Obama takes second oath l'humra

by Lurker

[Cross-posted at The Muqata]

In the comments on DovBear's post yesterday about the flubbed oath, I raised the question of whether Obama might have to take the oath a second time. After all, the exact wording of the oath is specified in the Constitution, and Obama (due to Roberts' mess-up) said those words out of sequence. DovBear saw it as doubtful that Obama should have to redo it: "I don't see why we need to stand on ceremony. This isn't religion." But as Tzipporah pointed out, one can reasonably argue that it is: "Political pageantry IS America's secular religion, with the Constitution standing as the holy text." I would tend to concur.

Well apparently, the President's White House counsel sees it this way as well. Yesterday, he paskened that min hastam, Obama was yotzei b'di'avad with the first oath -- but nevertheless, so that there should be no hashash ("out of an abundance of caution"), he still had Obama take the oath a second time l'humra, in order to be yotzei l'khol hadei'ot.

Obama retakes oath of office after Roberts' mistake
...
The do-over was aimed at dispelling any confusion that might arise from Tuesday's take -- in which "faithfully" was said out of sequence -- and erase any question that Obama is legally the president.
...
"We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately yesterday," White House counsel Greg Craig said Wednesday in a written statement.
"But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time," the statement read.

(The article linked above contains an audio recording of the second oath, which was taken on Wednesday at 7:35 pm EST in the White House Map Room.)

Greg Craig's psak was presumably influenced by the rulings issued by many major poskim over the last two days, that Obama should have to do the oath over again: Constitutional scholar Jack Beermann of Boston University went so far as to say that there is a real hashash that Obama wouldn't actually have the halakha of "President" until he recites the oath using the proper nusah. He acknowledged that one could have a hava amina not to repeat the oath because doing so might cause embarrassment to the Chief Justice -- but concluded that the importance of the mitzva of the oath overrides the kavod of the Chief Justice.

Charles Cooper, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, paskened unequivocally that Obama is hayav to retake the oath, and without delay. And Jonathan Turley, professor of Constitutional law at George Washington University, said that although Obama is not actually hayav to retake the oath, he should do so anyway to eliminate the safek.

A few interesting notes about Obama's second oath:

• Roberts once again phrased "so help me God" as a question.
  
  
• The use of a Bible -- which is only a minhag and not specified as part of the hiyuv in the Constitution -- was dispensed with.
  
  
• The concern I raised yesterday, that a second oath might constitute a problem of a brakha l'vatala, apparently did not figure in Mr. Craig's psak.

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The morning after...

by Lurker

Cartoon by Shlomo Cohen, Yisrael Hayom, 21 Jan., 2009

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The murder of Palestinians in Gaza

by Lurker

Those who are shocked by the Palestinian death toll in Gaza might be interested in knowing that the figures being bandied about by Hamas and the Palestinian Red Crescent include dozens, possibly hundreds, of Fatah members who were murdered in cold blood by Hamas over the past three weeks.

Since the war began, Hamas has been rounding up Fatah members throughout the Gaza Strip. The ones who get off easy only get shot in the legs, have their eyes poked out, and/or have their hands smashed or cut off. Many others are simply murdered; sometimes in mass executions.

In this clip, Jamal Najar, a popular Palestinian singer in the West Bank, describes how some of his cousins in Gaza were murdered by Hamas over the last few days, including a father who was shot dead in front of his children, for the crime of having walked out of his house:



Hamas officials have been including these people, that they themselves wounded and killed, in the casualty figures that they distribute to the press -- based on the reasoning that these victims, too, were killed in the context of the Israeli offensive. It should be noted, however, that Hamas' policy of torturing and murdering Fatah members (and often members of their families as well) dates back to Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Hamas does not always try to hide these killings -- to the contrary, they sometimes film them, and proudly broadcast them on television with rousing musical accompaniment, as you can see in the video below from Hamas TV:

[Note: I chose a clip that contains no closeups or visible blood. Nonetheless, some may find it disturbing.]



Since Saturday night, when Israel's unilateral cease fire went into effect, Hamas' roundups and murders of their Fatah rivals have dramatically increased.

Interestingly, however, the international media has barely been covering these ongoing tortures and murders, nor has any Western government seen fit to condemn them, or even make mention of them. Apparently, their excessive handwringing over Palestinian deaths is reserved exclusively for those deaths caused by Israel. Nobody actually gives a damn about the loss of Palestinian life, if those deaths are at the hands of other Palestinians.

Of course, this is not to imply that many Palestinians weren't killed in Israeli strikes. Many have asked why the level of civilian casualties in these strikes has been so high. An explanation for this is provided, not by an IDF spokesman, but by Hamas representative Fathi Hamad on Hamas TV: He explains that the Palestinians have deliberately turned death (their own) into an "industry" (his term) of which they are exceedingly proud. In order to bring about these glorious Palestinian deaths, Hamas fighters make a point of surrounding themselves with "a human shield of women, children, [and] the elderly". Why would they want to do such a thing, you may ask? Hamad answers this, too, using a phrase that has become, in recent years, a frequent statement of principle among Muslim clerics: "We [Muslims] love death as much as you [Jews and Westerners] love life". Watch it for yourself:



Given the Palestinians' brilliantly successful, suicidal "death industry", and their resolutely determined efforts to get as many women, children, and elderly as possible killed in Israeli strikes against terrorist targets, it is nothing short of incredible that Israel, because of its commitment to humane values, has somehow managed to keep the civilian death toll as low as it has been.

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Compassion for the Cruel

A guest post by Lurker:

[DOVBEAR RESPONDS]

"He who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately be cruel to the compassionate."
-- Midrash Tanhuma Metzora 1; Yalkut Shimoni I Shmuel 121

DovBear asked us to consider a "thought experiment", in which we consider "the sacrifices of safety and comfort being made by those living within range of the Hamas rockets [as] a price that should be paid in order to deliver significant benefits to the whole country".

For the record, I categorically reject the absurd notion that letting people live this way has any benefit at all for the State of Israel. But that is not really the point of this post.

I would like to lend my assistance to the "thought experiment". Please watch the following video, which was shot in the area around a Sderot school, just as the "Color Red" alert sounded, signalling that a Kassam missle from Gaza was about to fall. It is only 40 seconds long:



As you conduct DovBear's "thought experiment", please consider the following: What you just watched has been happening several times a day in Sderot, on average, for the last few years. From the moment the alert sounds, one has a maximum of 15 seconds to get oneself (and one's children, babies, elderly parents, etc.) into a bomb shelter. And the threat never goes away -- it is constantly hanging over each and every person 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Every waking moment in which this is not happening, is spent in fear that it might be about to happen. As a result of this constant fear and tension, residents of Sderot have been developing severe behaviorial disorders. This is most common and obvious in children. The are some children who have withdrawn permantently into noncommunicative shells, and others who lash out repeatedly in violence. Older children regularly wet their beds, and some go for more than a week at a time without sleeping. Needless to say, their education system has been decimated.

Now ask yourself these questions:

• Would I be willing to live this way?
  
• Would I be willing to let my own children live this way?
  
• Would I be willing to let other people's children live this way?

DovBear suggested that we should consider accepting that the residents of Sderot (and Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ofakim, etc.) will just have to live this way, in order to preserve "the very principles that make Israel worth protecting".

He asks us: "Is this thought experiment monstrous?"

The answer is most definitely "yes". It is incredibly monstrous. And this is why:

There are no principles that could possibly justify choosing to allow our own people to live in a terrifying hell like this. And any ethical system that promotes such an idea is thoroughly immoral and evil.

