Racism and Christmas Cheer From the Zionists - Happy Yuletide to our Readers

Israel's Military Occupation Celebrate Xmas by Tear Gassing Demonstration in Bethlehem

I must confess that despite being a confirmed atheist, I enjoy having a Xmas tree in my living room each year.  I particularly enjoy seeing the lights as it provides a kind of warm glow.  It doesn’t make me believe in the Resurrection though!  For most people in Britain, the Xmas tree, like Xmas itself, is a secular symbol of a secular festival.  But in Israel it is entirely different.

Even Santa gets tear gassed Bi'ilin 2011 -  Popular Committee Against the Wall via europalestine.com

In a State where religion defines who belongs to the herren volk and who doesn’t, then of course Rabbi Elad Dokow of Israel’s Technion University is right when he says that “This is not about freedom of worship,,, This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”

Of course there are very few religious states in the world and even fewer where nationality is based, not on residence but on religion.   Most religious states either use the religion to oppress adherents of that religion (Saudi Arabia, Iran) or it is a constitutional adornment without any significance (UK).  Only in Israel does belonging to the state religion confer significant advantages.

Therefore the display of a Xmas tree does indeed strike a blow at the heart of Israel’s ‘national identity’ in a way it wouldn’t in say Ireland, which is also nominally a Christian country.

The article mentions Shimon Gapso, the notoriously racist Mayor of Upper Nazareth (built as a Jewish town to contain the Arab Nazareth beneath it but which has seen a steady ‘encroachment’ of Arabs because of the usual restrictions on any expansion of an Arab town.  Christmas Trees Are Still Banned in Nazareth Illit and Forbidden to celebrate: Israel’s war on Christmas continues despite Netanyahu’s claim of tolerance.

see also The Israeli War on Christmas…and Christianity

Ezz Al-Zanoon APA images

Israeli rabbis launch war on the Xmas tree

23 December 2016

In Bethlehem the Israeli Army Tear Gas a Demonstration Calling for Free Movement

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas, pepper spray and stun grenades at Palestinians calling for free movement between Bethlehem and Jerusalem on Friday.

The Christmas-themed protest was held in front of Checkpoint 300, where Israeli soldiers control Palestinian movement between the occupied West Bank cities.

Approximately 100 protesters, some of them dressed in Santa Claus suits, chanted against Israel’s military occupation and for Palestinian freedom.

“Jesus came with a message of peace, his city suffers oppression,” one demonstrator’s sign read.
“Santa Claus stands with the Palestinian people,” stated another.

Half a dozen people were injured, including journalists, during the protest.

Palestinians and their supporters highlight around Christmastime that if Joseph and Mary were to make their journey from Nazareth today, Israel’s military checkpoints and massive concrete wall would prevent them from accessing the Bethlehem manger where tradition holds Jesus Christ was born.

Israel’s wall completely encircles Bethlehem, as do its settlement colonies, turning a once vibrant Palestinian cultural center and international tourist destination into a shuttered ghetto.

Israel’s regime of movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians living under its military rule prevents the free access to places of worship, including the al-Aqsa mosque and Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.


Even the Holy Fire of Easter must pass through an Israeli checkpoint during the ancient ritual observed by Orthodox Christians in Palestine.

Jerusalem hotels receive warning letter noting that Jewish religious law forbids Christmas trees and new year’s parties

Al-Jazeera – 23 December 2016

As tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims converge on the Holy Land this week to celebrate the birth of Jesus, senior Israeli rabbis have announced a war on the Christmas tree.

Christmas Trees Banned in Nazareth Illit

In Jerusalem, the rabbinate has issued a letter warning dozens of hotels in the city that it is “forbidden” by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage New Year’s parties.

Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be “kosher”.

In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel’s premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line. Elad Dokow, the Technion’s rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students’ union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.

He called the tree “idolatry”, warning that it was a “pagan” symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.

