Rise in violence against Messianic Jews and Christians

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Sep 23, 2008 22:44 | Updated Sep 24, 2008 20:50
By MATTHEW WAGNER

US report: Rise in violence against Messianic Jews and Christians


Violence against Christian evangelical and Messianic Jewish communities in Israel increased significantly during the period between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008, according to the US State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. The report, released last week, put blame for the "tensions" on "certain Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities." But except in one case, the report, which noted numerous incidents of discrimination or violence against Christian or Messianic Jewish communities or individuals, failed to prove that the perpetrators were Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox.


According to the US State Department, Jehovah's Witnesses representatives reported a significant increase in assaults and other crimes against their members over the past 12-month period. Violent incidents were up from one to two a month in early 2007 to eight to nine a month in early 2008. On October 23, 2007, suspected arsonists set fire to the Narkiss Street Baptist Church in Jerusalem. The pastor of a Russian Messianic Jewish congregation that meets in the church said that Yad L'Achim , a haredi anti-missionary organization, had threatened him and his congregation over the few years leading up to the attack. Yad L'Achim denied any connection to the attack
Rabbi Shalom Lifshitz, chairman of Yad L'Achim, said that his organization's legal advisor has sent a letter to the State Department warning that legal action will be taken unless Yad L'Achim's name is removed from the report. "If we have any connection with the incident, why is that no one has indicted us yet?" he said. "We are totally opposed to the use of any violence. It is counterproductive to our goal of fighting missionary activities." In a particularly violent incident that place on Purim (March 20) 15-year-old Ami Ortiz, a dual American-Israeli citizen and the son of a Messianic Jewish pastor, was seriously wounded when a bomb exploded in his home in Ariel. The bomb was concealed in a Purim gift basket placed on the doorstep of the boy's home. Christians close to the case said that the primary suspect was Jewish but police said they had not ruled out the possibility that the assailant was a Palestinian. Ortiz's father David was active as a missionary among Palestinians near Ariel. On May 15, in another religiously motivated incident, residents of the Tel Aviv suburb of Or Yehuda publicly burned hundreds of Christian Bibles distributed in the community by missionaries. Immediately after the incident, Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon, who represents Shas, told reporters that the burning fulfilled the religious commandment to "purge the evil from your midst." However, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post Tuesday, Aharon denounced the burning of the New Testament. "I condemn the burning of books that are holy to any religion, no matter which one it is," said Aharon. "We were only against the way Christian missionaries exploited the economic distress of Ethiopians and other poor citizens of Or Yehuda to proselytize." Aharon said that police have not detained anyone involved in the Bible-burning incident. "Everyone involved has expressed regret and we see the matter as closed," he said. Calev Myers, head of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ), a legal advocacy group for religious rights that represents mostly evangelical Christians and Messianic Jews, said that Israeli authorities are not doing enough to fight violence directed against these groups. "Months after the bombing incident in Ariel against Ami the police still have no clue who is responsible," said Myers. In response, a spokesman for the Judea and Samaria Police, which is responsible for investigating the bombing, said that "no stones are being left unturned. "All relevant police departments are continuing to thoroughly investigate the incident," said the spokesman. "However, due to the nature of the crime, the success of the investigation depends on secrecy." The State Department also mentioned claims by the JIJ that the Interior Ministry refused to process immigration applications from persons entitled to citizenship under the Law of Return if it was determined such persons held Christian or Messianic Jewish religious beliefs. In a landmark decision dealing with 12 Messianic Jews who are eligible under the Law of Return for automatic Israeli citizenship but who are not Jewish according to Halacha because their mothers are not Jewish, the High Court ruled on April 16 of this year that the state could not deny them citizenship. In its ruling, the court said that individuals who are not halachicly Jewish are still eligible to immigrate to Israel, even if they embraced a faith other than Judaism. In contrast, the Supreme Court had already ruled that someone whose mother is Jewish is disqualified from Israeli citizenship if he or she embraces another faith. Nevertheless, according to JIJ's Myers, five months after the court ruling was hand down the 12 petitioners have still not received citizenship. Cohen, one of the 12 Messianic Jews who petitioned the Supreme Court and won, said that the Interior Ministry has so far ignored the ruling. He preferred to use only a last name out of concern that a high profile might hurt chances of receiving citizenship. "None of us have received citizenship so far," said Cohen. "We were told two months ago that in one month's time we would receive our citizenship. But so far nothing has happened. "In the meantime I cannot work and I have to pay full tuition at university, which makes it difficult for me to make ends meet." Cohen, who affirmed faith in Messianic Judaism, identifies as a Zionist. "I see myself as a Zionist. Why else would I give up a good job, family, friends, an incredible education and come here to be reduced to nothing?" he said. "I believe in the State of Israel and I want to raise my family here and I can't imagine myself elsewhere." The Interior Ministry's spokesperson said in response that "The Interior Ministry abides by Supreme Court decisions," and that Messianic Jews, like members of any other religion, are entitled to Israeli citizenship due to their familial relations with a Jew. However, the spokesperson refused to comment on the delay in providing citizenship to the 12 petitioners.

My TAGS: 9* USA State Dept blame Jews Haredi Orthodox Zionist violence against Messianic Christian fire church Rabbi threat legal bombing :JPost Sep'08



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Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran.

Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran

US president told Israeli prime minister he would not back attack on Iran, senior European diplomatic sources tell Guardian

• Jonathan Steele
• guardian.co.uk,
• Thursday September 25 2008 19:02
  

A view of the nuclear enrichment plant of Natanz in central Iran. Photograph: EPA

Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian.

The then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, used the occasion of Bush's trip to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the state's founding to raise the issue in a one-on-one meeting on May 14, the sources said. "He took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they were at the moment, and that the US position was unlikely to change as long as Bush was in office", they added.

The sources work for a European head of government who met the Israeli leader some time after the Bush visit. Their talks were so sensitive that no note-takers attended, but the European leader subsequently divulged to his officials the highly sensitive contents of what Olmert had told him of Bush's position.

Bush's decision to refuse to offer any support for a strike on Iran appeared to be based on two factors, the sources said. One was US concern over Iran's likely retaliation, which would probably include a wave of attacks on US military and other personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as on shipping in the Persian Gulf.

The other was US anxiety that Israel would not succeed in disabling Iran's nuclear facilities in a single assault even with the use of dozens of aircraft. It could not mount a series of attacks over several days without risking full-scale war. So the benefits would not outweigh the costs.

Iran has repeatedly said it would react with force to any attack. Some western government analysts believe this could include asking Lebanon's Shia movement Hizbollah to strike at the US.

"It's over ten years since Hizbollah's last terror strike outside Israel, when it hit an Argentine-Israel association building in Buenos Aires [killing 85 people]", said one official. "There is a large Lebanese diaspora in Canada which must include some Hizbollah supporters. They could slip into the United States and take action".

Even if Israel were to launch an attack on Iran without US approval its planes could not reach their targets without the US becoming aware of their flightpath and having time to ask them to abandon their mission.

"The shortest route to Natanz lies across Iraq and the US has total control of Iraqi airspace", the official said. Natanz, about 100 miles north of Isfahan, is the site of an uranium enrichment plant.

In this context Iran would be bound to assume Bush had approved it, even if the White House denied fore-knowledge, raising the prospect of an attack against the US.

Several high-level Israeli officials have hinted over the last two years that Israel might strike Iran's nuclear facilities to prevent them being developed to provide sufficient weapons-grade uranium to make a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied having such plans.

Olmert himself raised the possibility of an attack at a press conference during a visit to London last November, when he said sanctions were not enough to block Iran's nuclear programme.

"Economic sanctions are effective. They have an important impact already, but they are not sufficient. So there should be more. Up to where? Up until Iran will stop its nuclear programme," he said.

The revelation that Olmert was not merely sabre-rattling to try to frighten Iran but considered the option seriously enough to discuss it with Bush shows how concerned Israeli officials had become.

Bush's refusal to support an attack, and the strong suggestion he would not change his mind, is likely to end speculation that Washington might be preparing an "October surprise" before the US presidential election. Some analysts have argued that Bush would back an Israeli attack in an effort to help John McCain's campaign by creating an eve-of-poll security crisis.

Others have said that in the case of an Obama victory, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, the main White House hawk, would want to cripple Iran's nuclear programme in the dying weeks of Bush's term.

During Saddam Hussein's rule in 1981, Israeli aircraft successfully destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak shortly before it was due to start operating.

Last September they knocked out a buildings complex in northern Syria, which US officials later said had been a partly constructed nuclear reactor based on a North Korean design. Syria said the building was a military complex but had no links to a nuclear programme.

In contrast, Iran's nuclear facilities, which are officially described as intended only for civilian purposes, are dispersed around the country and some are in fortified bunkers underground.

In public, Bush gave no hint of his view that the military option had to be excluded. In a speech to the Knesset the following day he confined himself to telling Israel's parliament: "America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.''

Mark Regev, Olmert's spokesman, tonight reacted to the Guardian's story saying: "The need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is raised at every meeting between the prime minister and foreign leaders. Israel prefers a diplomatic solution to this issue but all options must remain on the table. Your unnamed European source attributed words to the prime minister that were not spoken in any working meeting with foreign guests".

Three weeks after Bush's red light, on June 2, Israel mounted a massive air exercise covering several hundred miles in the eastern Mediterranean. It involved dozens of warplanes, including F-15s, F-16s and aerial refuelling tankers.

The size and scope of the exercise ensured that the US and other nations in the region saw it, said a US official, who estimated the distance was about the same as from Israel to Natanz.

A few days later, Israel's deputy prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, told the paper Yediot Ahronot: "If Iran continues its programme to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The window of opportunity has closed. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear programme."

The exercise and Mofaz's comments may have been designed to boost the Israeli government and military's own morale as well, perhaps, to persuade Bush to reconsider his veto. Last week Mofaz narrowly lost a primary within the ruling Kadima party to become Israel's next prime minister. Tzipi Livni, who won the contest, takes a less hawkish position.

The US announced two weeks ago that it would sell Israel 1,000 bunker-busting bombs. The move was interpreted by some analysts as a consolation prize for Israel after Bush told Olmert of his opposition to an attack on Iran. But it could also enhance Israel's attack options in case the next US president revives the military option.

The guided bomb unit-39 (GBU-39) has a penetration capacity equivalent to a one-tonne bomb. Israel already has some bunker-busters.

Map showing nuclear activity in Iran

My Tags:*9 Bush visit Israel 1948 anniversary refused permits attack Iran nuclear building secret EU diplomacy retaliate fuel pipeline Afghanistan war Hizbollah USA Sep'08 :Guardian politics history

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