The primary purpose of the State of Israel is to allow Jews to live freely and securely in their homeland. This is the core "principle that makes Israel worth protecting". If an enemy attacks us, then the correct, moral thing to do is to fight back and defend ourselves, and to do everything in our power to remove the threat. And if we fail to even try to fight back, then we have betrayed ourselves, and the most fundamental purpose of our State. We would thus become evil and immoral, and would no longer deserve to have the State.

Haza"l knew very well that Jews are naturally inclined to show compassion, even to their enemies. That is why they warned us that blindly following the dictates of such compassion can, ironically, lead to terrible cruelty against others who truly deserve our compassion. This is precisely what they meant when they declared that "he who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately be cruel to the compassionate". To abandon our fellow Jews -- men, women, and children -- to the terror seen so vividly in the video above, in the name of some supposed ethical "principles" -- would not be moral at all, but rather a complete twisting of morality. It would be a horrifying realization of that evil and cruelty that Haza"l were warning us against.

[I anticipate that there will be those who condemn the position I presented here as immoral. Among Jews in particular, such people are almost to be expected. They represent the actualization of the very twisted morality of which Haza"l were speaking.]

[DOVBEAR RESPONDS]

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Land for Peace !=Death

Down below Lurker seem to be arguing that Oslo CAUSED suicide bombings but the dots aren't connected. How did one lead to the other? What about Oslo led to an eruption of violence? Lurker doesn't say.

He also makes several claims that are not supported by information found on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website.

For starters, he says: "The September 1993 Oslo Accords sparked a massive wave of terrorist attacks in Israel, of unprecedented proportions: Immediately following the signing [my emphasis] terrorism skyrocketed to levels that had been previously unknown." This is true, but misleading. Immediately after Oslo, there were many small scale attacks - shootings and stabbings - but almost all of these small scale attacks were carried out by Arafat's enemies in Hamas, or by free agents. The rest, though categorized as terror attacks by the MFA may have been nothing of the sort(1). The first full scale attack - a bombing -wasn't until seven months later - on April 6, 1994, and the first suicide attack came a week later on April 13.

Next, Lurker says "terrorism skyrocketed to levels that had been previously unknown" and this is also misleading. Though it's indisputable that the death toll rose after Oslo, the increase, though lamentable, is not something that can be described with the metaphor of a "skyrocket," as you can see here: 40 Israelis died at the hands of terrorists in 1989; the next year there were 33 murders, followed by 21 in 1991, and 34 in 1992. This death rate is slightly lower, but certainly comparable to the number of deaths during the period Lurker bemoans: 1994: 65; 1995: 29; 1996: 56; 1997:41; 1998:16; 1999: 8. (2)

Lurker also allows himself to get carried away when he says "Giving land to the Palestinians endangers the lives of Jews, and has resulted in the deaths of thousands of them." The MFA totals the casualties on two seperate pages and the true number of terrorist murders during the Oslo years is either 215 --plus however many died in 1993 following Oslo (2) or 269 (I can't explain the discrepancy between this and this)

In his post, Lurker refers to the numbers of deaths, not the number of attacks, and this is also misleading because if we're attempting to measure how terrorists reacted to Oslo an attack which everyone survives is equally significant to an attack that kills 50. He is correct that the number of attacks increased dramatically (and here skyrocket might be the right word) after Oslo, but if we examine how they spread across three distinct post-Oslo eras something interesting emerges.

The MFA reports the number of attacks that occurred between 1993 and 2000 on two different pages. On the first, only major attacks on civilians are listed. On the second, the aforementioned shootings and stabbings are included, as are attacks on soldiers
Between 1993 and 2000 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs counts 24 major attacks, of which 9 occurred between the Oslo signing and Rabin assassination in November 1995. There were fifteen more before the second intifada started in 2000. Of these fifteen, eleven took place during Netanyahu's administration.

If you look at the total number of attacks which includes the small scale attacks you see a similar breakdown: There were 47 between September 1993 and the assassination two years later, 24 during the 7 month interim period prior to Netanyahu's election, and 26 between June 1996 and 2000.

So Lurker is right about the numbers (sort of) and right (sort of) when he says the number of attacks declined under Netanyahu but he draws a baseless conclusion. The lesson is not, as he says, that giving Arabs land results in carnage, nor is the lesson that Netanyahu's hard line obstructionism saved lives. The truth is far more complicated.

According to the MFA's reporting, the attacks, overwhelmingly, were carried out by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and free agents. These are men and organizations who opposed Arafat and his initiatives, and were not under his control. They attacked - first with disorganized and opportunistic shootings and stabbings, then with more carefully planned bombings - because they hoped to undermine Arafat, and derail the peace process. They did this because they were rejectionists, and because they were rejectionists they opposed both Arafat and Israel, and hoped to discredit Arafat's promises. In short, they wanted Israelis to come to the same conclusion that Lurker has drawn .

Their attacks, therefore, are no argument against Oslo, or against the idea the Israel should trade land for peace. It can only be seen as such if you believe in monoliths and a borg like Arab mentality. This is rather like saying Yigal Amir and Boruch Goldstein "prove" something about Rabin and all other Israelis. In his analysis, Lurker forgets the salient detail: The Arabs who attacked Israel after Oslo were not the same Arabs who were attempting to negotiate a settlement.

Lurker, therefore, has not shown us that trading land enrages Arabs who "given an inch" believe they can, through force "grab a mile." He's only shown us that peace is difficult, and likely to be opposed by the angry and the desperate. Netanyahu, I agree, understood this in a way Rabin did not. The lesson I take from the (slight) decline in attacks and deaths during his administration is not that Oslo was a mistake - Netanyahu, after all, never retreated from any promise Rabin made: he didn't cancel the agreement - but that Rabin should have done more to protect Israel from those Arabs who opposed Arafat and his initiatives.

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(1) Anatoly Kolisnikov, for instance, is considered a victim of terror, but he was stabbed by unknown parties while working as a night watchman; Moshe Becker, also a victim of terror, per the MFA's list, was killed by his employees.

(2) I exclude 1993 because I can't find a way to determine how many of that year's 45 murders were post Oslo. My best guess is that only 12 of the 45 were killed after Oslo, but I might be way off because I don't know if the 45 deaths include soldiers. You can do your own calculations by comparing this and this.
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"Land for Peace" < Life

A guest post by Lurker:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."
-- Albert Einstein

A few days ago, DovBear presented an argument that since the mitzva of living in the Land of Israel is not categorized as yahareg v'al y'avor (a mitzva for which one is required to sacrifice one's life), it would therefore be appropriate to surrender land to the Palestinians, rather than endanger lives.

He also noted that this is not simply his own personal view, but rather, the view of a number of halakhic authorities. And in fact, he is quite correct about this: R. Ovadiah Yosef has ruled that due to the halakhic imperative of pikuah nefesh (preservation of life), it is permissible to cede parts of Eretz Yisrael in order to save lives. The late R. Eliezer Schach also issued a similar ruling.*

DovBear is also correct that anyone who would accuse him of being a "heretic" for embracing this particular legitimate opinion, is simply a fool.

Where DovBear is wrong is in his belief that lives can, in fact, be saved by giving land to the Palestinians. This assumption has been tried, and has failed completely, multiple times over the past fifteen years. The idea has been done to death, quite literally: The plain, harsh reality is the exact opposite: Giving land to the Palestinians endangers the lives of Jews, and has resulted in the deaths of thousands of them.