About a fifth of the Technion’s students belong to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.

The Technion’s Christmas tree (copyright Firas Espanioly)

While most of Israel’s Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. Other Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.

“This is not about freedom of worship,” Dokow told the Technion’s students. “This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”

Rabea Mahajni, a 24-year-old electrical engineering student, said that placing the tree in the union was backed by Palestinian students but had strongly divided opinion among Jewish students and staff. The majority, he said, were against the decision.

“One professor upset [Palestinian] students by taking to Facebook to say that the tree made him uncomfortable, and that those who wanted it should either put one up in their own home or go to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mahajni added: “This is not really about a Christmas tree. It is about who the tree represents. It is a test of whether Jewish society is willing to accept an Arab minority and our symbols.”

He pointed out that Palestinian students had not objected to the students’ union also marking Hanukkah, referring to the Jewish winter “festival of lights” that this year coincides with Christmas.

Interest in Santa hats

For most of Israel’s history, the festive fir tree was rarely seen outside a handful of communities in Israel with significant Christian populations. But in recent years, the appeal of Christmas celebrations has spread among secular Israeli Jews.

Interest took off two decades ago, after one million Russian-speaking Jews immigrated following the fall of the Soviet Union, said David Bogomolny, a spokesman for Hiddush, which lobbies for religious freedom in Israel.

Many, he told Al Jazeera, had little connection to Jewish religious practice and had adopted local customs in their countries of origin instead.

“The tree [in the former Soviet Union] was very popular but it had nothing to do with Christmas,” he said. “Each home had one as a way to welcome in the new year.”

Nazareth, which claims to host the tallest Christmas tree in the Middle East, has recently become a magnet for many domestic tourists, including Jews, Christians and Muslims. They come to visit the Christmas market, hear carols and buy a Santa hat.

Haifa and Jaffa, two largely Jewish cities with significant Palestinian Christian populations, have recently started competing. Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, staged its first Christmas market last year.

Meanwhile, hotels are keen to erect a tree in their lobbies as a way to boost tourism revenue from Christian pilgrims, who comprise the bulk of overseas visitors.

‘No danger’ to Judaism

But the growing popularity of Christmas has upset many Orthodox rabbis, who have significant powers over public space. Bogomolny said that some rabbis were driven by a desire to make the state “as Jewish as possible” to avert it losing its identity.

Others may fear that the proliferation of Christmas trees could lure Israeli Jews towards Christianity.

Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, said that he had noticed an increasing interest from Israeli Jews in Christian festivals, including in some cases requests to attend Christmas mass.

He told Al Jazeera this was not a threat to Judaism, but healthy curiosity. “If we want to live together in peace, we have to understand each other and learn to trust,” he said.

Tree-free Knesset

The controversial status of Christmas in Israel was underscored four years ago when Yair Netanyahu, the 21-year-old son of Israel’s prime minister, caused a minor scandal by being photographed wearing a Santa hat next to a Christmas tree.

The office of Benjamin Netanyahu hurriedly issued a statement saying that Yair had posed as a joke while attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists who love Israel, and whose children served in the [Israeli army]”.

Two years earlier, Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, originally founded for Jews on Nazareth’s land, banned all signs of Christmas in the city’s public places. He has been a vociferous opponent of an influx of Christians from overcrowded Nazareth.

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has also been declared a Christmas tree-free zone.

In 2013, its speaker rejected a request from Hanna Swaid, then a Palestinian Christian legislator, to erect a tree in the building. Yuli Edelstein said it would evoke “painful memories” of Jewish persecution in Europe and chip away at the state’s Jewish character.

Attack on religious freedoms

Swaid pointed to the prominence of Jewish symbols in public spaces in the United States, including an annual Hanukkah party at the White House, during which the president lights menorah candles.

“Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,” he told Al Jazeera.

He also noted that the religious freedoms of the Palestinian minority were under ever greater attack, most notably with the recent drafting of a so-called “muezzin bill”, which would crack down on mosques’ use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer.

