Avnery Goes Woe

Former Irgunist and member of the elite IDF 'Samson's Foxes' unit that raked Arabs with machinegun fire in the Negev during the War of Independence, Uri Avnery, now "peace activist" with Gush Shalom, is very upset.

Those durn territories are in the Bible, with all those holy sites. Excerpts from his:

The Harlot’s Grave And Misusing Holy Sites

...Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in Rome...a Palestinian leader once told me his version: God appeared to Agca in a dream and told him: Go to the Holy City and kill that damn Pole. But the Turk misunderstood, so instead of going to Jerusalem and killing Menachem Begin, he went to Rome…

[he's so sick even for repeating that Arab humor example]

Which just goes to show that holy cities are a pain in the neck.

THE LATE Yeshayahu Leibowitz... poured his wrath on religious Jews who sanctify “holy” sites...The mutation of Judaism, which has become a kind of state religion in Israel, has turned this idolatry into a holy cult...But after the Six-day War and the beginning of the occupation, the worship of holy places assumed a much more sinister character. It became an instrument of the settlers.

[Exodus 3:5 - And He said: 'Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.'; Ezekiel 20:40 - For in My holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them, serve Me in the land;; Daniel 9:20 -And while I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God ; Joshua 5:15 - And the captain of the LORD'S host said unto Joshua: 'Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.' And Joshua did so]

...Holy places serve now as justification for the robbing expedition called settlement. Pieces of land are stolen all over the occupied territories because of their sanctity. [actually, Arabs have done all the robbing and they even continue by pillaging gravesites and other archaeological locations] The most extreme leaders of the settlers, all of them “rabbis”, fight for the liberation of holy graves. One of them is leading a crusade (or, rather, star-of-davidade) in order to take possession of the “tomb of Joseph” in the center of Nablus, [actually on its southern fringe] which would turn the city into a second Hebron. The Israeli army chauffeurs the settlers there in armored vehicles, so they can “pray” there. [and Arabs desecrated it, destroyed it and killed IDF soldiers inside])

...Which reminds me of another prophecy by Yeshayahu Leibowitz on Jericho. The settlers, he said, would sanctify the tomb of Rahab the Harlot in Jericho. This heroine of the Bible (Joshua 2), the whore who betrayed her city and helped the invaders to conquer it and murder all the other inhabitants, is in good company with the settlers.

NO NEED to point out that the worship of these holy places is manifestly absurd. There is not a single grave in the country that can be seriously identified with any Biblical figure, real or imagined. Most holy graves are those of local Arab Sheikhs, who, because of their righteousness [??? so Arab holy sites are okay?], were believed to be able to intercede with Allah. The location of most holy sites, including the Christian Holy Sepulcher, is much in doubt, to say the least.

That is also true for the two sites where bloody riots have lately broken out: the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem and the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron.

...Joint love for the country, including all its periods and sites, holy and unholy, could serve as a spiritual basis for peace and reconciliation. Even now I hope for the day when schoolchildren in both states, Israel and Palestine, will learn the annals of this country in all its periods, and not just Jewish history here and Muslim history there. The wonderful richness of this country’s history, from the time of the Canaanites to this day, could create a strong bond.

However, the intentions of Netanyahu and his settlers are quite the opposite: to misuse history as an instrument of occupation, and to build settlements around the harlot’s grave.

Woe.