It is for this reason that R. Ovadiah -- who still stands by his halakhic ruling in principle -- has stopped supporting the surrender of land to the Palestinians in practice.

Here is a question to which not many people know the answer: How many suicide bomb attacks there were before the Rabin government signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO?

Answer: ZERO (0). Yes, really. Suicide bombings first began only following the signing of Oslo.

In 1993, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (now President) inaugurated a complete reversal of prior Israeli policy: They decided to negotiate with terrorists, and to arm them with land, money, and weapons. Plenty of Israelis were aghast, and wondered how this could possibly lead to anything other than disaster. Unfortunately, their fears were borne out in spades: The September 1993 Oslo Accords sparked a massive wave of terrorist attacks in Israel, of unprecedented proportions: Immediately following the signing, terrorism skyrocketed to levels that had been previously unknown. Regardless of this, the Rabin government was undeterred: Ignoring the mounting carnage, they negotiated and then signed the Oslo II agreement in 1995 -- in spite of the constant suicide bombings, which had become a matter of routine by then. And not surprisngly, the rate of terror death climbed even higher with Oslo II.

In the 30 months beginning with the Oslo signing, more Israelis were killed by terrorists (213) than in the entire preceding decade (209 from January 1983 to September 1993). You can find graphs illustrating this phenomenon here. [Note: These graphs cover the relatively "quiet" period prior to the much bloodier "Second Intifada" period, which began in October 2000.]


This massive explosion of terror attacks continued until Binyamin Netanyahu came to power in 1996. Netanyahu had campaigned on a platform that precluded any further territorial concessions as long as the terror onslaught continued. And interestingly, as soon as he assumed office, the terror attacks dropped dramatically, for the very first time since the Oslo Accords had been signed. Netanyahu's term in office marked the first time that the level of terror attacks dropped back down to pre-Oslo levels. (You can see this visually, along with the figures, on the graphs cited above.)

This respite didn't last very long, unfortunately. In 1999, Netanyahu was succeeded by Ehud Barak (now Defense Minister), who declared his intention to continue the policies of Rabin and Peres. True to his word, at Camp David, he offered Arafat a final-status deal that included the entire Gaza Strip, 97% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Arafat's response was to angrily reject the offer, and to launch a new terror war (the infamous "Second Intifada") that dwarfed even the monstrous levels of bloodshed that had hit Israel during the Rabin and Peres governments.

More Israeli civilians -- men, women, and children -- were slaughtered in the years since Oslo than in all the years since the founding of the state in 1948 up until the accords were signed in 1993. The numbers speak for themselves.

Many were certain that the Second Intifada spelled the end of Israel's policy of "land for peace". After all, it had become painfully clear -- even to many on the left, who had originally advocated this policy -- that it garnered nothing for Israel other than bloodshed and death. However, in 2004, the Sharon government announced its plans for a unilateral "Disengagement", which would entail the forced expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes in Gush Katif and northern Shomron, and turning over this land to the Palestinians. Surprisingly -- or perhaps not so surprisingly -- this announcement was promptly greeted by an enormous barrage of rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip into Sderot and other border areas, as well as Gush Katif itself. This, however, did not deter Sharon, who carried out the Disengagement (over his own electorate's stanch opposition) in 2005. Every single last Israeli -- every civilian resident and soldier -- was removed from the Gaza Strip.

There were two immediate effects: (1) With the IDF and their deterrent effect gone, Hamas quickly siezed full political and military control of the Gaza Strip, ousting their Fatah rivals. (2) The western Negev was innundated by a massive, unprecedented increase in rocket attacks, that soon spread far beyond the Sderot area, and into Netivot, Ofakim, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and other cities.

This dramatic increase in rocket attacks caused by Israel's concession of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians can be seen graphically here and here. [Note: These graphs do not cover the last three months.]


It should be painfully obvious to any objective person that the main reason for not giving land to enemy terrorists is not the sanctity of Jewish land. It is the sanctity of Jewish life.

The situation in the West Bank today is essentially the same as that of the Gaza Strip five years ago: Hamas already has large caches of mortars, and Katyusha and Grad missles. Hamas is far more powerful -- and popular -- than their Fatah rivals, and they are poised to sieze control. The only thing currently standing in their way is the presence of the IDF. If Israel were to withdraw from the West Bank, Hamas would sieze full control within a matter of weeks. Within a few months, missles would be raining down on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Netanya, just as they have been raining down into the western Negev. And with the dense urban population of Israel's central region (about 80% of the population lives there) -- as opposed to the sparsely populated Negev -- the casualties would far surpass anything ever seen before.

In spite of this, there are plenty of Jews -- in Israel and abroad -- who advocate surrendering the West Bank to the terrorists. These Jews are fueled by a fervent, messianic faith that making territorial concessions will somehow usher in the dawn of a new era, in which Israel will finally live in peace. They are completely undeterred by the enemy's own unabashed declarations that they will do everything in their power to annhilate Israel. But even more incredibly, these Jews are undeterred by the fact that their idea was already tried several times, and the result was not peace, but rather massive death and bloodshed. They remain steadfastly certain and true to their "religion", which preaches that the past should be ignored: Regardless of what has come before -- or what is happening right now -- they have complete faith that the next time Israel makes concessions to its terrorist enemies, peace will finally come.

In a bizarre inversion of reality, these Jews often deride their ideological rivals, who oppose such suicidal concessions, as being "fanatic messianists". They blithely dismiss the dire warnings of what will result, insisting that their rivals offer no viable "alternative". As though their own plan, which has already failed multiple times with deadly consequences, does constitute a viable "alternative".

So, honestly: How far does Israel need to continue this suicidal "experiment"? Can any sane person still believe that if we once again give land (and money, and weapons) to the Palestinians, this time it will bring peace, rather than the deaths of more and more Jews?

According to Einstein's definition of insanity above, the answer is obvious.

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[*] I am compelled to point out the logical fallacy in this position -- as has been pointed out by several other halakhic authorities, including R. Avraham Shapira and R. Shlomo Goren: There exist certain mitzvot which, by their inherent nature, entail danger to one's life, and therefore cannot logically be overriden by considerations of pikuah nefesh. The classic example of this is the mitzva to go to war to conquer or defend the Land of Israel: Obviously, going into battle involves risking one's life. On that basis, everyone should be able to say that pikuah nefesh overrides his own obligation to fulfill this mitzva. That would clearly be an absurd argument, since it would mean that nobody at all would ever participate in such a war, and the mitzva to do so would become meaningless. The only logical conclusion, therefore, is that pikuah nefesh does not apply in the case of such a mitzva.
Nevertheless, this argument doesn't negate the undeniable fact that there do exist halakhic authorities who say that pikuah nefesh allows for giving up parts of Eretz Yisrael, as DB noted.

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Jordan Is Palestine

A guest post by Lurker:

In 1918, Britain was assigned a mandate by the League of Nations to administer the territory known as Palestine. This territory encompassed both the western bank of the Jordan River (which includes modern-day Israel, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza), and the eastern bank (which comprises modern-day Jordan). Just a year earlier, the British government had committed itself, in the Balfour Declaration, to support the establishment of a Jewish homeland in this territory.


In 1921, however, Britain carved off the entire eastern bank -- comprising 76% of Palestine -- and granted control of it to the Arab Hashemite clan, as a reward for their political support during the First World War. While the Hashemites had autonomy, Britain and the international community did not recognize the Hashemites' sovereignty over the East Bank until 1948, when the British Mandate in Palestine ended.

