The Board of Deputies’ appalling lack of clarity in response to the Kairos document

Oh what bloody let down…..

I remember the poster/contributor leftwingorthodoxjew on CIF.
His leading principle there: No antisemite ass must remain unkissed!

To be fair to Rich, it is precisely that the Jewish nationalist, Zionist narrative has little to no legitimacy which the composers of Kairos, including Ben White, believe.

Asserting that it is EQUAL and EQUIVALENT to the Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian narrative is unlikely to make them happy.

The Kairos makes grand assertions as to what true, spiritual Israel should do, while omitting to mention that that is precisely NOT how Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians have acted for at least the last 100 years with regard to Israeli, Palestinian or any other Jews. The Kairos document implicitly finds Israeli, Palestinian or Zionist Jews the more morally wanting, the more sinful, whitewashing en effait the history of Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians, for the last 100 years, at least.

i.e. it depicts it as a kind of crucifixion, by alien Zionist Jewish interlopers.

If Rich observes that neither side is really behaving in accord with biblical values, then that puts Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians in the same moral category as Israeli Jews -something the Kairenes would NOT agree.

By the way here is the latest creation of the Ben White stable:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34996667/The-Veritas-Handbook-Final-Version

Again, a white wash of Palestinian and other Arab Muslim and Christian history, and an adducing of every Israeli, Palestinian or Zionist Jewish sin. Check out how many were killed in the 1929 massacres. And how this didn’t represent the tenor of Palestinian Arab Muslim nationalism as a whole, allegedly.

I was reading last night how in 1882, the Turks banned all Jewish entry, let alone settlement in Palestine. Jews could settle anywhere but Palestine. Which policy was entirely in accord with Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian wishes. You’d never know from the Kairenes that modern Palestinian Arab nationalists began with a policy of trying to exclude Jews in other than tiny numbers, to seeking to expel or eliminate them (and not just in Palestine), the PLO until 1988, Hamas until today.

According to the Kairenes, Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians never constituted a serious threat to Jews being in the land in other than tiny numbers, and Jews had any choice but to arrive and settle against their will if they wanted to live there at all.

Jonathan, whereas it’s not always a good idea to make differences public in a community which is under attack, thank you for this article. Thank heavens that you are writing this as a Jew in a democratic country. Had you been Muslim trying to argue such things under an Islamic regime, you would be in great danger.

I am often disgusted by the BoD and its fellow hangers on. I live in a very small town which has a tiny Jewish community and no synagogue. I tried to make contact with the BoD about its appeasing, fawning attitude to enemies of its people and its opinions about what Israel should or should not do, to no avail. I finally found out that they don’t answer individuals, but declaim from their self-imposed position of greatness to only to synagogue reps to the BoD!

Jews and other non-Muslims are in grave danger in the UK, whose government seems hell bent (and I use those words after due thought) upon getting into bed with Islam so as to try to stop it from doing them harm.

Of course, intelligent people know that Islam sees any weakening of resolve to set boundaries for it as a green light to up the ante of entitlement, complaint, even violence if its demands are not met, but that seems to escape the “great and good” of the BoD who persist in courses of action which may indeed look nice, as Serendipity has said above, and are geared to giving them all a warm fuzzy feeling and fooling them into believing that they are being effective, but in reality are a betrayal of Jewish communities in the UK.

In short, the Kairos document is a cop-out and sell-out of Jews in the UK. The BoD has absolutely no right to speak on behalf of intelligent people.
It buries its head in the sand and has left its collective backside exposed for a good kicking. I vote that it gets one, and sooner rather than later.

Jonathan, a brave and principled statement.

Both the Kairos document and the Deputies underplay or ignore the ongoing attack on Christians on the West Bank and in Egypt, Iraq and even in the UK by Islamic fanatics. It’s alwayys the ‘Jews wot done it’

The BOD need to go on the attack not wring their hands and cravenly give an iota of credence to Kairos or one-state suicides.

Maybe the BoD is past its oligarghic sell-by date.

Having read the bod doc, Wittenberg’s offering is the best. It does seem like a collection of not very good ‘thought’ pieces for some academic edited volume.

But some some good parts.

Excellent post, Jonathan. Bravo!
I’ve resigned from my Liberal shul in protest at its failure to engage in any meaningful support of Israel and its dhimmiwitted attitude.
It looks as if the old “ghetto bend” and “yekke” outlook is upon us again, courtesy of our so-called leaders … Myopic, self-destructive, and shameful.
The supineness of Anglo-Jews is despised in more vibrant communities, like that of Oz.

I’m not a bit surprised at the nature of the response. Not one Orthodox Rabbi amongst them. Those who contributed are major figures in the Reform, Liberal and Masorti movement plus a claimed “major Orthodox thinker” who I’ve never heard of and who has no serious profile in the Orthodox community. Jonathan Wittenberg recently published a piece in the JC that suggested that the Jews were only entitled to live in Israel if they collectively lived a degree of prophetic righteousness never actually realised in the history of ancient Israel or by any other nation in history. He was quite rightly eloquently called on this Christianity-derived stance by Howard Cooper in a letter to the JC the following week.

The outlook is not so much the “ghetto bend” but the typical response of those whose standing in with the secular left liberal intelligentsia and particularly amongst the interfaith nomenklatura is crucial to them.

It’s very significant that Vivian Wineman, a senior figure from “Peace Now” a movement virtually without support in both the UK and Israel, managed to get elected as President of the Board of Deputies. I suspect this may have something to do with the disproportionate historic and present day involvement of both Labour and Liberal Democrat political activists in the Board (such as Jerry Lewis and Laurence Brass).

I love you Jonathan Hoffman… Always ready and willing to make me giggle with your hopeless attempts at pro-Israeli chutzpah.

