The Nuremberg Laws Come to Israel
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| Israel's courts approve of demonstration |
On 12 September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were announced at a
mass Nazi rally by a Nazi physician Gerhard Wagner. On 15th September they were enacted by Hitler into law. The first was the The
Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour (the second was the Reich Citizenship Law). They were two of only four laws passed by the Reichstag. Dr. Bernhard Lösener, the Interior Ministry official in charge of drafting anti-Semitic laws, was tasked with drafting a definition of who was a Jew and came up with anyone who had 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents (1 or 2 meant you were a mischlinge - mixed race).
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| Zionism never objected to the Nuremburg Laws |
They were described by Gerald Reitlinger in The Final Solution (p.7) as ‘the most murderous legislative instrument known to European history”. Zionism however, as a racial Jewish political
movement had no objections to what was, after all, the fulfillment of their own
program.
So it is in Israel today that hundreds of protesters
demonstrated against the marriage celebration of a former Jewish woman and a Muslim
man, daring to equate it with Jewish lives lost during the holocaust. Can one imagine any other western (or indeed any other
civilised) state where people demonstrate against two people who, although of
different ethnic/religious backgrounds, wish to marry each other? In this country such opposition is confined
to marginal fascist groups like the NF or BNP.
In Israel it is part of mainstream Zionist politics.
Although it hides the fact, not least from many diaspora Jews,
in Israel there is no civil marriage.
You have to marry someone of the same religion, but whereas Christian
and Muslim marriage requirements are lax, to be Jewish i.e. part of the select,
is a difficult and lengthy process.
The demonstrations over this marriage says all you need to
know about Israeli politics and, incidentally, the nature of the Israeli court system, which in the case of high public officials, contrasts freedom of speech with the right to privacy.
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Lehava Certificate that a business only employs Jews
The organisation Lehava which has organised these demonstrations is funded mainly by the Israeli state. Although the new Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, whom Netanyahu bitterly opposed, has condemned the demonstrations, Netanyahu himself has said nothing. It is clear where this pro-American ‘moderate’ stands.
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It is ironic that the 'Jewish' state, allegedly set up as a result of the holocaust, echoes Nazi discrimination against the Jews.
Tony Greenstein
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'An Act of Treason' according to the majority of Israel's Jews - ex-Jewish bridge Malka
Anti-Arab group urges supporters to bring loudspeakers and
horns to wedding of Mahmoud Mansour and Moral Malka
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A Palestinian man and his Jewish bride-to-be are facing hostile protests in
the Israeli town of Rishon Letzion after
Israel's high court refused their
application to ban demonstrations outside their wedding reception.
Mahmoud Mansour, 26, a Palestinian from Jaffa, has had to hire dozens of
security guards after an anti-Arab group, Lehava, published details of his
wedding reception online and called for Israelis to come and picket the wedding
hall.
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| The mob that Israel's courts allowed 'freedom of speech' |
The group, which campaigns against assimilation between Jews and Arabs in
Israel, is angry that Mansour's bride-to-be, Moral Malka, 23, is Jewish,
although local media reported that she has already converted to
Islam and the couple have had an Islamic
wedding.
"We've been together for five years, but we've never encountered such
racism. I always knew there were racists, but as long as you're not affected by
it, until you feel it in your own body, you don't know what it is,"
Mansour told Haaretz on Sunday.
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| The mob that Israel's courts allowed to demonstrate |
"If it were someone from her family, I would understand, but these
people aren't related. Why do they care? Why are they getting involved? If they
think they'll get us to give up on each other, it won't happen." He said that hiring the security guards had cost over $4,000 (£2,400), half
of which was being paid for by the wedding hall, but the remainder the couple
had to find themselves. The court decided that protesters would be allowed to
picket the wedding, but only at a distance of 200m.
The wedding has become a national issue – drawing comment from even the
president on Sunday – underscoring the strength of feeling following Israel's
two-month confrontation with Hamas. On Sunday, peace talks in Cairo inched
forward but there was no sign of imminent agreement.
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| Zionist mob outside celebration |
Lehava, which campaigns under the slogan of '
saving the daughters of
Israel', was revealed to have links with the Israeli government in a 2011
investigation by Haaretz, receiving up to $175,000 per year from the state,
over half of its operational budget. In 2012 the group distributed flyers in east Jerusalem warning Arabs not to
visit the mostly Jewish western side of the city, and has campaigned against
Jews and Arabs mixing on beaches and Jewish landlords renting to Arabs.