After the Israeli War of Independence, Jordan (then known as Transjordan) annexed those parts of the western bank that Israel had not captured. They dubbed this region "The West Bank", although the state of Israel itself also constitutes part of the west bank of the Jordan. (During the periods of British and Ottoman rule, the areas had been known by their historical names, Judea and Samaria.)

Jordan justified this annexation by arguing that "Jordan is Palestine". By this they meant that Jordan was (in their own view) the only legitimate state in all of Palestine, and since Palestine is a single, indivisible entity, Jordan was entitled to rulership over both the eastern and western banks (which included Israel, of course).

With the founding of the Palestinian national movement in the 1960's, the PLO argued that it, not the foreign Hashemite family, was the legitimate heir to rulership of both banks of Palestine. This eventually led to the PLO's formal establishment of a Palestinian state in Jordan. In the 1971 revolt known as Black September, the PLO declared parts of Jordan as "liberated Palestine", and attempted to assassinate and overthrow King Hussein. Hussein put down the revolt, killing an estimated 10,000 Palestinians over the course of about ten days, and expelled the PLO from his country.

Even after Israel's capture of the West Bank in 1967, Jordan continued to argue that "Jordan is Palestine", and maintained their claim to be the legitimate authority in the West Bank (which Israel accepted in many spheres, such as the educational system). But as the Palestinian national movement developed and gained international support, so did the demand for a second Arab Palestinian state, to be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And so, in 1988, King Hussein gave in to the pressure upon him, and relinquished his claim to sovereignty over the West Bank.

Today, many Jews (including myself) argue that the PLO's demands, and Jordan's capitulation, do not justify the creation of a second Arab state in Palestine. (Or rather a third, since Hamas already has a de facto state in Gaza.) The Jordanian and Palestinian claim that "Jordan is Palestine" was correct from the get-go, and the fact that they later abandoned it for political expediency should not obligate Israel to oblige their later whims.

In his post below, SM presented four arguments against the proposition that "Jordan is Palestine". Most interestingly, he relates to "Jordan is Palestine" as if it were nothing more than a recently-hatched notion used by some Israelis who advocate population transfer, rather than a position held historically by the Jordanians and Palestinians. His post, which is written as though the "Jordan is Palestine" idea was invented yesterday by some right-wing Jews, completely ignores the actual background of the issue.

Each of his four arguments is fundamentally flawed, as I will show here.

1. "The Jordanians don't want it."

In fact, the Jordanians, for decades, were the most avid proponents of the "Jordan is Palestine" position. They used it as their justification for their annexation of the West Bank, arguing that Palestine was one single, indivisible unit, and that the Jordanian government constituted the legitimate government of Palestine. The following quotes speak for themselves:

"We are the Government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine."
-- Prime Minister of Jordan, 23 August, 1959

"Palestine and Transjordan are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country."
-- King Abdullah, at the Meeting of the Arab League, Cairo, 12 April, 1948

"Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate."
-- Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2 February, 1970

"There is no family on the East Bank of the [Jordan] River that does not have relatives on the West Bank ... no family in the west that does not have branches in the east."
-- King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2 February, 1972

"We consider it necessary to clarify to one and all, in the Arab world and outside, that the Palestinian people with its nobility and conscience is to be found here on the East Bank [of the Jordan River], the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Its overwhelming majority is here [on the East Bank] and nowhere else."
-- King Hussein, quoted in An-Nahar, Beirut, 24 August, 1972

"The Palestinians here constitute not less than one half of the members of the armed forces. They and their brothers, the sons of Transjordan, constitute the members of one family who are equal in everything, in rights and duties."
-- King Hussein, on Amman Radio, 3 February, 1973 (quoted by BBC Monitoring Service)

"The new Jordan, which emerged in 1949, was the creation of the Palestinians of the West Bank and their brothers in the East. While Israel was the negation of the Palestinian right of self-determination, unified Jordan was the expression of it."
-- Sharif Al-Hamid Sharaf, Representative of Jordan at the UN Security Council, 11 June, 1973

"[Former Tunisian] President Bourguiba considers Jordan an artificial creation presented by Great Britain to King Abdullah. But he accepts Palestine and the Palestinians as an existing and primary fact since the days of the Pharaohs. Israel, too, he considers as a primary entity. However, Arab history makes no distinction between Jordanians, Syrians and Palestinians. Most of them hail from the same Arab race, which arrived in the region with the Arab Moslem conquest."
-- Editorial Comment in the Jordanian Armed Forces' weekly Al-Aqsa, Amman, 11 July, 1973

"The Palestinians and the Jordanians have created on this soil since 1948 one family -- all of whose children have equal rights and obligations."
-- King Hussein, addressing an American delegation, 19 February, 1975

"Palestine and Jordan were both under British Mandate, but as my grandfather pointed out in his memoirs, they were hardly separate countries. Transjordan being to the east of the River Jordan, it formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine."
-- King Hussein, in his memoirs

"Jordan is not just another Arab state with regard to Palestine but, rather, Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan in terms of territory, national identity, sufferings, hopes and aspirations, both day and night. Though we are all Arabs and our point of departure is that we are all members of the same people, the Palestinian-Jordanian nation is one and unique, and different from those of the other Arab states."
-- Marwan al Hamoud, member of the Jordanian National Consultative Council and former Minister of Agriculture, quoted by Al-Rai, Amman, 24 September, 1980

2. "The Palestinians don't want it."

Just as the Jordanians argued that "Jordan is Palestine", and saw themselves as Palestine's legitimate rulers, so too did the PLO argue that "Jordan is Palestine". Of course, the PLO saw themselves as the ones entitled to rulership of all of Palestine -- including Jordan:

"Let us not forget the East Bank of the Jordan [River], where seventy per cent of the inhabitants belong to the Palestinian nation."
-- George Habash, leader of the PFLP section of the PLO, writing in the PLO publication Sha-un Falastinia, February 1970

"There are, as well, links of geography and history, and a wide range of interests between the two banks [of the Jordan River] which have grown stronger over the past twenty years. Let us not forget that el-Salt and Nablus were within the same district -- el-Balka -- during the Ottoman period, and that family and commercial ties bound the two cities together."
-- Hamdi Ken'an, former Mayor of Nablus, writing in the newspaper Al-Quds, 14 March, 1973

"...those fishing in troubled waters will not succeed in dividing our people, which extends to both sides of the Jordan [River], in spite of the artificial boundaries established by the Colonial Office and Winston Churchill half a century ago."
-- Yassir Arafat, in a statement to Eric Roleau

"There should be a kind of linkage because Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people."
-- Farouk Kadoumi, head of the PLO Political Department, quoted in Newsweek, 14 March, 1977

3. "The international community doesn't want it."