“Given this hostile political climate, the battle to gain legitimacy for our religious symbols becomes all the more important,” he said. “Otherwise we face a dark future.”

Threat to kosher status

Nonetheless, there has been a backlash, especially from secular Jews, against the rigid control exercised by Orthodox rabbis.

Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, overruled the city’s rabbi in 2012 when he tried to ban Christmas trees and new year’s parties. The Jewish new year occurs several months before the Christian one.

And last year, in the face of a legal challenge from Hiddush, the chief rabbinate backed down on threats to revoke the kosher status of businesses that celebrate Christmas.

But while the ban on Christmas trees has been formally lifted, in practice it is still widely enforced, according to Bogomolny.

“The problem is that the chief rabbinate actually has no authority over city rabbis, who can disregard its rulings, as we have seen with the letter issued by the Jerusalem rabbis,” he said.

Most hotels wanted to ignore the prohibition on Christmas trees because it was bad for business, but feared being punished.

“It is a problem throughout the country,” he said. “The hotels are afraid to take a stand. If they try to fight it through the courts, it will be costly and could take years to get a ruling.”

One hotel manager in West Jerusalem to whom Al Jazeera spoke on condition of anonymity said he feared “retaliation” from the rabbis.

“The letter was clearly intended to intimidate us,” he said. “The Christian tourists are here to celebrate Christmas and we want to help them do it, but not if it costs us our certificate.” 

Israeli settlers increase their attacks on Palestinian Christian sites

Zionist Zealots Demonstrate Their Racism and Step up Attacks on Palestinian Christians - Western Christians Look the Other Way

(Menahem Kahana / AFP/GettyImages)

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, The Electronic Intifada Jerusalem
11 October 2012

Graffiti sprayed on a church in Latrun in September reads “Jesus is a monkey” and the names of two West Bank settlements.

At the same time that thousands of Christian Zionist tourists descended on Jerusalem last week to display their unequivocal support for Israel, local Christian leaders say they fear a recent increase in attacks on their holy sites signals the potential for future, more extreme violence.

“Today, they attack holy sites in the night. Tomorrow, they will attack the holy sites while they are filled with people, and then [it] will end [with them] bombarding churches and mosques while people are praying,” Rifat Kassis, coordinator of Kairos Palestine, a Palestinian Christian activist organization, told The Electronic Intifada.

“If we fail to see this from now, and to stop this from now, then the whole international community is complicit with this,” he warned.

A Franciscan monastery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem was vandalized in early October, as derogatory words about Jesus were painted on the entrance gate alongside the words “Price tag” in Hebrew. “Price tag” violence is the term used to describe acts of vandalism usually carried out by Jewish-Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank in response to Israeli government decisions with which they disagree.

When The Electronic Intifada attempted to investigate the incident a few days after the graffiti had been found, the gate had been painted over, and no visitors were allowed inside the monastery as it was undergoing renovations.

The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries in the Holy Land expressed its dismay at the incident. “More than anything, the Assembly again asks, that radical changes be made in the educational system, otherwise the same causes will produce the same effects over and over,” it said in a statement (“Franciscan convent on Mount Zion desecrated, ACOHL dismayed,” Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2 October).

To date, Israeli police have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the vandalism.  
Hostile climate of intolerance
In recent years, Israeli extremists have vandalized Muslim holy sites throughout the West Bank and in so-called “mixed” Jewish-Palestinian cities in Israel.
In October 2011, for instance, a mosque was set on fire in the northern Bedouin town of Tuba Zangariya and the words “Death to Arabs” and “Price Tag” were spray-painted on headstones in a Muslim cemetery in Jaffa.

“The Israeli government is doing nothing in order to stop these racist people, and this fact gives this bunch of racists a green light to do anything they want,” Sami Abu Shehadeh, a Jaffa resident and member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council, said at the time. “We are really worried. Now these people are attacking holy places; tomorrow they could also hurt people.”
 