On Sunday's wedding, the group said: "
Please come with positive energy
and bring loudspeakers and horns. We will ask our sister to return home with us
to the Jewish people who are waiting for her," reported Israeli news site
Arutz Sheva.
Other Orthodox Jewish groups have also entered the fray. Yad L'Achim,
another group that campaigns against Jewish and Arab assimilation in Israel
posted a blurred picture of the bride on its Facebook site, calling on Jews to
write to her and plead with her not to go ahead with the wedding.
The page, published on 13 August, has got over 2,000 likes and over 4,000
people have written responses asking the bride to cancel the reception and
leave her husband. Speaking to Haaretz, however, Mansour said he had also received many letters
of support. "
We feel great, and that really gives us strength. They think
they'll break us, but we can't be broken. The opposite is true – we're getting
stronger," Mansour said.
"The wedding will go on as planned – it will be great. I'm not worried,
but it's troubling that on this day, which everyone waits for their whole life,
the happiest day of their life, I have to go to court. It's sad that such
things happen in this country."
Could we imagine a wedding between a Christian and a
Jew becoming national news in a European country?
That the marriage of
Mahmoud Mansour and Morel Malka became a subject for public
debate is embarrassing and testifies to how low we have sunk. Could we imagine
a wedding between a Christian and a Jew becoming a national news item in any
European country? Indeed, the Lehava organization that launched a public
protest against this wedding is worthy of every condemnation. But we must remember
that racism didn’t start with Lehava: Israeli law doesn’t permit marriages
between people of different religions, and if Malka had not converted to Islam,
the two could not have married in Israel, where marriage is subject to
religious law.
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| Mob outside wedding celebration |
Of course, such a couple can get married abroad and be registered as married
here in Israel, or they can live together and be recognized as a cohabiting
de-facto couple under Israeli law, but it’s worth remembering that.
We cannot merely be outraged by Lehava without addressing the manner in
which the ban on intermarriage serves in practice the notion that we must
“
protect” Jewish women from the “
Arab threat,” as Prof. Zvi Triger of the
College of Management has demonstrated in his research. While allowing Lehava to demonstrate, the Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s Court,
from which the couple sought an injunction, ordered the Lehava demonstrators to
stay at least 200 meters from the banquet hall – a compromise to which the
couple agreed. But was that far enough?
In a case where demonstrators sought to protest in front of the late Rabbi
Ovadia Yosef’s home, the High Court of Justice ruled that with regard to a
demonstration in front of the home of a public figure, the right to privacy may
trump the right to demonstrate. The court therefore ruled that one must assure
that one party’s right to assemble does not substantially impinge on the other
party’s right to privacy, and thus police were permitted to set reasonable
limits regarding the timing, place, and manner of the demonstration. The High
Court has reiterated this principle in several similar instances.
The Rishon Letzion court, therefore, could have taken these legal principles
into account when deliberating the couple’s request, and ruled against holding
the demonstration near the wedding venue altogether – even more so because at
issue was the marriage of private people, not public figures, giving the right
to privacy even greater weight.
It should also be noted that when a demonstration needs a permit, the police
is allowed to check whether incitement to racism is involved. While such
considerations ought to be invoked on very limited occasions, it should have at
least been grounds for keeping the demonstration even further away.
Given all this, one cannot ignore the gap between how Lehava’s right to hold
a racist demonstration near a private celebration was preserved, and the many
freedom of assembly violations we’ve witnessed recently: The police ban on an
antiwar protest in Tel Aviv 10 days ago; the many instances in which protesters
were arrested during social-justice demonstrations; and the 1,500 antiwar
protesters arrested over the past month, nearly all of them Arabs, as reported
here over the weekend. Apparently, problematic demonstrations against Arabs are
permitted, but Arabs who demonstrate are at high risk of arrest.
Under heavy
police guard, Mahmoud Mansour and Morel Malka held their wedding celebration
last evening in Rishon Letzion. Mansour, a young Muslim man and Malka, who was
born Jewish and converted to Islam, were surrounded by security guards as they
arrived at the Shemesh Aduma (Red Sun) wedding hall. Outside, about 150 meters
away from the entrance to the hall at the end of the street, some 200
right-wing protesters demonstrated against what they called “assimilation in
the Holy Land.” A counter-demonstration was held by the entrance to the hall.
