When Ra'am sends condolences for the death of the sheikh who allowed terrorist attacks, the obsession against Ben Gabir is sick

In the week when the Islamic movement of Ra'am publishes a notice of participation in mourning for the death of the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose halachic ruling allowed Palestinians to carry out suicide attacks, the continued obsession of journalists and politicians with Itamar Ben Gabir is a distraction from what is truly dangerous

Kalman Libeskind

30/09/2022

Friday, September 30, 2022, 05:16 Updated: Saturday, October 01, 2022, 21:23

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"Dedicated his life to the defense of Islam and Muslims."

Sheikh Youssef al-Qardawi (photo: screenshot, Facebook)

Let's talk about the obsession with Itamar Ben Gvir.

Whose obsession, you ask?

whose not

of Yair Lapid and Meretz, of Benny Gantz and Gideon Sa'ar, of the Israeli mainstream media, and according to a report by Ariel Kahana in Israel Hayom, also of the American government.

What do all these have in common?

Well, all of these have no problem cooperating with those who embrace Israel's enemies, with those who perpetuate the memory of terrorists who murdered Jews, and with those who support lynching operations against Jews.

They have a problem with Itamar Ben Gvir.

This is a morbid phenomenon.

Less because of the aversion of all of these to the possibility of cooperation with Ben Gvir, and more because this aversion serves as a smoke screen through which parallel cooperation with any enemy can be legalized, in any weather, if only there is a political need for it.

A smoke screen that enables cooperation with any enemy.

Itamar Ben Gabir in Bleach, September 6, 2022 (Photo: Reuven Castro)

In News 13, for example, they turned the Ben Gabir issue into the political line of the edition.

Not long ago I wrote here about the call of Nadav Eyal, the channel's foreign commentator, not to normalize Ben Gabir.

Last week, the legal commentator, Baruch Kara, also took time off from his legal duties to prepare a 17 and a half minute article (!) against Ben Gabir.

Channel 13 is not the only one in this game, but as far as it is concerned, it seems that the captains of the channel have decided to shed all their disguises and tell the truth.

They have a political stance and are here to use the release to promote it.

If it was a position that appears in a side program, and the opinion of one of the presenters or commentators, let it be.

When it happens as part of a news release, it's already from the pop-up.

In those 17 and a half minutes there was nothing we didn't know or hadn't heard before.

To Baruch Kara's credit, it can be said that he didn't even try to present himself as someone who presents a journalistic product.

He has an agenda, there is a Knesset candidate he doesn't want, and he has a channel that allows him to use his technical services to fight this candidate.

"Since I have known Ben Gvir for 30 years," he began, "it was important for me to check if the young people, if the youth, know his ideology and his biography, as I know it. So we went the other day to the election event at Blich High School."

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Explain to them that they should feel uncomfortable.

Itamar Ben Gvir with students at Belich High School (Photo: Reuven Castro)

So what did we have in this article?

We had youths who are active in Meretz, at work and in Beish Atid, who voiced their position regarding Ben Gabir, and just so as not to spoil it for those who haven't watched, I won't tell you here what they think about him.

We had three young people who were going to vote for Ben Gabir, who Kara sat in front of him and for several minutes tried to explain to them that they should feel uncomfortable with what they were about to do.

Then came the regular trick used by disappointed reporters who are unable to extract from Ben Gvir texts of support for the murder of Arabs and gays: they repeat and play the racist words of Rabbi Meir Kahana, who was murdered when Ben Gvir was 14 years old, and to strengthen the message a little more they also add one passage from Noam Federman and another one by Baruch Marzel.

The three - the late Kahane, and Federman and Marzel, who will live long lives - do not run in the elections, but they can always serve as a good seasoning for any Ben Gvir salad.

To be clear, there is no problem in quoting Ben Gabir's past in support of Rabbi Kahana.

This could be proper journalism.

But when this is done for the thousandth time, and when Ben Gvir himself explains over and over again what he supports from Rabbi Kahana's actions and what he does not, and when he correctly answers every question and claim and difficulty in the matter, it is clear that the journalistic value of these archive pieces is very limited.

Not running in the elections, but spices up the salad nicely.

Ben Gvir with Baruch Marzel and Benny Gopstein (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Be that as it may, in the next step he moved on to tell his interlocutors, Ben Gabir's supporters, about the late Rabbi Kahana's bills, including a ban on meetings between Jewish youth and non-Jews, a ban on mixed marriages, and the separation of Jews and Arabs on bathing beaches.

