Many of you will remember the the groundbreaking Dispatches C4TV programme last month, exposing the powers and methods, as well as the financial resources of the Zionist Jewish lobby in Britain. Below you can read ofa typical twist in this saga, combining silencing, threats and lies. In order to punish Prof. Newman of BGU, who, despite his deep commitment to Zionism, and his struggle against the BDS campaign in the UK, played a central part in the programme, a wealthy Zionist backer, Michael Gross (nowm sometimes the name fits the man…) has taken it upon himself to curse the academic and ask for his urgent removal, both from BGU and the face of the earth… What is clearly criminal behaviour when taking plce in Britain, is fine when used in this way against those Zionism dislikes! It is nothing short of ‘hate speech’, and calling for the death of Prof. Newman. While I am an apponent of Newman, and disagree with him intensly on BDS and other matters, I would fight for his right to academic and other freedoms, even if he humself is less than energetic in calling for the same rights for Palestinians!
Row over academic’s Channel 4 documentary appearance: The Observer
British businessman sends threatening emails to Israeli university lecturer who contributed to programme accused of antisemitism
A battle involving money and politics, academic freedom and threatening emails has hit an Israeli university after one of its academics took part in a Channel 4 documentary which has been accused of encouraging antisemitism.
At the centre of the dispute is Michael Gross, a prominent member of Britain’s Jewish community, a long-time donor to Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and a member of its international board of governors.
After seeing the Dispatches programme last month, Gross emailed Professor David Newman – a British-born lecturer who has emigrated to Israel – and wrote: “I saw your disgusting contribution to the Dispatches programme. I will use whatever influence I have at BGU to have you thrown out… I hope you perish.” In a second message, he said: “The sooner you are removed from BGU and the face of the earth, the better.”
The programme, presented by the British journalist Peter Oborne, was billed as the inside story of “Britain’s Israel lobby”, which the broadcaster’s blurb described as “little known” but “wielding great influence among the highest realms of British politics and media”. In fact, it acknowledged that the membership of groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel was well known. But Jewish community leaders were angered by the programme’s tone and that almost all of those interviewed were sharply critical of Israel.
Last week, 120 BGU faculty members attacked Gross’s email. In a letter to Roy Zuckerberg, the chair of governors, a US philanthropist and former Goldman Sachs partner, they said Gross’s “hate mail” was a challenge not only to Newman but also to academic discourse and free speech. Saying that Gross should have “no place in the BGU community”, they urged Zuckerberg to demand that Gross apologise or sack him from the board. One academic said yesterday that he had signed the letter not only to support Newman, but because there was growing political pressure on many left-of-centre academics both from within Israel and major diaspora communities.
Gross told the Observer that he regretted “the language, but not the sentiments” in his attack on Newman. “I was furious. It was intemperate.”
He said that his threat to try to get Newman fired was “because I wanted to upset the guy. I wanted him to be as upset as I was.” But he added: “I am not going to apologise to him, because he deserves what he gets.”
Gross said he had “exploded” because of the fundraising implications for the university of one of its lecturers appearing on an “anti-Israel” programme. “We’re trying to mount a campaign to increase support for the university, and a guy like that just walks us back five years,” he said.
Gross qualified as an accountant in London, but went on to get a Harvard Business School degree and returned to Britain build up a successful property business in the 1980s. In Jewish community life, he became an often outspoken participant in debates on the religious direction and leadership of the community, as well as an advocate of strong support for Israel. In recent years, he has spent most of his time in Israel.
Newman revealed that he had lodged an official complaint against Gross with the Community Security Trust (CST), the body that monitors threats against British Jews. “If someone had written to any member of the Anglo-Jewish community with words like that, it would immediately have been reported to the police, and they would have wanted to know why it wasn’t being dealt with,” he said.
The academics say the issue is academic freedom. Gross’s emails, their letter said, “signal an attitude of total disdain for the principles of academic discourse based on open debate, and for free inquiry of any kind”.
One of Gross’s fellow governors said yesterday that Rivka Carmi, the university’s president, would be “caught between a rock and a hard place”. “She has to keep the faculty happy,” adding that in BGU and other Israeli universities there was no prospect of a professor getting sacked over political views. “On the other hand, she has to keep her supporters happy to give money to the university.”
Another governor, British lawyer Harold Paisner, said the tone of Gross’s emails was unacceptable. “It is one thing having a difference of opinion. But because you disagree with someone’s political views, to wish them dead and curse them – this is appalling. I am horrified.”