Despite being condemned by most Israeli politicians, these violent acts have largely gone unpunished. In fact, according to a report by the Alternative Information Center, the Israeli police commander in the West Bank won’t prosecute the individuals responsible for four mosque arsons, despite having DNA evidence to convict them.
 
“We know, in at least four cases of mosque arson, whom the perpetrators are. We even got a DNA match from a matchbox near one of the mosques set on fire — but it appears this is insufficient for charges,” Major General Amos Yaakov reportedly told Hebrew news website Walla (“Police chief: we have DNA of mosque arsonist, but he won’t be charged,” Alternative News, 9 October).

The recent wave of attacks on Christian holy sites signals something new, however.
Suspected Israeli extremists also burned the door of a monastery in Latrun — halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv — in September, and scrawled the words “Jesus is a monkey” on the wall. The attack was likely carried out in connection to a recent evacuation of an illegal Israeli settlement outpost in the West Bank a few days earlier.
 
In July, Israeli Knesset (parliament) member Michael Ben-Ari tore up a copy of the New Testament. “This abominable book brought about the murder of millions of Jews in the Inquisition,” Ben-Ari reportedly said, adding, “This book and those who sent it belong in the garbage can of history.”
 
Years of harassment in Jerusalem
 
Priests from many Christian denominations have long complained of harassment in Jerusalem’s Old City, including most notably being cursed and spat on by ultra-Orthodox Jews.
 
“This is one of the phenomena that we as Armenians who live in this part of the Old City have been facing for many years,” explained Archbishop Aris Shirvanian, Director of the ecumenical and foreign relations department of the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem.

“I believe it’s a matter of education. People that are in [the] majority and do not condone such acts, whether vandalism or spitting, they should do their duty by educating their own people to refrain from such activities which are threatening the peace in this land,” Shirvanian said.

Last November, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that a Jerusalem court threw out an indictment against an Armenian priesthood student who punched an ultra-Orthodox man in the face after the latter spat on him in Jerusalem’s Old City.
 
“Putting the defendant on trial for a single blow at a man who spat at his face, after suffering the degradation of being spat on for years while walking around in his church robes is a fundamental contravention of the principles of justice and decency,” the judge wrote in his ruling (“Ultra-Orthodox spitting attacks on Old City clergymen becoming daily,” Ha’aretz, 4 November 2011).

According to Archbishop Shirvanian, while spitting incidents have declined in recent months, the Israeli authorities need to do more to stem the problem. “We know that when reports are being made, [the police] sometimes arrest people, detain them for a short while and they release them. Once in a while they may restrain the guilty side from entering the Old City for a week, or two, or a month. But that’s not a real punishment.”
 
Attacks reflect overall Israeli impunity
 
According to Kairos’ Rifat Kassis, attacks on Christian holy sites are only one part of the daily attacks carried out by right-wing Israelis against Palestinians throughout the area.
 
“We cannot exclude these attacks from the overall attacks coming mainly from settlers against the Palestinians. This is also a sign of growing fundamentalism and extremism which should worry any democratic person, not only Christians and Muslims; this should be a matter of concern for all of us,”  Kassis told The Electronic Intifada.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, settler attacks resulting in physical harm and property damage to Palestinians increased by 32 percent in 2011 compared to 2010 (“Israeli settler violence in the West Bank,” November 2011 [PDF]).

More than 90 percent of complaints filed by Palestinians to the Israeli police in recent years regarding settler violence have been closed without an indictment being filed, the UN agency also found.
 
“This is impunity. This is also what Israel is enjoying from the international community. This impunity goes for their own citizens and also for its own policies as well as a government,” Kassis said. “I think this is a message [from the Israelis which] says that, ‘This is our country. This is our land. This is our home and everyone here is a guest and we can do whatever we want.’”
 
Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at jkdamours.com.

Ultra-Orthodox spitting attacks on Old City clergymen becoming daily

Clergymen in the Armenian Church in Jerusalem say they are victims of harassment, from senior cardinals to priesthood students; when they do complain, the police don't usually find the perpetrators.

By Oz Rosenberg | Nov.04, 2011

Worshippers thronging the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the Christian Orthodox Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem last year. Photo by Reuters

Ultra-Orthodox young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem's Old City as a matter of routine. In most cases the clergymen ignore the attacks, but sometimes they strike back. Last week the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court quashed the indictment against an Armenian priesthood student who had punched the man who spat at him.

Johannes Martarsian was walking in the Old City in May 2008 when an young ultra-Orthodox Jew spat at him. Maratersian punched the spitter in the face, making him bleed, and was charged for assault. But Judge Dov Pollock, who unexpectedly annulled the indictment, wrote in his verdict that "putting the defendant on trial for a single blow at a man who spat at his face, after suffering the degradation of being spat on for years while walking around in his church robes is a fundamental contravention of the principles of justice and decency."

"Needless to say, spitting toward the defendant when he was wearing the robe is a criminal offense," the judge said.

When Narek Garabedian came to Israel to study in the Armenian Seminary in Jerusalem half a year ago, he did not expect the insults, curses and spitting he would be subjected to daily by ultra-Orthodox Jews in the streets of the Old City.

"When I see an ultra-Orthodox man coming toward me in the street, I always ask myself if he will spit at me," says Narek, a Canadian Armenian, this week. About a month ago, on his way to buy groceries in the Old City, two ultra-Orthodox men spat at him. The spittle did not fall at his feet but on his person. Narek, a former football player, decided this time not to turn the other cheek.

"I was very angry. I pushed them both to the wall and asked, 'why are you doing this?' They were frightened and said 'we're sorry, we're sorry,' so I let them go. But it isn't always like that. Sometimes the spitter attacks you back," he says.

Other clergymen in the Armenian Church in Jerusalem say they are all victims of harassment, from the senior cardinals to the priesthood students. Mostly they ignore these incidents. When they do complain, the police don't usually find the perpetrators.

Martarsian left Israel about a year ago. He was sent back home by the church, as were two other Armenian priesthood students who were charged after attacking an ultra-Orthodox man who spat at them.

The Greek Patriarchy's clergymen have been cursed and spat on by ultra-Orthodox men in the street for many years. "They walk past me and spit," says Father Gabriel Bador, 78, a senior priest in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. "Mostly I ignore it, but it's difficult.

Sometimes I stop and ask the spitter 'why are you doing this? What have I done to you?' Once I even shouted at a few of them who spat at my feet together. They ran away," he says.

"It happens a lot," says Archbishop Aristarchos, the chief secretary of the patriarchate. "You walk down the street and suddenly they spit at you for no reason. I admit sometimes it makes me furious, but we have been taught to restrain ourselves, so I do so."

Father Goosan Aljanian, Chief Dragoman of the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem, says it is often difficult for temperamental young priesthood students to swallow the offense. About a month ago two students marching to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre beat up an ultra-Orthodox man who spat at them. They were sent away from the Old City for two weeks.

"I tell my students that if they are spat at, to go to the police rather than strike back" says Goosan. "But these are young kids who sometimes lose their cool."

A few weeks ago four ultra-Orthodox men spat at clergymen in the funeral procession of Father Alberto of the Armenian Church. "They came in a pack, out of nowhere," said Father Goosan. "I know there are fanatical Haredi groups that don't represent the general public but it's still enraging. It all begins with education. It's the responsibility of these men's yeshiva heads to teach them not to behave this way," he says.

Father Goosan and other Patriarchy members are trying to walk as little as possible in the Old City streets. "Once we walked from the [Armenian] church to the Jaffa Gate and on that short section four different people spat at us," he says.