Does Ben Gvir support any of these proposals?

No.

But why destroy good propaganda with facts?

"I don't want to give you examples from history of people who said, 'It's nothing, it's a marginal phenomenon,'" Kara returned us to those days, without saying the forbidden word.

In one of the scenes, in Blich's yard, Kara is seen amidst a noisy group of high school students, trying to overcome the surrounding voices, as he shouts and reminds Ben Gabir why he was not allowed to serve in the IDF. "Why don't you tell them the whole truth?

(Say) 'I want to introduce Rabbi Kahana's teachings to the Knesset, I'm doing it in stages.'

For Kara it was important to emphasize that Rabbi Kahane believed that there is no such thing as a Jewish and democratic state, there is either Jewish or democratic.

Ben Gvir explained to him, in response, that he was in fact in favor of a state that is both Jewish and democratic, but it was broadcasting propaganda in which the facts had very little place.

"One thing is clear," concluded Kara, "Ben Gabir Oved's factory of forgetting. The forgetting of the incitement that led to Rabin's murder, the forgetting of the picture of the murderer Goldstein that hung in his house, the forgetting of Kahana and the Kahanist ideology, the expulsion of Arabs and separate bathing beaches."

"A message of condolence is irrelevant to ideology."

Mansour Abbas (Photo: Reuven Castro)

bleaching process

Although we are dealing here, ostensibly, with Itamar Ben Gvir, he is not really important for our purposes.

It's just a parable.

Like him, so does Baruch Kara.

Kara is just a representative example of a phenomenon.

A large and influential group here, in politics and the media, has lost its way, gone off the rails, and for political reasons chooses to repeatedly argue with Ben Gabir and present him as the greatest parliamentary danger that threatens us, when it is careful to ignore and close its eyes to events that are a thousand times more dangerous, in front of members of the Knesset A thousand times more problematic, and facing parties that align with the worst of our enemies.

Take a fresh example from the week.

On Monday, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi, one of the most important Muslim halachic judges, died.

We are talking about a hater of Israel, a hater of Jews, an anti-Semitic person, a person who halachically permitted the execution of suicide attacks against Israelis.

And here, who issues a statement of mourning for the death of the one who "dedicated his life for the defense of the religion of Islam and Muslims"?

None other than the southern faction of the Islamic movement, the one that the Ra'am party acts on behalf of in our coalition.

In a normal world, this would have entailed an intense media engagement, and an incessant flow of reactions from the political system. In our sick political and media reality, Ben Gabir remains the only problem. Why is this Because none of the supporters of the "Just No Bibi" coalition in the media and in politics have any interest in engaging in anything that could harm the possibility of cooperation with the Arab members of the Knesset.

I turned to MK Mansor Abbas yesterday and asked him to explain to me the meaning of this participation in the mourning for those who approved blowing up Jewish buses. "A message of condolence is irrelevant to the ideology and value positions of the Islamic movement and the Prime Minister," MK Abbas explained to me. "In Islam there is It is a halachic mitzvah to comfort people who died without considering their opinions or differences of opinion with you" (the full response at the end of the column).

A few things need to be said about this response. First, that with all due respect to Mansour Abbas, the southern faction of the Islamic movement does not issue 70,000 ads but too many day, and the chairman of the movement does not bother himself to sign a participation in sorrow, in his honor and by himself, following every person who returns his soul to the Creator.

more extreme than a much older son.

Merav Michaeli with Ben Gabir at Belich High School (Photo: Uri Sela)

Secondly, whoever reads this message will easily understand that it is not a generic mourning message, one that is placed in a drawer, waiting for the death of the Muslim on duty.

This is a eulogy for the death of a great and respected man, "the extremely learned sheikh", who "dedicated his life to the defense of Islam and the Muslims and the issues important to the Islamic nation".

Wait, that's not enough.

"We ask Allah, may He be exalted," adds the mourning message of the Islamic movement of Ra'am, "to wrap our sheikh and religious sage Dr. Yusef al-Qardawi in his abundant mercy, and to dwell throughout his paradise, and to give patience and comfort to his family, his students, and all his loved ones, and to reward him for us And for our nation the best reward thanks to the great knowledge and wisdom he left behind" (translation courtesy of Moran Tal).

Need to explain anything else here?

They thank him for dedicating his life to Islam, and wish him a good reward and paradise.

If someone is willing to accept in their coalition a party that mourns the death of someone whose ruling allowed terrorists to blow up Jews wherever they are, then it's time to talk about it a little.