Earlier
in the day, the court refused to prohibit the protest outside the wedding hall
where the mixed Muslim-Jewish celebrated their recent marriage, and ordered
protesters to remain at least 200 meters from the venue, which is located in an
area filled with supermarkets and other banquet halls.
The
Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s court issued the ruling after the couple applied
for an injunction to stop the demonstration organized by Lehava (which is both
a Hebrew word meaning “flame” and a Hebrew acronym for Preventing Assimilation
in the Holy Land).
Each
guest at the wedding was asked by police to identify themselves and answer
questions posed by police and security guards to prove they had been invited.
The protesters attempted to come closer to the hall a number of times while
cursing the couple, but the police moved them back to the area set aside for
their protest, as per the court’s instructions.
The
protesters shouted racist and threatening slogans such as “Death to leftists,”
and waved Israeli flags and blew the shofar. They carried signs saying such
things as “Daughter of Israel to the people of Israel,” and “Assimilation is a
Holocaust.” At the
counter demonstration they held flowers and sang love songs. Their signs said
things such as “Love for everyone,” “Only love will win” and “1,000 flames will
not put out love.” A few of the guests thanked them and honked their horns in
support.
A number
of the right-wing protesters complained about being unable to approach the hall
and swore at the guests and the counter protesters. Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir, a
leading Kahanist who represented Lehava in court, said the court’s decision to
allow the demonstration near the hall was “a victory for the freedom of speech.
Only this morning they tried to prevent us from protesting and I am pleased the
court accepted in practice our position and allowed freedom of expression. This
is a democratic country,” he said. “I think we have the right to protest
against assimilation. That is what we have come to do today,” said Ben Gvir.
The
couple lives in Jaffa and have already had a legal Muslim wedding; last night’s
event was only a celebration. The couple met five years ago and Morel converted
to Islam. Mansour said that up until the past few days they had not experienced
such blatant manifestations of racism. Malka said her mother, sisters and other
relatives were slated to attend; her father, however, is opposed to her
marriage to a Muslim and had declared that he would not attend the party.
In court
yesterday, the representative of the police proposed holding the demonstration
in a parking lot about 200 meters from the hall. Judge Iriya Mordechai ruled
that the protesters must remain at least 200 meters from the building, even if
they refuse the parking-lot space offered to them. She stressed that her ruling
was aimed at preventing friction between the demonstrators and the guests at
the event, which was held under heavy police guard.
“Regrettably,
the respondents’ actions to prevent the wedding, which have been carried out at
a sensitive time for Jewish-Arab relations in any case, have borne rotten fruit
and have stirred up a turbid wave of hatred and violence that will peak at a
moment that is known and predictable, like its results,” wrote attorney Yaniv
Segev on Mansour’s behalf in his request for the injunction. “It is almost
certain that the planned demonstration on the day of his wedding will spill
over into violent areas.”
Segev
called the judge’s decision precedent-setting, saying it was the first time an
Israeli court had approved the request of a private person to prevent a
demonstration near a private event.
Guy
Ronen, one of those behind the demonstration in support of the couple, said he
came to protest such gross invasion in private, personal matters. “It is a
wedding. The public arena must not interfere in it. The couple has the right to
choose their love. They are not a public institution.”
President
Reuven Rivlin commented on the wedding and opposition to it in a post on his
Facebook page. “There is a red line between freedom of speech and protest on
the one hand, and incitement on the other,” he wrote. “Mahmoud and Morel from
Jaffa have decided to marry and to exercise their freedom in a democratic
country. The manifestations of incitement against them are infuriating and
distressing, whatever my opinion or anyone else’s might be regarding the issue
itself. Not everyone has to share in the happiness of Mahmoud and Morel — but
everyone has to respect them. Among us and within our midst there are harsh and
sharp disagreements but incitement, violence and racism have no place in
Israeli society. These manifestations are undermining the foundations of our
shared life here in the Jewish and democratic, democratic and Jewish state of
Israel.”
Rivlin
concluded the post with a quotation from the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev
Jabotinsky: “In the beginning God created the individual,” and added: “We are a
free people in our country, in opinion and action, and I wish the young couple
health, satisfaction and happiness.”
Nationalist
leaders head mass protest against wedding of Arab and Jew, warn danger of
assimilation greater than Hamas rockets.
Hundreds of protesters arrived to demonstrate Sunday night against the mixed
marriage of a young couple from Yafo: Moral, a 23-year-old Jewish woman
recently converted to Islam by her groom, Mahmoud Mansour, a 26-year-old Muslim
Arab.