In fact, until Israel began to indicate a willingness to accept the creation of a second Palestinian state in the West Bank, there were numerous international voices -- even among the Arabs -- that were ready to consider Jordan as a solution to the statehood problem for the Palestinians:

"With all respect to King Hussein, I suggest that the Emirate of Transjordan was created from whole cloth by Great Britain, which for this purpose cut up ancient Palestine. To this desert territory to the east of the Jordan [River], it gave the name Transjordan. But there is nothing in history which carries this name. While since our earliest time there was Palestine and Palestinians. I maintain that the matter of Transjordan is an artificial one, and that Palestine is the basic problem. King Hussein should submit to the wishes of the people, in accordance with the principles of democracy and self-determination, so as to avoid the fate of his grandfather, Abdullah, or of his cousin, Feisal, both of whom were assassinated."
-- Former President Bourguiba of Tunisia, in a public statement, July 1973

"How much better off Hussein would be if he had been induced to abandon his pose as a benevolent 'host' to 'refugees' and to affirm the fact that Jordan is the Palestinian Arab nation-state, just as Israel is the Palestinian Jewish nation-state."
-- Editorial in The Economist, 19 July, 1975

"Palestinian Arabs hold seventy-five per cent of all government jobs in Jordan."
-- The Observer, 2 March, 1976

"Palestinian Arabs control over seventy per cent of Jordan's economy."
- Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, 5 March, 1976

"The potential weak spot in Jordan is that most of the population are not, strictly speaking, Jordanian at all, but Palestinian. An estimated 60 per cent of the country's 2,500,000 people are Palestinians ... Most of these hold Jordanian passports, and many are integrated into Jordanian society."
-- Richard Owen, The Times, 14 November, 1980

4. "It is wrong [to espouse] the forced deportation of an entire population."

This is a straw man argument. When the Jordanians and the Palestinians were arguing that "Jordan is Palestine", they were not calling for the forced deportation of anybody -- except for the Jews, of course. Today, Jews such as myself, who argue that "Jordan is Palestine" are not demanding that any Palestinians be forcibly deported to anywhere. The point, rather, is that Jordan, as an Arab state occupying 76% of Palestine, and home to an overwhelmingly Palestinian population, should satisfy the need for a Palestinian state. First and foremost, this means that the Palestinian refugees should be allowed to settle there and become citizens. For an excellent example of such a proposal, see MK Benny Elon's peace plan. Notice that it rejects from the outset the idea of forced transfer.

As for Palestinians living in Israel or the West Bank, there is no reason they should not be able to go on living there if they so wish. Many of them may choose to move to Jordan/Palestine, and perhaps they may be given positive economic incentives to do so. But they certainly should not be forced to. This would be essentially the same as the creation of the state of Pakistan -- which was founded in order to satisfy the demand for a Muslim state on the Indian subcontinent. After its founding, many Muslims chose to emigrate to Pakistan. But many also chose to remain in India. In the same way, Palestinian national aspirations should be satisfied by the existence of a Palestinian state in 76% of Palestine. It is more than reasonable for Israel to retain control of the remaining 24% -- which includes the Jewish people's historical homeland, Judea and Samaria.

SM argues that "the forced deportation of an entire population" is a "perversion" of Jewish values. This is most peculiar (to put it mildly), since he wholeheartedly supported the forced deportation of the entire Jewish population of Gush Katif in 2005, and currently advocates the forced deportation of the entire Jewish population of Judea and Samaria -- comprising about 300,000 men, women, and children. I, on the other hand -- along with most Israelis who argue for Jordan as a Palestinian state -- do not have such a double standard. As opposed to SM and those of his ilk, we are not calling for the deportation of anybody.

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Godwin's Law working overtime

A guest post by Lurker:

Deputy Chairman of Islamic Movement in Israel: Killing Hamas Police is worse than Nazis putting Jews in ovens

[Source]

"This isn't war, it is genocide. Killing police officers, people who preserve the security? To come to a police center and blow it up? These aren't people that threw the Qassam.

"What does the State of Israel do? The Germans didn't do such a thing.

"Sure they gathered the Jews together and put them into ovens. But this is worse.

"How are the Jews silent?"

-- Sheikh Juma'a al-Qasasi, former mayor of the Bedouin town Rahat in the Negev, deputy chairman of the Islamic Movement, to Makor Rishon correspondent Avinavad Vitkon.
Makor Rishon, 02 January, 2009

Yosef and Pharaoh: Mirror Images

A guest post by Lurker:

A comparison between Yosef's confrontation with his brothers in parshat Miketz (Bereishit 42-43):, and Pharaoh's confrontation with Moshe and Aharon in parshat Bo (Shemot 10-11), reveals some very interesting parallels:

In Miketz: When the brothers come to Yosef the first time, he twice places conditions upon their departure from, and reentry into, Egypt: The first time, he declares that he will keep them all behind except for one, who would go back to Canaan to fetch their youngest brother and come back with him. The brothers are then removed from Yosef's presence, and placed in jail. But a few days later, Yosef softens his conditions: He agrees to allow the brothers to leave, but stipulates that one of them must remain behind. He then sends the brothers away, and also adds a threat against their lives, should they return without Binyamin: "Do this, and you will live… and you go… and bring your youngest brother to me... and you won't die" ("זֹאת עֲשׂוּ, וִחְיו... וְאַתֶּם לְכוּ... וְאֶת-אֲחִיכֶם הַקָּטֹן תָּבִיאוּ אֵלַי... וְלֹא תָמוּתוּ "). Later, when recounting Yosef's parting words to them, Yehudah quotes Yosef as declaring that without Binyamin, the brothers will not see Yosef again: "You will not see my face, unless your brother is with you" ("לֹא תִרְאוּ פָנַי, בִּלְתִּי אֲחִיכֶם אִתְּכֶם"). Yehudah quotes this again in Bereishit 44:23: "If your youngest brother does not come down with you, you will not again see my face" ("אִם לֹא יֵרֵד אֲחִיכֶם הַקָּטֹן אִתְּכֶם, לֹא תֹסִפוּן לִרְאוֹת פָּנָי").

In Bo: After having been battered by most of the plagues, Pharaoh finally agrees, in principle, to allow the Israelites to depart from Egypt for a few days. He communicates this to Moshe twice – but each time, he imposes conditions that Moshe refuses. The first time, he agrees to allow the adults to leave, but insists that the youngsters remain behind. Moshe refuses, and he and Aharon are then removed from Pharaoh's presence. A few days later, however, after the plague of darkness, Pharaoh softens his conditions: He agrees to allow the children to leave, but stipulates that their cattle remain behind. Again, Moshe refuses. Pharaoh then sends Moshe away, declaring that Moshe may no longer see Pharaoh again, and also adds a threat against Moshe's life: "Get away from me; beware, do not again see my face, because on the day you see my face, you will die" ("לֵךְ מֵעָלָי; הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ, אַל-תֹּסֶף רְאוֹת פָּנַי, כִּי בְּיוֹם רְאֹתְךָ פָנַי, תָּמוּת").

The parallels between the two stories are striking:

• Both Yosef and Pharaoh impose conditions upon the Israelites' freedom of movement: Yosef imposes conditions on who may leave and who may re-enter Egypt, and Pharaoh imposes conditions on who may leave Egypt.
  
• Yosef demands that the youngest of the brothers be brought into Egypt. Pharaoh demands that the youngest of the Israelites not leave Egypt.
  
• Yosef has the brothers removed from his presence, and later offers them softer conditions. Pharaoh has the brothers Moshe and Aharon removed from his presence, and later offers them softer conditions.
  
• Yosef sends the brothers away ("לְכוּ"), and tells them that unless they comply, "you will not again see my face" ("לֹא תֹסִפוּן לִרְאוֹת פָּנָי"). Similarly, Pharaoh sends Moshe away ("לֵךְ"), and says that Moshe may "not again see my face" ("אַל-תֹּסֶף רְאוֹת פָּנַי").
  
• Yosef threatens the brothers with death ("תָמוּתוּ"). Similarly, Pharaoh threatens Moshe with death ("תָּמוּת").