In his appearance on the programme, Newman, a political geographer who is editor of the international Journal of Geopolitics, did not directly criticise Israeli policy. In fact, after seeing the programme, he said he regretted having taken part. In a column for the Jerusalem Post several days after its broadcast, he said that the programme had been very one-sided.
Israeli universities increasingly rely on support from overseas donors. But diaspora leaders, particularly in Britain, feel they are facing an increasingly anti-Israel and antisemitic tone in politics and the media, causing tension with left-of-centre voices in Israeli faculties.
You may have read much about the ‘freaze’ on settlements in the Occupied Territories of Palestine (well, the whole of Palestine is occupied…)a much vaunted achievement of that famous Nobel Prize winner for Peace, Jesus Christ of Washington. From the pieces below you can see what will happen there, and straight from the horse’s mouth – the war criminal Ehud Barak:
Barak: New funds for settlers will fall into hands of extremists: Ha’aretz
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday attacked a controversial plan to pump an additional NIS 110 million into West Bank settlements, saying that some of the money would end up in the hands of right-wing extremists.
“I don’t think that we need to award them a prize in the form of including them in the national priority map,” said Barak, referring to the plan. Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, the defense minister cited the desecration of a West Bank mosque on Friday as an example of the rightists’ activity. He added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s map of communities slated to receive state funds included a disproportional number of settlements. Barak’s comments came after Labor ministers said on Sunday that Netanyahu had agreed with the defense minister to review the plan. The move appeared to be a compromise on the matter. The plan sparked a barrage of criticism since the premier decided to implement the move despite a freeze on new construction in the territories. The Labor ministers said Netanyahu had agreed to hold a cabinet discussion on the plan and to form a panel to examine which communities should be included.
At the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said: “The government wants to provide an answer to those who carry on a daily basis the economic and security burden.” Barak, however, stressed that, “The Israel Defense Forces ensures the security of Israelis everywhere; even though the security situation in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] is inestimably better today than in previous years. “The priority of the Labor party is the Galilee, the Negev, and the periphery; period.” Netanyahu added that a decision would be reached on the subject after a discussion, but did not say when that would happen. The prime minister apparently gave in to pressure from the Labor and Shas parties over the move, and decided to form the committee as a temporary solution. The proposed list included for the first time six West Bank settlements with a total population of about 110,000. Figures close to Barak said Saturday that Netanyahu is expected to accept Barak’s request to postpone the vote on the issue for a week. “Apparently there will be a discussion only, rather than a vote,” a source said. But sources in the Prime Minister’s Bureau said yesterday that Netanyahu is to examine revising the map and that it was expected to be submitted for a vote at today’s cabinet meeting. “There will be a vote, but there will be a discussion about Ashkelon, Ma’aleh Adumim and any other proposal for changes in the [national priority] map,” a source in the bureau said.
What Barak forgot to mention, is that this is exactly what happened over the last four decades – the illegal financing of the illegal settlements, building the powerbase and foundation of the right wing in Israel, of which both Brak and Netanyahu are the joint leaders, and the main beneficiaries. Like King Oedipus, Netanyahu and Barak are conducting a campaign against the criminals which they have become.
Netanyahu to officials: Catch ‘criminals’ behind mosque attack: Ha’aretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday ordered Israel’s security branches to find the “criminals” who vandalized a mosque in a West Bank village, joining other Israeli leaders in condemning the incident.
“Expose the criminals as soon as possible, and put them on trial,” Netanyahu told officials. His comments came shortly after President Shimon Peres urged officials to do everything in their power to bring to justice the people behind attack on Friday, which he said ran contrary to Israel’s fundamental values. “The government, the security forces and the law enforcement institutions must take every measure, with the utmost urgency, to find the perpetrators and put them on trial in accordance with the gravity of the acts,” Peres said in a statement.
The assailants torched furniture at the mosque, in the village of Yasuf, and sprayed Nazi slogans in Hebrew on the premises. They are suspected of being settlers protesting Israel’s temporary freeze on new construction in West Bank settlements. Peres added: “It can’t be that an extremist group endangers the status of Israel as a state that abides laws and respects religions.” On Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that Israel must rein in settlers’ “brutal” actions, in response to the incident.
