EDITOR: The Backlash against Israel
During the long year since the murderous attack on Gaza, many cracks have shown in the broad support for Israel, all around the globe. What was considered quite normal, like twinning with Israeli towns and cities, has come under much liberal examination, with millions of people now being careful to no longer offer Israel such unthinking and uncritical support. The sea change is about, and likely to spread and grow.
Irish town criticised for snubbing Israeli ambassador: BBC
The council said Zion Evrony’s visit was organised without their approval
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin has criticised an Irish town council’s decision to remove a page signed by the Israeli ambassador from its guestbook.
Carrickmacross representatives voted to remove Zion Evrony’s signature in protest at Israel’s diplomatic record.
Mr Martin said diplomatic representatives should always be treated with respect.
But a local councillor defended the town’s decision, saying he hoped it would send a serious message to Israel.
“I think if a government is responsible for a wholesale disregard for international law then local authorities, as well as our own government, have a responsibility to tell them we expect a higher standard,” Matt Carthy said.
He added that although Carrickmacross is a welcoming town, “it was important that we took a stand”.
Civility
The council’s move follows reports that Irish passports were used by those allegedly behind the Dubai killing of Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January.
Dubai’s police chief says he is convinced of the involvement of Israeli agents in al-Mabhouh’s death, but Israel says there is no proof.
Mr Martin said that while he understands and shares the “deep concerns” of many in Ireland about Israel’s policies on a number of issues, the action violated a basic tenet of relations between states.
“It is a basic principle of relations between states that we treat each other’s diplomatic representatives with civility and respect, regardless of any policy differences,” he said.
Mr Martin said he has raised concerns about the passport controversy during a meeting with Israel’s foreign minister last week.
He added: “Ambassadors represent not just their governments, but their peoples”.
“The way that foreign ambassadors are welcomed and received in Ireland says something about us as a people.”
EDITOR: Jews are sought! Prizes for finders!
With the founts of immigration in the west drying up, and with North American Jews showing no signs of moving en masse to the promised land, Israel is looking for Jews of any kind just about anywhere this side of the Milky Way. Afghanistan, Mexico, Africa – all have been scoured for groups which can be declared Jewish. In the numbers demographic war which Israel is fighting with Palestinians, it is crucial to remain a majority in Palestine, so any Jews are good Jews for settlements, proper gun fodder for the escalating conflict. This is a BBC ‘good news’ story, of saving Jews from India, and liberating them in Hebron, the very heart of the settlement movement.
Jerusalem Diary: Found tribe: BBC
THE TRIBE NO LONGER LOST
There are some East Asian faces to be seen around Israel. Up in the fields of the far north, by the Lebanese border, or the groves of the far south, en route to Eilat, Thai farm workers rattle past on tractors.
In the big cities, Filipina women offer care to elderly Israelis.
But until I had been to Kiryat Arba, deep inside the occupied West Bank, I had not seen East Asians the other side of the Green Line – the internationally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank.
Kiryat Arba is a slightly down-at-heel place these days. It lies next to Hebron, the tense and divided city that exerts a strong historical pull for Muslims and Jews.
The story that we tend to report is the hotly-contested dispute as to whether Jews should be allowed to settle here at all – on what all governments outside Israel regard as occupied territory.
But there is another remarkable and little-told story at play here: the story of Indians from a remote part of that vast country, who have come to this place, believing that they are one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel.
On the side of a plain, pre-fabricated building in Kiryat Arba is a plaque, proclaiming that this is a community centre for “our Bnei Menashe brethren”. The brown-skinned, almond-eyed children playing inside have travelled thousands of kilometres from north-east India.
Rabbi Yehuda Gin stabs his forefinger at a map of the region, sandwiched between Burma and Bangladesh. The story of the “children of Menashe” is that they were exiled from Israel, 2700 years ago, by the Assyrians. Their wandering took them, in the end, to north-east India.
“In the external appearance,” Rabbi Gin says, “it is very hard to prove that we are part of the Israel nation, or part of the tribes.” But he insists that the kipot (skullcaps) which most of the Bnei Menashe men wear symbolise their commitment. “We – having been lost – still adhere to our love for the land of Israel: this is a very, very strong part of the identity of the Bnei Menashe.”
The community centre is named Beit Miriam, after the grandmother of Michael Freund. He set up an organisation, called Shavei Yisrael (Israel Returns), to gather in the communities which he believes are the lost tribes.
“I myself was sceptical,” he concedes. “But once I travelled to the north-east of India and I met with the members of the community and I learned more about their history and their tradition and their customs, I became convinced that they are in fact descendants of a lost tribe – that they do have a deep connection to the people of Israel.”
In a quiet room away from the hectic games of the Bnei Menashe children, Tsvi Khaute takes a prayer-book down from a shelf. He opens to a page from the Shabbat morning service, and the traditional Ayn Keiloheinu prayer, which is sung by Jewish communities around the world. The Hebrew words are the same, but the tune he sings has a distinctly pentatonic, East Asian flavour.
Kiryat Arba is at the edge of Hebron, a regular flashpoint between Palestinians and Jewish settlers
The faith, then, appears to have deep religious roots. But that still leaves the possibility that the Bnei Menashe may have wanted to come to Israel for economic reasons – to improve their standard of living.
Tsvi Khaute insists not. His family, he says, includes a state minister and the head of the secret police.
“We are a well-to-do family. So it is not an economic consideration. If you live outside Israel,” he says, his voice becoming impassioned, “it’s as if you don’t have God.”
Tzvi Khaute is equally certain about his right to live here, on what governments outside Israel regard as an illegal settlement on occupied territory. “Those who claim that Hebron is not Jewish, they don’t know their identity. This is a very, very important place where the Jews belong.”
There is another, more prosaic reason that the Bnei Menashe ended up in Kiryat Arba. Fifteen years ago, it was one of the only Israeli-run councils willing to accept these unusual-looking immigrants.
The international consensus is that Jews should not be settling in Kiryat Arba at all – that it should be part of a new Palestinian state. And if that were ever to happen then the Bnei Menashe’s remarkable story of wandering may well take another turn.