The parallels seem to be very deliberate and symbolic: Yosef's confrontation with his brothers marks the very beginning of the Israelites' long sojourn in Egypt. And Pharaoh's confrontation with Moshe and Aharon mark the very end of that sojourn. Thus, the latter is presented as a mirror image of the first. There are still more parallels between the two stories. I will address them within the next couple of days, in Part II. --------- Buy my book. (please) Buy my wife a gift (please)

SM Needs Your Help

A guest post by Lurker:

Before I explain what you can do to help SM, permit me to introduce myself, for those who don't know who I am. I am, in SM's own wise words, "part of the gleeful chorus... of those who cheered Bush on". Now, some of you, who know very well that I am opposed to President Bush's war in Iraq, and that I have been expressing that opposition ever since the war began, might be a little surprised to hear SM describe me that way. The reason, you, see, is that I express my opposition to Bush only through speech and the written word -- as opposed to hurling shoes and brickbats at the man, which is the method espoused by SM.

In addition to my membership in the gleeful Bush chorus, I am also (apparently) a wild-eyed fanatic Settler®, a poisoner of wells, and various and sundry other unsavory things.

Now last week, SM dropped a shocking bombshell about me: It turns out, he says, that I have been "urging Israeli's to attack policemen". Yes, really.

Needless to say, I was a bit taken aback by this revelation. After all, I certainly have no recollection of urging anybody to do any such thing. In addition, I am opposed, as a matter of principle, to the use of violence against law enforcement authorities -- even if those authorities themselves are engaging in unprovoked violence against oneself. So I would certainly never tell anyone to attack a policeman.

A bit perplexed, I immediately challenged SM to back up his astounding allegation by producing "a single quote from me, anywhere, where I ever urged anyone to attack a policeman".

Imagine my surprise when SM did not reply! This was a bit disturbing, as well as disappointing. After all, nobody wants to know more than I do where I said such a thing. And if I did indeed say such a thing, then I really ought to know about it -- perhaps I have a separate personality of which I'm unaware, that gets up in the middle of the night and posts blog comments inciting to violence against Israeli policemen.

So I asked SM once again, to please show me where I wrote this. Again, believe it or not -- he failed to reply. Several more reminders similarly failed to elicit any response.

Now surely, SM must be telling the truth. After all, as he is so fond of reminding us, he studied at Cambridge and serves in the UK as a judge. And as he told us only a few days ago: "I believe in the justice, justice we must pursue. I also know something about how that works in real life." Certainly, it is inconceivable that a man who pursues such lofty values of justice would possibly lie -- and for no other purpose than to besmirch and demonize an innocent person. So the only reasonable conclusion is that I did, in fact, "urg[e] Israeli's to attack policemen" -- but that SM simply cannot recall exactly where he read it.

Unfortunately, this leaves SM with a dilemma. That's because I, in my annoying stubborness, won't leave SM alone. I keep following him all over the comment threads, reminding him, in polite company, that I'm still waiting for him to show me where I said the thing he claimed I said. Obviously, this has been getting quite embarrassing for him. So much so, that once, His Honor actually broke his silence, and sputtered:

"...sue me. Or shut up."

But I, annoyingly unschooled in the social graces as I am, simply refuse to shut up. So what is our poor judge to do?

Now, you might say, at this point, "Why doesn't he simply do a search, find the place where I made the statement in question, and just show us"? Well the answer, you see, is that he can't: SM is not adept with Google, and does not know how to find things on the internet. Why, just a few days ago, on the Muqata, we were discussing incidents of Israeli Police brutality against anti-government protestors. SM weighed in with his informed judgement that "the incidents are probably lies because the Israeli legal system provides for claims in respect of of such things and a quick search plus a few phone calls reveals none at all". Now, as plenty of us know, just a few seconds with Google reveals hundreds of news reports about countless brutality claims against the Israel Police, as well as the resulting trials of police officers, and Knesset investigations of the same. Why, then, did SM fail to find even one of these news articles when he did his own "search"? Cynics might suggest that he didn't even try to search -- but again, it is inconceivable that a respected judge so devoted to justice would lie, God forbid. So the only reasonable explanation is that SM could not locate any of this information, because he simply does not know how to search the internet.

And if his Lordship couldn't even find even one of those hundreds of articles about Israeli police brutality, how could we possibly expect him to locate that lone, mysterious place where I was "urging Israeli's to attack policemen"?

And that's where you, dear reader, come into the picture. SM can't find where I said it, but surely, all of us, working together, should be able to find it for him. We can make this a great collaborative project, like SETI at home, in which thousands of private PC users use the processing power of their individual computers to help locate extraterrestrial intelligence. In the same way, we can all join in, using our computers to help locate that elusive web page where I, the sinister Lurker, told people to attack policemen.

Just think: By finding that web page, you could single-handedly redeem the honor of SM, a most honest and honorable judge, from the unfair impression that some scoffers may have of him as a liar. And best of all for SM, I promise to immediately put up a toadying, peninent blog post, right here on DovBear, in which I will humbly and grovelingly apologize for having incited against policemen, and most importantly, for having dared to even suggest that SM was lying.

So get to it, people. SM needs you.
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The origins of Hanukah

A guest post by Lurker:

[Cross-posted at The Muqata]

Recently, DovBear invited us to have a look at this interesting article by Lawrence Keleman about the true origins of Christmas. Keleman argues that if Jews inclined to celebrate that holiday were aware of these origins, then they might be dissuaded from celebrating it. Keleman points out – quite correctly – that the early Christians did not choose December 25th because of any existing tradition that Jesus had been born on that day. Rather, they picked it because that was the concluding date of the Greco-Roman festival of Saturnalia, which commemorated the Winter Solstice. In other words, "Christmas" was already around for a very long time, in a somewhat different form, long before the Christians came along.

This, in turn, brings to mind the question of the origins of Hanukah. Interestingly, Hanukah also coincides with the Winter Solstice period. More significantly, it is eight days long – just like Saturnalia was. Was this a historical accident, or is there more significance to the time and length of this holiday? Were the Christians the only ones to adapt Saturnalia to their own needs? Or Does Hanukah, too, bear a connection to this ancient Solstice festival? DovBear says that there is indeed such a connection. Is he right?

Needless to say, many reasons have been offered over the years for Hanukah's date and length. Regarding the date (the 25th of Kislev): I Maccabees (1:59, 4:52-59) and II Maccabees (10:5-8) seem to suggest that this date was chosen deliberately for the rededication, since it was on that very date that Antiochus had desecrated the altar three years earlier. Others find a connection in the book of Hagai, which says that the foundation of the Second Temple was laid on the 24th of Kislev (or the 25th; see sources in Further information, below) (Hagai 2:10-19). And a midrash in the Yalkut Shimoni (I Melakhim 184) says that work on the Mishkan was completed on the 25th of Kislev, although the dedication ceremony was delayed until the 1st of Nisan.

As to why Hanukah is 8 days long: II Maccabees (1:9, 1:18, 10:5-8) says that Hanukah was intended to commemorate Sukkot – the holiday that the Greeks had recently prevented the Jews from celebrating – and which is 8 days long (when you include Shemini Atzeret). According to Pesikta Rabbati (ch. 2), the Hashmonaim, upon entering the liberated Temple, found 8 iron spears, which they thrust into the ground and made into an impromptu candelabra. And of course, there is the very famous (but historically questionable) story from the Talmud (TB Shabbat 21b) of the miraculous oil that burned for 8 days. But one is forced to wonder: Do any of these reasons really explain the establishment of an 8-day-long holiday? Megillat Taanit lists a great many days that were celebrated as holidays in early Second Temple times – and they are all just one day long, except for one: Hanukah. Let us assume for a moment that the miracle of the oil is the reason why Hanukah was established. Why does this justify the establishment of an 8-day-long holiday? Suppose the oil had burned for 50 days – would Hanukah then be 50 days long? It is reasonable to wonder whether there was already a pre-existing 8-day-long holiday, which was simply conflated with the new holiday of Hanukah.

