minority moonbats. But can we allow ourselves this luxury? Could we continue ignoring the ugly face of the left and right moonbats cursing, spitting on, attacking our soldiers, our policemen, each other?
Our country is going through a difficult period, and I do not have to expand on this subject here. We can deal, as we have always done, with the dire straits of military and political realities. There is, however, a new dimension, hitherto untraveled and not even sufficiently charted – the tears being created in the delicate fabric of our nation by the above mentioned moonbats .
I shall start with the first symptom – the significant drop in the number of recruits volunteering for the battle units. This is the first in our history. And both wings of moonbats have made a contribution to this phenomenon. Both wings and our lack of attention and passivity are complicit in this “new wave”, when some of our children, brainwashed by the cheap slogans, are deciding that defending out country is secondary to serving the idols of an ideology or religion.
And the growing number of cases when our soldiers refuse to carry out an order – not because it is unlawful and even not because it may cause exceeding violence, but just because their ideological guru or their rabbi told them so; this is another symptom of the malady that should force us to ask ourselves – for how long we can continue ignoring the abyss we are coming to? Our nation was teared apart by internal forces twice in its history: will it allow the moonbats to do so again?
What bothers me in this specific case is the silence (mostly) from my friends on the right. Of course, the ultra-left and just left have a field day with the Weiss story. But I will be more than glad to hear some voices of sanity from the right wing now, when sanity is so necessary.
And to the moonbats: the silent majority, unfortunately, remains silent so far. But do not count on it to remain silent forever. The day of reckoning may come, and we may decide that this bird may do with some wing clipping. Painful as it may be…
(*) Addendum
(This post is not about Hillel Weiss, as you have gathered by now, but as a matter of interest, here some information about the character.)
Hillel Weiss is Professor of Hebrew Literature, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. In addition, our learned gentleman is a member of the Sanhedrin (a self-appointed bunch, to make sure).
Mr Weiss has some strong opinions on the role religion should play in my (and yours) lives:
PROFESSOR HILLEL WEISS, SANHEDRIN RELIGIOUS COURT: We are not serving the Christians or the Muslims, we are serving the only truth that is in the world, and it is the Jewish law and the Torah, and all the nations have to obey this law.
Does it sound familiar? His counterparts, the Ayatollahs, have a very similar formula – he may want to sit down with them to compare notes…
He is quite certain about the way to deal with people who do not heed his opinion:
…Yair Naveh, the general who issued the ban, is a religious man and the Sanhedrin summoned him twice to explain himself.
HILLEL WEISS: This general, personally, took decisions that destroy and enters the holocaust to the Jewish people again.
MATT BROWN: But the general ignored the rabbis and they branded him a Moser.
HILLEL WEISS: We told him that, according to the Jewish law, he’s like a Moser, one that delivers Jews to gentiles, one who delivers land, one who delivers property.
MATT BROWN: In ancient Jewish law, being a Moser amounted to a death sentence.
HILLEL WEISS: “It’s lawful to kill the Moser in any place, in any time.”
Mr Weiss and his friends have also some unorthodox opinions on the issue of 9/11 and others, but it is most interesting (and it meshes quite nicely with his strong opinion on the lawfulness of killing a “Moser”), he is one of the selected group of sickos denying the accepted version of Rabin’s murder. Anyone who knows where the sleaze that murdered Rabin came from, could trace the probable reasons for this specific insanity.
To add color to the above, the notoriously anti-Semitic Rense is using the material provided by Weiss and his friends, happily linking to it.
To add more reasons for worry: professor Weiss is not only a teacher in an university, he is a political figure to be aware of: recently his name appeared on a manifesto of the Jewish Leadership faction of Likud (having for its leader Moshe Feiglin). This is how deep the rot reaches.
And what was professor’s response to the critics after the latest revolting appearance?
…Weiss said “cursing is in the framework of the right to free speech. Rabbi Ovadia Yossef and soccer fans act in the same manner.”
“Nobody has the moral right to investigate me. The police and army would be better off taking a look at their recent actions instead of investigating me. I don’t care about this investigation,” Weiss continued.
Look who is talking about moral right. Merde.
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
The irony is astounding. His thesis is that the state and its agents are working against Jewish interests, so his solution is to curse a Jew.
Unfortunately, the extreme and the controversial get the most publicity.
The ordinary and the productive keep on working in obscurity.
We need a better way, like “Outwitted” by Edwin Markham
He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took him in.
I had to read it twice to discern whether you were talking about Israel or the United States.
Very profound, my compliments on your insight.
Robert
Thanks, Robert, you are exaggerating a bit on the profoundness but thanks anyway.
Ed – I agree that some of the extremists are mostly seeking publicity, but unfortunately this is only a part. We have too many false prophets by now, and I wonder where it is going to end…
Sad very sad indeed!!!
Snoopy, you’re absolutely right. The “wings” are flying us all off to a place we don’t want to go. The publicity part of it is that the media need their extremism to sell stories, and give them publicity they haven’t earned through positive work for society’s general benefit.
I don’t mind even the most radical viewpoint fighting for exposure. I do mind their work being devoted so much to the “horse race” aspect of social interaction. Instead of solving problems, they are fighting other potential problem-solvers.
I had the misfortune of actually seeing Barry Hamish who you linked to, do a lecture at a local synagogue. He’s just plain bad news. However, I’m not quite sure its fair to say ultra-left secular and ultra-right religious. There are reasons the ultra-left and ultra-right sound alike. They use each other for recruitment. My biggest problem with the Kahane movement is that it seemed to have relied on recruiting leftists during the 60’s and 70’s and giving them a feeling of religious meaning. As far as I can tell the Kahane movement seemed to have admired Leftist energy and protest methods and used the kind of people attracted to it as recruits. They are Left wingers who have taken up religious Zionism as another cause. As such they have certain tendencies in place. When the Left is riled up. They are riled up too. They don’t act as a counterforce to the Far Left but more like a splinter group.
Religious, pro-Zionist Jews will have to come together and work out some means of defining ourselves other than “support for Israel”. Its just too vague an idea. If we don’t then in a crisis the nutcases will see the opportunity they lay in wait for and rush in.
“However, I’m not quite sure its fair to say ultra-left secular and ultra-right religious.”
It will be a mistake indeed to say it, Neil, and I hope you have not found such a statement in my post.
Check out Arutz Sheva. It is indeed interesting that the extreme left is often worse. Arutz Sheva pointed out (though that is an explanation not an excuse)
While also pointing out (and these had no such excuse)
Hi again, Sabba Hillel (it looks like our “stereo” dialog will tire both of us out).
Here is my response from that other place:
Sabba Hillel, I would say that the point about who of these two wing is worse could be debated forever, and it is not really interesting at the end of the day.
The clear and present danger to our nation these two wings represent should be the priority – this is the gist of my (admittedly longish) post.
Oh, and re Weiss making the statements in the heat of watching the eviction: he repeated the whole “statement” several times for radio and TV since then, quite willingly. And not being under pressure of any kind.
One chilling detail: in the original version he was heard clearly saying before the cursing: “I curse you”. I should not have to explain to you the meaning of this, I guess.