“The torching of the mosque in Yasuf is a despicable crime, and the settlers are behaving with brutality,” said Abbas, who called the act a violation of religious freedom. “The settlers’ unruly behavior must be stopped,” Abbas added after meeting on Friday with United Arab List-Ta’al chairman Ahmed Tibi in Amman.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, on Friday condemned the act as a bid to thwart the peace process with the Palestinians. “This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government’s efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel’s future,” said Barak.
U.S. denounces attack
The U.S. State Department also denounced the attack on Friday, saying, “We condemn this attack in the strongest terms and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.” Investigation into the incident points to the likelihood that settlers from nearby Tapuah are behind the attack, police said, but the vandals have not yet been caught.
Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces near Yasuf on Friday, after the moque was damaged.
Some rioters hurled rocks at the troops, wounding one police officer. Settler extremists have recently attacked Palestinians and their property in response to Israeli government moves to curb settlement construction. These protesters have dubbed the attacks the “price tag” policy. Israel Defense Forces officers in the West Bank have expressed concern that settlers may escalate their acts of opposition to the temporary freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population. The assailants entered the village of Yasuf before dawn Friday, according to Israel Police and Munir Abushi, the Palestinian governor of the district where the village is located.
They burned prayer carpets and a book stand with Muslim holy texts, and left graffiti on the floor reading, “Price tag – greetings from Effi.” Effi is a Hebrew name. The vandals escaped. The IDF said it views the incident gravely and is investigating it along with the police. After villagers discovered the damage, they briefly threw stones at Israeli forces that entered Yasuf, Abushi said. He said two villagers were hurt in the skirmish. Abushi met with Israeli police and army officers and expressed his dismay over repeated settler attacks. “Israeli security forces have done little to protect Palestinian civilians from the settlers,” he said. In an apparent attempt to placate settlers over the construction slowdown, Netanyahu has proposed including tens of thousands of settlers, including many living in isolated settlements deep in the West Bank, in a government program that bestows monetary incentives on residents and businesses. The move has drawn criticism from Netanyahu’s coalition partner, the
Labor Party, which has indicated it will vote against the move at a Cabinet meeting next week.
More abour racism and antisemitism in Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine:
Officials fear Palestinian reprisals in wake of mosque attack: Ha’aretz
Security officials say they fear that the torching of a mosque near Nablus on Friday could lead to reprisal attacks by Palestinians on Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel’s security services to find the people behind the arson, which Jewish extremists are suspected of perpetrating.
After the attack at the village of Yasuf, Palestinian residents scuffled with members of the Border Police, a few of whom were lightly wounded. Several Palestinians were also hurt.
The arson prompted army and Border Police commanders to increase their presence in the Nablus area to prevent further attacks by Jewish extremists and reprisals by Palestinians. Security sources said such reprisals were a concern because the arson attack offended Palestinians’ religious sentiments.
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“The attack on the mosque was a dangerous provocation that could cause a further and unnecessary conflagration,” one security official said.
Israel Defense Forces officers in the West Bank say that some settlers may escalate their opposition to the temporary freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population – the “price tag” policy.
Attacks like the arson have provoked similar attacks by Palestinians, which the Shin Bet security service calls “popular attacks.” These include acts that require little planning like stabbings, stone throwing and the hurling of Molotov cocktails.
The assailants – whose acts drew condemnations from U.S., Palestinian, Israeli and settler leaders – entered Yasuf before dawn Friday, according to the police.
They burned prayer carpets and a book stand containing Muslim holy texts, and left graffiti on the floor reading “Price tag – greetings from Effi.” The vandals escaped. Police officials said they had no definite leads. The Shin Bet declined to discuss the investigation.
“We condemn this attack in the strongest terms and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice,” the U.S. State Department said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has condemned the act as a bid to thwart the peace process with the Palestinians. “This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government’s efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel’s future,” he said on Friday.
President Shimon Peres urged officials to do “everything in their power to bring to justice” the people behind the attack, which he said ran contrary to Israel’s fundamental values.
“The government, the security forces and the law-enforcement institutions must take every measure, with the utmost urgency, to find the perpetrators and put them on trial in accordance with the gravity of the acts,” Peres said in a statement.
According to opposition leader Tzipi Livni in a speech in Herzliya on Friday, “while a human rights march goes on in Tel Aviv, in Samaria extremist elements set fire to a mosque in a severe, despicable act of provocation.”
In a statement yesterday, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, added that the “profanation of the mosque and the torching of copies of the Koran found in it, and the spraying of racist graffiti on the mosque’s walls against Islam and Muslims represent blatant aggression against the sanctity of sacred places.”
Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council of settlements, said the vandalism was “a wrong and foolish act.” He added that “whoever did this does not wish for the good of the settlements in Judea and Samaria.”
But far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir said that “Netanyahu must freeze these racist edicts to calm the atmosphere.”
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) added that “those who wish to wipe out the Jewish people must not expect us to identify with their symbols and centers of incitement. I ran out of condemnations when the synagogues at Gush Katif were burned.”
It is instructive to listen to the settelers speaking for themselves. Located somewhere between an extreme proponent of apartheid, and a Nazi antisemite, this typical setteler speaks clearly, describing the master plan – making the whole of Palestine Arabrein.
Meet Daniel Pinner – an extremist West Bank settler: Ha’aretz
Daniel Pinner, whose monologue follows, lives in the settlement of Kfar Tapuah, which was founded in 1978 by a core group of members of Moshav Bareket belonging to the Hapoel Hamizrachi movement and is defined as a “religious communal” settlement. In 1990 Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane (the son of Meir Kahane, founder of the extreme right-wing Kach party, which was banned in 1994) moved there; he was murdered, together with his wife Talia in 2001, in a shooting on a highway south of the settlement of Ofra. Following the younger Kahane, others identified with the Kach movement moved to Tapuah. He headed a yeshiva there, and the entire settlement became known for its extremism.
In recent years, as a result of an expansion of the settlement, it is less identified with Kach, and at present it has mostly young families. The rabbi of the settlement, Rabbi Shmuel Cohen, is identified with the Shas movement.
Pinner says that he does not in fact officially represent the settlement in which he lives or the settlement movement. Some of his ideas have few supporters. He is not the leader of a community or an outpost. He is known on the fringes of the right, mainly to veteran activists. It is doubtful whether the youngsters who occasionally sing his song about Yitzhak Rabin (in which every stanza ends with the words: “He went to hell”) even know who he is.
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But there are dozens, if not hundreds more like Pinner, who represent only themselves; who believe in an ideology that is not the product of any yeshiva or any specific book. In that sense, his good friend, the suspected Jewish terrorist Yaakov Teitel, resembles him. Teitel is also not the product of an organized ideological or philosophical system, but picked up his ideas and his caprices here and there along the way.
Pinner was interviewed at his home a few weeks ago.
The spokesperson for Kfar Tapuah responded to this article as follows:
“The community of Kfar Tapuah has 170 families today, and has grown and developed over the past few years. The community has been transformed significantly on many levels and today residents are modest people, civil servants, army officers, farmers and educators who contribute to the community. In Kfar Tapuah there are no thought police and diversity of opinion is our strength. We try to be tolerant of views like those expressed in this article, with which most of us certainly do not identify, and even disagree.”
Pinner’s story
“My name is Daniel Pinner. I’m 43 years old and live in Kfar Tapuah. I’m an electrician, a dog trainer, a mechanic, a performer at weddings. I immigrated to Israel from England 22 years ago, because every Jew belongs in the Land of Israel. There’s no complete Jew and complete Judaism outside the Land of Israel. When I immigrated to Israel I lived at first in Jerusalem. Ten years ago I moved to Tapuah.
“Jerusalem is all built-up asphalt. There you walk down the street and see a street that could be anywhere in Texas or in England. Here in Kfar Tapuah I see Nablus, where Jewish history began. From another side of Tapuah I see the Jordan Valley, the hills of Transjordan, which for now are under the illegal Hashemite occupation that was invented by Great Britain. I look at the other side and see the air pollution of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and I remember why I don’t live there.
“I got married five and a half months ago. I was exceptional in being single for so long. Nobody believed I would marry. They said I was afraid of commitment. I said that I simply wouldn’t commit to the wrong woman. And the fact is that I met the girl who is my wife.
“For 10 years I’ve had a dog named Cazador. It means hunter in Spanish. She’s from a species developed in South Africa 100 years ago for hunting lions. I trained her in English, Hebrew, German and Arabic. They say: “To Arabs and dogs I speak in Arabic.” She can distinguish between an Arab and a Jew. If I’m in the car and go in to get gas, if it’s a Jew she barks when he touches the car. If it’s an Arab she roars. I have no idea how.”