At the protest led by the Lehava group which fights assimilation in Israel,
former MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari addressed the crowd, saying "
Moral, it won't
help you. They always will remind you that you're Jewish and where you came
from. The children you give birth to will never be treated as equal to
them."
"They tell us that we're racist - let's see one Arab woman come marry a
Jew at this hall...then we'll see who's racist," added Ben-Ari to the
protesters. He was referring to the fact that a Muslim woman who marries a Jew
can expect to be murdered by her co-religionists.
As noted by Ben-Ari, in nearly all cases of mixed marriages with Arabs in
Israel, the Jewish partner is the bride. It is a well documented phenomenon that
such wives often
suffer
abuse from their Arab husbands, and many require help to escape.
Ben-Ari noted that former Prime Minister Golda Meir, "
a prime minister
of the Labor party, a representative of the left, etc. - when she spoke about
assimilation she said...'whoever marries and assimilates joins the six million
(Jews murdered in the Holocaust). She saw in what's happening here a
continuation of the work of (Nazi Leader Adolf) Hitler."
Six protesters were arrested for disturbing public order as over 100 police
officers were on site to secure the event at its Rishon Letzion wedding hall
venue. A court case Sunday morning allowed the protest providing it
stayed
200 meters from the wedding hall.
Nationalist public figure Baruch Marzel also spoke at the protest against
the wedding, a marriage Moral's
father
refused to attend because of his opposition to his daughter's
disengagement from the Jewish people.
"Two months ago we sent thousands of soldiers to prevent the danger of
Hamas in the south. But the danger assimilation poses to the Jewish nation is a
danger a thousand times worse," said Marzel.
Marzel called on Jews in Israel to wake up before "
what happens abroad,
where every second Jew assimilates, arrives in Israel," in a reference to
the remarkably
high
assimilation rates in America and Europe.
Small counter-protest against "racism"
Opposite the Lehava protest several dozen leftists held a counter-protest,
decrying the supposed "
racism" of opposing assimilation. Jewish law
expressly forbids marriage with non-Jews who have not undergone a proper
conversion to Judaism.
The marriage has been garnering mass media attention, and was even commented
on by newly instated President Reuven Rivlin, who wrote on his Facebook page
Sunday
"the revelations of incitement against (the couple) are outrageous
and worrying, regardless of whatever my position or that of another will be on
the issue (of mixed marriages)."
Responding to Rivlin's criticism, Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir stated
"it's
sad to hear that the state president is ignoring the danger of assimilation and
encouraging assimilation, instead of coming with us to protest this
disgrace."
"I expect Mr. Rivlin to dedicate his time to the war on assimilation in
Israel and globally. Because today it's Moral, tomorrow it could be his
granddaughter," added the attorney.
Demonstration Against Mixed Marriages
Not long ago I wrote to you about the
racist-fascist atmosphere which prevailed in Israel just before the war on
Gaza. This atmosphere was initiated by extreme racist, national religious
groups. These activities are contrary to Israeli law, which forbids incitement
to racial or religious hatred. However, the government and police turned a
blind eye; the incitement was not opposed by the state
legal-educational-cultural apparatus. As a result, intolerance, racism and
hatred became the dominant mood in the streets. Many Israeli Jews, normally not
even politically right wing, succumbed to this racist mood and followed it
sheepishly. This atmosphere of hate and revenge coincided with the onslaught of
the war and fed the huge support for the government and the violence against
the tiny left which opposed the war.
Today I want to bring to your attention
yet a new example of the racism presently running wild in the country. The
difficulty of marriage between Jews and non-Jews in Israel is well known. There
is no civil marriage in Israel and "mixed" couples have to get
married abroad. Today's story is special because it takes the issue to a new,
uglier, level. I regard it as yet another indication of the
new phase that Israel has reached!
A Jewish woman and a Muslim man decided
to get married and Jewish racist organizations have called a
demonstration at the hall where they intend to celebrate their wedding
party. The couple have had to hire many guards and have appealed to the
court to rule against the demonstration.The police offered to allow the
demonstration to take place 150 meters from the hall where the party will take
place. Knowing how the Israeli police works in demos - they will, most
likely, cordon off the place with police barriers and create a "sterile
zone" between the demonstrators and celebrators. Every guest will have to
identify themselves to the police! As of this late hour (3.00pm - the
wedding is this evening!) the court has not yet ruled on the case. See the
article in Ha’aretz below:
Avishai Erlich, an Israeli anti-Zionist