The answer may be found in in the Gemara (TB Avodah Zarah 8a), which strongly suggests that the actual origin of Hanukah dates back to antiquity, long before the period of the Hashmonaim:

אמר רב חנן בר רבא: קלנדא ח' ימים אחר תקופה; סטרנורא ח' ימים לפני תקופה. וסימנך: "אחור וקדם צרתני", וגו' (תהילים קל"ט:ה').
ת"ר: לפי שראה אדם הראשון יום שמתמעט והולך, אמר: "אוי לי, שמא בשביל שסרחתי, עולם חשוך בעדי וחוזר לתוהו ובוהו, וזו היא מיתה שנקנסה עלי מן השמים!" עמד וישב ח' ימים בתענית [ובתפלה]. כיון שראה תקופת טבת, וראה יום שמאריך והולך, אמר: "מנהגו של עולם הוא". הלך ועשה שמונה ימים טובים. לשנה האחרת עשאן לאלו ולאלו ימים טובים. הוא קבעם לשם שמים, והם קבעום לשם עבודה זרה.

R. Hanan b. Rabba said: [The festival of] the Kalends [Roman New Year] is observed on the eight days following the [Winter] Solstice; [the festival of] Saturnalia on the eight days preceding the Solstice. As a mnemonic, use "From the back and the front you have afflicted me", etc. (Tehillim 139:5).
Our Rabbis taught [in a braita]: When Adam HaRishon observed the days getting increasingly shorter, he said, "Woe is me, perhaps because I have sinned, the world is darkening and returning to its state of chaos and confusion; and this is the death to which I have been sentenced from heaven!" He stopped, and sat for eight days engaged in fasting [and prayer]. But when he observed the Winter Solstice, and observed the days getting increasingly longer, he said, "This is the nature of the universe". He [therefore] went and celebrated eight festival days. In the following year he made both [of these eight-day holidays into permanent] festivals. He [Adam] established them for the sake of heaven, but they [of later generations] established them for the sake of idolatry.

One can hardly fail to recognize the obvious connection with Hanukah. The Gemara tells us that Adam HaRishon established an eight-day holiday (two, in fact) to be observed at the time of the Solstice, in celebration of the restoration of light. Furthermore, it tells us, these were the very holidays that eventually became known as the Greco-Roman festivals of Saturnalia and the Kalends. The Gemara is thus saying that the holiday we now know as Hanukah actually existed long before the Maccabees, for many centuries, as a Winter Solstice festival – the same Winter Solstice festival that was celebrated by the Greeks and Romans as Saturnalia.

The Hashmonaim later appropriated this holiday, and recast it for their own purposes as a celebration of their defeat of the Greeks and their rededication of the Temple. Significantly, the motif of "casting out darkness" and "restoring light" was retained. Perhaps, by appropriating a Greek holiday and turning it into a celebration of the Temple's rededication, the Hashmonaim were trying to express their victory over Hellenism. Or perhaps they simply recognized the fact that much of the assimilated Jewish populace would go on celebrating Saturnalia whether they liked it or not, and thus tried to co-opt the pagan holiday into a Jewish one.

In conclusion: The Gemara in Avodah Zarah shows us that the Hashmonaim "borrowed" the ancient Winter Solstice festival as a branch upon which to graft their own holiday – just as the Christians did a few centuries later.

Don't get me wrong – I certainly don't think a self-respecting Jew ought to celebrate Christmas. But I wouldn't tell a Jew not to celebrate it on account of its connection with Saturnalia. After all, Hanukah is clearly connected with it, too.

Further information:

For more information on the origins of Hanukah, I highly recommend the following excellent shiurim and articles. They all relate to the topic of this post, and considerably more, as well:

• The Origins of Hanukah (Hebrew)
  by R. Uri Cherki
  Merkaz Ourim
  [hattip: Jameel]
• The Day the Foundation of God's Temple was Laid
  (According to the Prophecies of Hagai and Zekhariah) (Hebrew)
  by R. Yoel bin-Nun
  Megadim, Vol. XII (Tishrei 5751)
  [hattip: Avrohom Shimon Tendler]
• Hanukah of the Generations (Hebrew)
  by Dr. Gavriel H. Cohen
  Bar Ilan University, Bible Department
• Chanuka - Its Biblical Roots (English)
  by R. Menachem Leibtag
  The Tanach Study Center

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Watching SM's "Excuse List" in action

A guest post by Lurker:

Firstly, I'd like to thank SM for his most gracious introduction below. I'm touched. And now, on with the show...

The other day, SM provided us with a bitingly humorous -- and entirely accurate -- list of the kinds of excuses employed by hypocrites who try to defend the indefensible. Here are the first few items from his list:

1. This did not happen. It is only anecdotal.
2. If it did happen then it is because these girls started it and the defenders went too far.
3. If we did start it, it was because of what they wore/said/did which was deliberately provocative.
4. It is all hugely overstated and exaggerated and the poor girls have fallen into the hadns of political fanatics who are Hitler in disguise.
...

(Read the rest. It's well worth it.)

For a classic, elucidative example of several of SM's excuses being used in just one single blog comment, see this comment from just a few days ago at The Muqata. The context was illegal Israeli Police brutality against anti-government protestors. In particular, I had given several examples of police brutality that had been inflicted upon my wife and myself, as well as some other incidents of stomach-turning brutality that I personally witnessed. That elicited this response. As you read it, note how SM's excuses #1, #2, and #4 are all employed in rapid succession (even though they are mutually contradictory):

[Excuse #1 - It didn't happen]
"The incidents are probably lies because the Israeli legal system provides for claims in respect of of such things and a quick search plus a few phone calls reveals none at all."

[Excuse #2 - They started it]
"Police forces the world over are mirrors - they behave to groups of people as those groups behave to them."

[Excuse #4 - It's an exaggeration]
"The stretch from a few - alleged - incidents to the sort of language used here demonstrates fairly clearly where the truth lies."

If you haven't done so already, make sure to take note of who wrote the above comment.

Oh, and there's yet another excuse presented in that very same comment -- one which SM neglected to include in his insightful list. Let's call it SM's Excuse #0:

0. This was a good thing, because I hate the type of people who were victimized, and I therefore derive pleasure from their suffering.

[Excuse #0 - It's good that people I hate were made to suffer]
"Settlers moan - and I rejoice."

To quote the wise words of SM: It is when the intolerance is closer to home that the going gets tough...

It certainly does, doesn't it?


P.S.: This isn't really the subject of my post, but since SM made some baseless accusations below, I will address them briefly: I never "avowed that all Israeli Policeman were 'twisted criminals'", nor do I believe that. Anyone who reads my comments at the Muqata will see that I never said any such thing. I don't know SM's cousin, and I'm sure he's a very good, selfless person. (No sarcasm intended.) The "twisted criminals" to whom I referred are the Israel Police as an organization. This is an organization that engages on a regular basis in sadistic, criminal activity ordered from the top echelons (and not only against right-wingers and "settlers") -- and one that rewards and promotes those who are the most cruel and sadistic. To understand what I'm referring to, see my comments here and here. So in my book, that makes it an organization of "twisted criminals". Obviously, this hardly means that every single member of the organization is a twisted criminal. SM's cousin sounds like a very good man, and I imagine that he is.