And in general, if Mansor Abbas explains the mourning notice according to Islamic custom that does not teach anything about supporting the dead and his teachings, perhaps it would also be useful for Ben Gabir to explain that he hung the picture of Baruch Goldstein in the living room, not because he supports him, but because this is the custom in his community, and thus the end will come on the discussion of the issue.

I will clarify something here.

I don't have a problem with someone who sees Ben Gavir as an extremist and doesn't want to vote for him.

I, for myself, am convinced that Zehava Galon and Merev Michaeli and Gabi Laski, who support paying salaries to terrorists in exchange for their willingness to murder Jews, are far more extreme, but I respect those who think differently from me.

What else?

That this crazy and incessant preoccupation with Ben Gvir - whether it comes from the media, whether it comes from "Yesh Atid" or the "state camp" - is nothing more than an attempt to distract us from what is really dangerous here.

And what's dangerous is the whitewashing process that the left and the press carry over all of our enemies, everyone they see as potential partners in the "Only not Bibi" coalition.

How is Ben Gabir, who has never met Kahana, more dangerous than Ahmed Tibi, Arafat's former right-hand man? (Photo: Knesset Spokesperson, Dani Shem Tov)

Take the last year.

At the moment when RAM entered the coalition, the mainstream media chose to raise a toast, celebrate the historic event and close their eyes. If we didn't have Yair Kraus in "Mekor Rishon" we wouldn't have known that the man Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid appointed chairman of the Knesset's Interior Committee, participated At an event in support of the terrorists who brutally lynched the Jews in Acre.

If we didn't have Yishai Friedman in Makor Rishon and Shivii, we wouldn't know that the albums of almost all Arab Knesset members are full of their support hugs for terrorists who murdered Jews.

If we did not have the website "The Jewish Voice", we would not know that the assistant of Ram Ben Barak, chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, participated in a course taught by a sheikh who supports suicide attacks, and that she was photographed with sheikhs who incite and support terrorism.

If it weren't for them, we wouldn't know that MK Mazen Ganaim, second on the Raam list, supports the Palestinian terrorists and calls them "a crown on the head of every national Arab", and that the sixth place on the Raam list supports firing missiles at Israel. Just last week We have published here the manner in which the follow-up committee - in which all the Arab parties are represented, from Ra'am to Bel'd, will instigate the disturbances against Jews in May 2021. Arabs here burned down synagogues and lynched Jews and set fire to Jewish apartments and murdered Jews just because they were Jews .

Arab MPs hugged the rioters and called for the release of any of them who were arrested. And who is the most dangerous here? Itamar Ben Gabir. It is impossible to invent such madness.

We have an Arab party in the Knesset that submitted a bill, the practical meaning of which is the cancellation of the Law of Return and the cancellation of the flag and the cancellation of the national anthem and the cancellation of state symbols.

In other words, the end of the idea of ​​the Jewish state.

And yet, a bunch of journalists are convinced that what is really important here is to decide the question of whether when Ben Gvir explains that he no longer thinks that LGBT people are abominable as he once said, it is because he has changed his perception or because he is working for us. A

responsible Israeli media would be on guard and warn from the enemy. Our media needs the enemy and its representatives to close a coalition to the bloc against Netanyahu, and therefore none of this interests it. Think about the situation where the chairman of the Knesset's Interior Committee is photographed in a tent supporting terrorists who lynched Jews, and no one but "Mokor Rishon" and a snooty columnist is not interesting.

This normalization that the Israeli media conveys, together with representatives of the "Change Bloc", to every supporter of terrorism, is a matter that is difficult to grasp.

I think that Palestinians who shoot at IDF soldiers are like the partisans who fought the Nazis. MK Ofer Kasif (photo: official website, -)

Hadash chairman Ayman Odeh, the one whom Prime Minister Lapid has no problem using to form a government, does not think there is a problem with murderous attacks against IDF soldiers. MK Ofer Kasif, a member of the party, thinks that the Palestinians are shooting at IDF soldiers "They are like the partisans who fought the Nazis. When some murderous terrorists escaped from Gilboa prison and he was asked if he would have turned them over to the police, if he had encountered them by chance, he replied that it was a "dilemma". Do you understand who we are dealing with?