Jack and I
“I knew Yaakov Teitel. [Teitel is under arrest on suspicion of being a terrorist]. Twenty years ago we were together at a yeshiva in Jerusalem. Afterward he helped me a little with my computer. I taught him a little Hebrew. I was in his house. He’s nice, helpful. Generous.
“I know that the media report so many things that the Shin Bet security services said that have no connection to reality. They say a lot of things. They say that he reconstructed events, but I don’t know whether he did or not. I was once interrogated by the police about setting fire to a Meretz headquarters in Jerusalem. I said, I’m willing to reconstruct, I’m willing to tell: I was standing there when I saw the newspaper headline. Not that I had any connection to it, but I can reconstruct what I experienced.
Baruch and I
“I knew Rabbi Kahane personally, I spoke to him, I attended his Torah classes. I was in his house once. He had a great influence on me. When you hear the truth and see the truth there are two possibilities: either to ignore it or to be influenced, and I didn’t want to flee from the truth. I describe myself as a Jew who wants to observe Torah and mitzvoth and Rabbi Kahane had a great influence on me and I learned important things from him. When Rabbi Kahane was murdered I was in the army, I felt terrible. I felt that my mentor had been murdered. It was very hard for me to function that day. I asked for leave from my commander, without telling him the reason. I was at the funeral, in uniform.
“I knew Baruch Goldstein [an American Jewish settler who shot and killed 29 Muslim worshipers in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Purim, in February 1994]. We met many times. I first met him as a doctor in Kiryat Arba; afterward he would often visit the Jewish prisoners and I had at least two friends there: Nachshon Walls and Yoram Skolnik. I used to go to visit them and I would meet Baruch. We were in contact many times, we would coordinate when to come. That Purim I heard that a Jew had entered the cave and carried out a massacre and there were a great many casualties. My first thought was that it was a shame that instead of celebrating Purim, Goldstein would be busy with the casualties. When I heard it was Goldstein I was amazed, because he was very gentle, very quiet, very modest. The total opposite of violent. That was the last person I would expect to do such a thing. It wasn’t a massacre, only one person was murdered, Goldstein. Since the State of Israel is a state of law, there is only one body allowed to declare that a person is a murderer, and that only in an official courtroom. Baruch Goldstein, may God avenge his blood, was not brought before a court, so it’s impossible to say legally that he murdered. On the other hand, there’s a death certificate that is an entirely legal document. It says there that the cause of the death of Baruch Goldstein is murder. Legally it is clear that he was murdered and it’s impossible to say that he’s a murderer. Had there been another 10 incidents like Baruch Goldstein, God forbid, and had there been another nine instances of Jews murdering Arabs – and I strongly oppose that – the intifada would have ended immediately and all the attacks by Arabs against Jews would have ended, and God forbid that Jews would have murdered Arabs.
“I knew Eden Natan-Zada, may God avenge his blood [an AWOL soldier who opened fire in a bus in the Arab town of Shfaram in April 2005]. Even a truly wicked Jew, who betrayed his people, and was murdered by an Arab – I would say: “May God avenge his blood” even about him, because it’s a desecration of God’s name for an Arab to murder a Jew. He was in Tapuah for a little while. I didn’t know him so well. I really don’t know what happened to him. There were many strange things. What was he doing with a weapon? There are so many questions. Like, how did he get to Shfaram? And if he wanted to kill Arabs then why there, when there are 150,000 Arabs here nearby? Why on a bus of all places? What I can say is that someone who wanted to tamper with evidence did a good job when he tied him up and threw him to the Arab riffraff.
“I knew Asher Weizgan [who murdered four Palestinians after the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005]. I had a business supplying dog food and he was a customer. That was all. I can’t say much about him. He was in a bad state. But I can’t judge a man who committed suicide in prison.
“I know hundreds of people. And these people are a small number of all those I know. If I take a list of the entire extreme left, like [Yariv] Oppenheimer from Peace Now, Tzali Reshef, Yossi Sarid, I assume that you know many of them. If I take all those who gave weapons to Palestinians, then every leftist knows many of them. That doesn’t mean that he’s connected to the act. Everyone has his own social circle. I know such people and if they were to put everyone who gave weapons to terrorists on trial, then half the residents of Ramat Aviv Gimmel would know dozens of people sitting in prison for collaborating in murder or treason.”