I am compelled to add that I personally think it is wrong for a person to allow himself to be part of a criminal organization. I happen to have good friends who were members of the Israel Police. I think that they are good people and I have much respect for them -- but I don't think they ought to have been part of that organization. I once turned down a very good job offer from the Israel Police (as a civilian employee), which would have been good for my career -- precisely because, as a matter of principle, I refuse to have any part, however indirectly, in an organization that commits such heinous crimes.

SM's malicious slander and lies about me go on endlessly, but I don't want to make this post too long. You can read the rest of my response here.



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Comment of the millennium

The following comment, written by "Lurker," my new best friend, adresses some of the terribly mean and off-the-mark objections I received to my post titled Chaval Siddur Pesach. In particular, Lurker uses impeccable Torah sources to rebut the claim (make by Joe Settler) that Afikomin has an Aramaic etymology. Then, he uses some of those same sources to support that contention I made last week about the original meaning of "ain maftirin achar hapesach afikomin." Also, Lurker deals with the disgusting and shallow suggestion (made by Chaim G and Yus, naturally) that attempting to discover the origin of our customs "belittles Judaism" or somehow insults our dead ancestors. Well done Lurker.

Sorry, but with all due respect, [the idea that Afikomin is Aramaic is] way off the mark... The word afikoman is most definitely Greek, and purely Greek, in origin. This fact can be found in plently of meforshim on the Mishna and Gemara. Furthermore, the etymology you present is both problematic and wrong, for a variety of reasons:

The word afikoman appears in the Mishna in Pesachim 10:8: "Ein maftirin achar ha-pesach afikoman". This clearly has nothing at all to do with matza (middle or otherwise), which alone is sufficient to demonstrate that your etymology cannot possibly be correct.

Furthermore, AFAIK, your explanation of afikoman as meaning "take out the middle matza" has no basis in any traditional Jewish source.

The Bavli (Pesachim 119b) gives two interpretations for the meaning of "ein maftirin achar ha-pesach afikoman": According to Rav, it means that you cannot get up at the end of the meal and go join someone else's korban Pesach group (chabura). According to Shmuel, it means that you cannot eat after-dinner snacks (i.e., desserts) after eating the korban Pesach. The Yerushalmi also cites the opinions of Rav (anonomously, in Pesachim 10:4) and Shmuel (also in the name of R. Yochanan, in 10:6). (Shmuel's opinion is also cited anonomously by the Tosefta, in 10:11.) The Yerushalmi (10:6) also quotes a third opinion in the name of R. Inaini b. R. Sisai -- that afikoman means entertainment with musical instruments (minei zemer).

These interpretations dovetail perfectly with the well-established idea that the structure of the Seder is heavily derived from that of the Greek symposia: At the end of a symposium, it was traditional for the participants to proceed over to someone else's house where they would conduct after-dinner merry-making, with delicacies and music. This practice was called epikomion, which means "after-dinner activities" or "after-dinner entertainment". I.e., because someone might think that we can also borrow this idea from the symposia, the mishna makes a point of telling us that it is forbidden to follow the meal with an epikomion. The three interpretations in the Gemara imply three different reasons for the prohibition: According to Rav, its because you're not allowed to eat from the korban Pesach of someone else's chabura. According to Shmuel, its because you're not allowed to eat anything else after the korban Pesach. And according to R. Inaini b. R. Sisai, it would seem to be either on account of (a) the inappropriateness of having musical entertainment after eating the korban Pesach, or (b) the rabbinic prohibition against playing musical instruments on Shabbat and Yom Tov.

You are correct that there is a connection drawn between the word afikoman and the Aramaic word afiku. But you -- and a bunch of other people in this forum -- are mistaken in attributing this to Chaza"l: There is no etymology of the word afikoman to be found anywhere in all of Sha"s -- not in the Mishna, the Tosefta, the Bavli, or the Yerushalmi. The explanations of the word afikoman using the word afiku are found only starting with the Rishonim, in their comments on "ein maftirin achar ha-pesach afikoman": The Rashbam (Pesachim 119b) explains Rav's opinion with the expression afiku minaichu ("take them out"), as in "take out your utensils from here, and let's go eat in another place"; and the Rav mi'Bartenura (Pesachim 10:8 ) explains Shmuel's opinion with the expression afiku minei metika ("take out [various] types of sweets"). Note that nobody says anything about afikoman meaning "take out the middle matza", since the mishna's use of the word is completely unrelated to this. Furthermore, these expressions used by the Rashbam and the Rav are not intended as etymologies of the word afikoman; they are simply mnemonic devices (notrikon). R. Kehati states this explicitly in his comments on 10:9 -- after he explains that the word afikoman is Greek in origin.

I find it strange that you would suggest that citing the Greek etymology of afikoman is un-"Jewish": The simple fact that this word is Greek can be found in the Tiferet Yisroel (Yachin, Pesachim 10:8, note 51), as well as the Tosafot R. Akiva Eiger -- who actually criticizes the Rav mi'Bartenura for not having known (or cited the fact) that afikoman is Greek! The Greek source of the word is also described in Kehati (see above), as well as Steinzaltz. Would you say that the explanation given by all these meforshim is not "Jewish"?

Regarding your description of DB as the "Grinch of Pesach": There's nothing wrong or Grinch-like in his comments on this particular subject: Firstly: If one is intellectually honest, it is impossible to ignore the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that Chaza"l borrowed ideas from the Greek symposia in formulating the Seder. If you haven't already, take a good look at the article he cites on the subject. Secondly: There's nothing un-"Jewish" about Chaza"l having done so: They borrowed many useful ideas from non-Jews -- particularly the Greeks -- while rejecting the bad stuff. ("Tocho achal, klipato zarak", as R. Meir did with Acher.) Many of the Tannaim clearly saw great worth within Greek culture -- in the yeshiva of Rabban Gamliel [who was the Nasi], they actually studied Greek philosophy side-by-side with the Torah (Sotah 49b). They didn't "copy" the Seder from the symposia, but they appropriated a great many elements, adapting them to the purpose of sippur yetziat Mitzraim, and thus elevating them into the realm of kedusha.

Prior to the time of the Mishna, there was simply the korban Pesach, and the telling of the story of yetziat Mitzraim. But there was no canonized structure or liturgy for the night of Pesach. Detailed accounts of the laws and customs of Pesach can be found in several pre- and early- Mishnaic period works, such as Sefer HaYuvalim (perek 49), as well as Philo and Josephus. They all describe the korban Pesach, the matza, and the maror; and the mitzva of telling the story -- but apart from that, there is no mention whatsoever of any of the elements of our Seder. That's because people used to fulfill these mitzvot in a more free-form manner. It was only around the time of the churban that Chaza"l decided to organize it into a unified form. And it made sense for them to adopt the form of the symposia, since this was what familiar to the Jews of the time. Perhaps they formulated Seder as a sort of "replacement" for the korban Pesach after the churban, not unlike the three daily tefillot, which "replaced" the daily korbanot in the Beit HaMikdash.

I question your assertion that there's something un-"Jewish" about borrowing non-Jewish practices and adapting them to something holy. In the Moreh Nevuchim (III:32), the Rambam goes so far as to say that Hashem borrowed the entire idea of korbanot from pagan cultic practices! I presume that you wouldn't accuse the Rambam of "just trying to be contraversial for the pageviews". Compared to an idea like that, the idea of borrowing a few clever ideas from the Greek symposia for the Seder seems rather tame by comparison, wouldn't you say?