Do you know how to explain how the news broadcasts don't repeat to us these texts of MKs, with whom the Prime Minister sees no problem cooperating? Is there a Jew here who is willing to explain how Itamar Ben Gabir, who never met Rabbi Kahana, is more problematic than Ahmed Tibi , who served as Yasser Arafat's right-hand man and who ten days ago refused to answer a fellow faculty member that he was condemning the person who shot innocent Yeshiva students in the Carmel settlement? What has happened to us? There are people sitting in the Israeli Knesset who identify with the worst of our enemies, and political commentators are seriously debating whether they will supplement Lapid with a blocking block or No, as if being our enemy is something more likely than being Itamar Ben Gabir.

Here, just a week ago, Lapid explained in an interview he gave to Yehuda Schlesinger in Israel Hayom, that even though MK Walid Taha of Ra'am sided with the enemy, I dared in Operation Dawn ", he has no problem sitting with him. But he has a problem sitting with Ben Gvir, because "Ben Gvir embarrasses us".In what world does this thing pass with such indifference?

Ayman Odeh, Ahmed Tibi at the submission of the lists for the Knesset elections, September 18, 2022 (Photo: Reuven Castro)

moral abyss

You need to understand something.

The support of Arab MKs for terrorism and terrorists is not an academic philosophical concept that has no impact on our practical lives here. We are at war. Many, many Israeli Arabs are taking part in this war. The May 2021 riots were just an example of this. The riots in the Negev because of KKL-Junk plantings were another example .

So are the murderous attacks in Hadera and Be'er Sheva.

Dozens of Arab settlements have produced murderous terrorists.

A huge Arab public votes for people who and the terrorists are on the same side of the fight against us.

And in front of all this stands a political and journalistic system, which has suffered from Ben Gabir syndrome.

Wherever they look, they only see him.

There is no Arab terrorism, there is no support for Arab terrorism, there is no praise for the martyrs, there is only Ben Gabir.

At the end of the day, all of this comes together in one argument that needs to be put before Lapid and Benny Gantz and Hili Trooper and Yoaz Handel and Gideon Sa'ar and with them a long line of journalists.

That's right, you have a criticism of Ben Gvir.

True, he is extreme in your eyes.

True, as full-fledged voters, you probably wouldn't vote for him.

But after we have said that, you are invited to ask yourself one central question: when terrorists shoot an IDF officer to death, and he is covered in his blood, and the city officer rushes to his family, and his parents gather crying in the cemetery, and the government representative swears that our hand will catch the murderers - at this moment , who distills for us the sharp question "Who is for us, who is for us", who do you recognize there as part of your group? Itamar Ben Gabir, who sheds a tear with you at the open grave, or MK Ayman Odeh, who sees no problem in what the terrorist did and MK Mazen denigrates that he thinks this terrorist is "a crown on the head of every national Arab"?

When the businesses of the Jews of the Old City of Acre went up in flames, and Mor Janashvili and Mordechai Katz and Elad Barzilai were brutally lynched by their Arab neighbors, who did you feel experienced the exact same shock that you experienced? Itamar Ben Gabir or MK Said Al Harumi, who went to Acre to support the rioters?

And no, an answer along the lines of "we are allowed to object to both this and that", will not be accepted here.

Because the Odeh MK and the Ganaim MK and the Al Harumi MK did not back down. You built a coalition with two of them, and you treat the third as a legitimate elected official. Do you understand what a moral abyss you have dragged us into? After all this, it seems to you that Itamar Ben Gabir is the man Need to explain yourself?

"against violence or any terrorist attack"

Mansour Abbas's response: "A condolence message is not relevant to the ideology and value positions of the Islamic movement and Rem.

In Islam there is a halachic mitzvah to comfort people who have died without considering their opinions or disagreements with them.

The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, stood at the funeral of a Jew and shared in the grief of his family.

"From our point of view, there is a difference between condolence and justification or agreement with some of the positions of Sheikh Yosef al-Kardawi, even though he is defined as a world-class halachic authority. And in this context of 'halachic authority,' as far as the Islamic movement is concerned, the highest halachic authority is local within the borders of the State of Israel, and we are not heard on issues Face, no arbiter of a halakhic outside the halachic body that determines the halakhos within the Islamic movement.

"The position of the Islamic Movement, and of course the RA, against violence or any terrorist attack has been known for decades, and it was established by Sheikh Abdullah Nimer Darwish, the founder and leader of the Islamic Movement, and he always came out publicly against the bus attacks in the 1990s, and since then we have also continued on this path.

I expressed our position regarding the Holocaust and the identification with the Jewish people in this context in the moral and unequivocal speech I delivered in the Knesset.

You can go back to it."

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