Prison
“In Gush Katif there was an abandoned hotel on the Neve Dekalim beach. There was a plan to renovate the hotel so that the building would serve as a center of opposition to the mass expulsion from Gaza. In order to renovate the place they needed all kinds of workers – plumbers, electricians, house painters. I’m an electrician, so I was there. On Shabbat we walked together on the beach, I and my dog Cazador. Fifty Arabs attacked us with stones. I was armed with an Uzi so I fired two or three shots in the air in order to scare them away. They withdrew, I withdrew. I returned to the hotel. A few days later I returned to Tapuah and was arrested.
“They brought me to a Shin Bet office in Petah Tikva. There they interrogated me for 10 days, gave me the ‘full terrorist treatment.’ They imposed a total information blackout, the media were not allowed to report that someone had been arrested. I wasn’t allowed to meet with an attorney. It was hard, but interesting. Very interesting mind games. They didn’t torture me, I think that I tortured them with my answers. A guy who can’t say three words without my correcting his grammar is a kind of torture. The interrogator would shout at me: ‘If you understood how serious your situation is …’ and I would correct him. ‘It’s not: “If you understood” it’s: “If you were to understand.”‘ I hope that I traumatized some of them. By the way, in the interrogation I confessed that together with Avraham Stavsky I murdered Haim Arlosoroff. He said: “Ahhhh.” [Arlosoroff, a Zionist leader, was murdered in Tel Aviv in 1933.]
“The cell in the detention center is 2 by 2.5 meters, it’s stone like spritz [like stucco]; do you know the best thing about it? That you can scratch yourself against the wall and it’s the best back scratching. There’s one corner of the cell with a toilet. And next to it there’s a sink; you push the button and it sprays water for 10 seconds. In one corner there’s something like a chair glued to the wall, next to it a table and three mattresses. And the light is on 24 hours a day in the cell. On one mattress I would sleep, the second mattress I would fold to keep out the light and the third I leaned against the wall, where the toilet is, so my eyes wouldn’t be on the toilet. They took away my watch. You don’t know when it’s day and when it’s night. It bothered me, because I didn’t know when the prayer times were. I could estimate according to the food what time it was. I can’t tell you that it was a fun experience. But I can’t say that I really suffered. I was at several more Shin Bet interrogations, but I prefer not to go into that.
“In the story from Neve Dekalim, some Arab named Nasser Wafi claimed that he had been shot in the foot. He brought a document that looked like a joke, in which it was stated that someone had come to the hospital claiming that he had been shot, that the entry wound and the exit wound were one centimeter in size. They put me on trial. We began with four counts: attempted murder, carrying a weapon without a license, carrying ammunition without a license and firing in a residential area. At the trial they changed the charge from attempted murder to injury with serious intent. They also eliminated the charge of firing in a residential area. It’s ridiculous, because it was in the dunes. I had a license for a weapon, but the charge was that the license is valid only in Tapuah. I brought proof that I was once delayed by the police in the Old City in Jerusalem and was armed. I sued the police for false detention. The court asked whether I had a license for a weapon, and the court decided that the license was valid in Jerusalem.
“The Be’er Sheva District Court, the Honorable Judge Rachel Barkai, sentenced me to two years in prison. According to law, anyone who disparages a judge can expect imprisonment of up to five years. And I don’t want to embarrass her. A more cynical person would say that this judge will want to be a Supreme Court justice, maybe the president of the Supreme Court, and if she wants to be promoted she is obligated to hand down decisions that the decision makers will like. But that’s only someone more cynical than I.
“I was detained until the end of the proceedings, 10 and a half months in all. After the sentence I filed an appeal and submitted a request for a postponement, and surprisingly I was released. I was high, I was drunk, they made a huge party for me here. What I enjoyed most was the darkness in the house. In prison there’s no total darkness, finally I could sleep. I was released until the appeal. And then they rejected the appeal and took me back to prison. They allowed me to return to prison after the holidays. The day after the holiday I received the news that my mother had died during the night. They postponed my return to prison by another two weeks. They took off a third for good behavior. And I was released.”
Rabin
“On the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War I gave a Torah lesson from a historical point of view, as to what the greatest miracle in the war was. I said that the greatest miracle was that 10 days earlier the chief of staff collapsed, which enabled Ezer Weizman to plan the victory.
“I don’t mention the name of Abu Yuval [referring to Yitzhak Rabin, the father of Yuval Rabin], on the same level that I don’t curse and don’t use dirty words. There’s a Torah prohibition against mentioning the name of other gods. The Rabinists made a god of Abu Yuval, and I tend not to mention his name. Anyone whose entire worldview is to destroy Jews, which is a unique level, I say: ‘May his name be erased’ after his name. After the name of Abu Yuval I say: ‘May his name be erased.’
“The killing of that man did not change much in the situation, because the government continued on the same path of cooperation with the terrorists. The government continued with the same Oslo agreements of death and murder. The left continued with the same murderous hatred against religious Jews and against Judaism in general. I was opposed to the murder when he was alive and I’m opposed to the murder after his death. I was opposed to the treason when he was alive and I continue to oppose it after his death. I was opposed to cooperation with terrorists and I’m opposed after his death. Even the killing of that man didn’t change my mind. I was the only one in the country with a sticker saying: ‘Haver, ata lo haser’ (‘Friend, we don’t miss you’). That’s not provocation. If it’s provocation then: ‘Proud to be a Jew’ is also provocation. If the Rabinists are allowed to miss that man and to declare it in public, then I’m allowed too.
“As far as Yigal Amir [Rabin’s assassin], I didn’t know him. I’ll tell you a joke: Two policemen were walking down the street. One asked the other: ‘What do you think of Yigal Amir?’ And the second one said: ‘I think just like you.’ So the policeman replied: ‘In that case you’re under arrest.’
“Had you asked me 16 and a half years ago whether a Jew could murder a Jew for ideological-nationalist reasons in the present sovereign State of Israel I would have said no. But after the Oslo death agreement, when I saw that not just any Jew from the street but the prime minister of Israel was cooperating in the most active way with terrorists so that they would murder Jews, after that I began to believe that a Jew could murder.
“In the past I wrote a song about an imaginary character that I invented for entertainment purposes only. And any connection or parallel between him and a real-life figure is only coincidental. The song begins like this:
He was born to be a great leader of a country
He was a courageous hero as a soldier in the Haganah
He fled from the battlefield and avoided war
He went to hell.
“That’s a somewhat funny, somewhat amusing song. No more than that. No person’s name is mentioned in that song. If someone decides to attribute the song to any prime minister, then he’s the one who is using those unfortunate expressions to describe that man: murderer, traitor, informer, et al.”
Occupation
“My mother of blessed memory fought in the Gadna, afterward she was in the Golani Brigade. She fought to liberate Sheikh Munis from the Arab occupiers who were there; she was 17 years old at the time. She described to me how it was in Sheikh Munis, that was two days after independence [in May 1948]. Today the area is called Ramat Aviv Gimmel, where the most extreme leftists live, including Mr. Shimon Peres [in Hebrew the acronym for Mr. Shimon Peres is ASHAF, the Hebrew term for the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization], and they dare to call me an occupier because I live in an area where there wasn’t a single Arab. That same Peres, who never bore arms, dares to call me an occupier when he lives in a place that my mother captured. I grew up with the most devout Zionism.
“There is no Arab village and no Arab city in the Land of Israel, but only Jewish villages where Arabs are living for the time being. Nablus is not an Arab city but a Jewish one, a place where Arabs are living temporarily. [Former prime minister] Ariel Sharon said: “The fate of [the Gaza Strip settlement of] Netzarim is the fate of Tel Aviv,” and I say that the fate of Nablus is the fate of Sheikh Munis. What my mother did to Sheikh Munis, what Ben-Gurion’s Haganah did to Sheikh Munis, we will do to Nablus, as well as Ramallah and Bethlehem, and Hebron and Umm al-Fahm. Incidentally, Umm al-Fahm began in the 13th century, when Arabs came from Transjordan to settle there. They are the foreign settlers who came from outside the region.
“At the moment I have no problem with Arabs moving to Transjordan, although that is also the Land of Israel. I’m not looking to go to war to redeem the lands in Transjordan, but as long as the Arabs there are really in peace we won’t try to realize our total right to be on those lands. If the Arabs of Umm al-Fahm move to Transjordan there will be peace, and they’ll continue to be occupiers on our land.
“About eight years ago, an incident that I remember because I was involved in it, at the gate [in Kfar Tapuah] someone had ordered Tnuva. The Tnuva truck arrived with a driver and his assistant was an Arab. We didn’t let him in and there was an argument there and we almost came to blows. We told him to come in, but without the Arab. The driver was embarrassed and I understood him. We told the driver, we’ll bring people to take the merchandise, but the Arab isn’t coming in. And we didn’t let him in because that’s the eyes and ears of the next terrorist, and now they’re not here.”