Ironic, of course, that you yourself were publicly derided as “the worst Zionist ever” by a young member of the Cambridge University Israel Society for performing so awfully in a debate against pro-Palestinian voices at the University back in early 2009.

In July 2010 I wrote up the somewhat similar attempt by J Street to get close to the Methodists Presbyterians, only to discover the truth about the Kairos document:

http://cifwatch.com/2010/07/05/when-you-sup-with-the-devil/

There are two churches heavily invovled in anti-Israeli activity, mainly having been taken over by Palestinain Christians and their supporters at the leadership level:

The Methodists and the World Council of Churches

The WCC in America – the Presbyterians

J Street has suddenly found out that it has been in bed with an organization whose actual goals are far different than those J Street purports to hold.

Gimme a break guys, Hoffman is a laughing stock… Even ‘pro-Palestinian’ folks see him as such a liability to the ‘pro-Israel’ camp in the UK that they’re happy to humour him:

http://www.jewdas.org/2010/08/jonathan-hoffman-anti-zionist-hero/
“Now at this juncture we could go all po-faced, condemn his behaviour, and call for the Zionist Federation to sack him. But that would be an error. Jonathan Hoffman is so extreme, so constantly dogmatic, rude, intellectually dubious and pig headed that he constantly brings the Zionist Federation, and his own cause, into disrepute. There can be only one explanation, that he is in fact an Anti-Zionist mole trying to bring down the British Zionist movement. At this, he is doing an excellent job. No other anti-Zionist has had such success in promoting the cause and making Zionism look ridiculous. Whether funded by Hezbolllah, or simply doing it as a hobby Hoffman is the anti-zionist activist par excellence. Jonathan, we salute you!”

Now, regarding the Kairos document, his doesn’t really make any arguments to refute (the article is mostly about the BoD)… but, I did enjoy this: “CAMERA has noted that the Kairos document has many similarities with a memorandum issued by Arab Christians in 1967 entitled “What is Required of the Christian Faith Concerning the Palestine Problem.”

And??? It’s the same Israeli occupation, right? And it’s written by Arab Christians, right? This is like asserting that one chicken egg is quite like another chicken egg. It would be far more worthy of note if it had significant differences to the 1967 document.

Now, let’s allow the man to have some space to continue to make a fool of himself, and to bring further derision on the ‘Israel, right or wrong’ movement.

@Hawkey:

Okay, maybe I went a bit far with the light-hearted mockery, and notably commented little on the article itself… but I certainly haven’t said anything vicious here, which can’t always be said of Mr Hoffman himself, who is always chomping at the bit to attack those who criticise Israel (or even just advocate for Palestinian rights) as ‘anti-semites’.

So, please forgive my eagerness to belittle the man.

@CIF Watch… I do appreciate the right of reply.

arkb
At a time when apathy among the community and very poor leadership characterises the UK Jewish community, Jon Hoffman stands out head and shoulders above his detractors for his unquenchable support for Israel and Jewish causes.

Your sarcastic and spiteful post marks you out as an idiot with too much time in his hands who appears to have no idea of just how bad things are.

If anyone is a stooge for the opposition, it’s you. You should be ashamed of yourself, but you probably don’t have the brains to realise why.

His arkb is worse than his bite.

The reason the Kairos document is unjust, arkb, is because while it claims absolute universal Christian justice, for instance, it mentions no Jewish exile, with Jewish ror, while stressing Palestinian Christian (and by extension Muslim) exile, with Palestinian ror.

It professes to set out a standard of moral perfection, but only finds Israeli, Palestinian and/or Zionist Jews substantially wanting.

One would never know that Palestinian Muslims and, to a degree, Christians had discriminated against Jews for centuries, and Resisted Jews’ living in the land in other than tiny numbers, their national movement evolving from seeking to exclude, expel or eliminate. In the case of the PLO, until 1988. In the case of Hamas, until now.

In short, the Kairos document is a work of pro-Palestinian Arab Christian (and by extension Muslim), but anti-Jewish, nationalism, dressed up in the language of absolute, universal justice.

As to that Palestinian Christian document, its primary problem is not with ‘the occupation’, it is with Zionism and any kind of Israel a priori, as even a casual read through would have told told you, ark.

At least these Christians were honest enough to remember that normative Christian tradition has been for most of Christian, and especially Palestinian Christian, history, that Jewish dispossession was their punishment for rejecting Jesus and the prophets, even if they jazz up their terminology to fit the zeitgeist (the church father’s didn’t gloat over a “non-exclusively Jewish state”, just Jewish exile and dispossession for rejecting Jesus, and gentile, Christian possession in their place):

‘From the Christian point of view it is clear from this that the creation of an exclusively Jewish state of Israel goes directly against God’s plan for the Jewish people [because from a normative historical Christian and Islamic point of view THE JEWS ARE SUPPOSED TO STAY SUBSTANTIALLY EXILED AND DISPOSSESSED!] and the World. Just as the creation of exclusively Christian states, in former times and to-day [which Christian states, like Greece, today are 'exclusively' Christian? And note NO REFERENCE TO ISLAM OR ISLAMIC STATES!], was directly contrary to the calling of the church and the salvation of the world. (Paragraph 17)’

The end of the Jewish people as a political entity is a sign of the first coming of the Son of Man and the advent of the Kingdom [because Jewish dispossession entailed the salvation of the world, apparently]. Just as the end of the earthly kingdoms will reveal the advent of the Son of Man and end of the World [i.e. Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians were entitled to their own state before the end of the world, but not Jews!]. (Paragraph 19).

It is, therefore, a total misunderstanding of the story of salvation and a perversion of God’s plan for a Christian to want to re-establish a Jewish nation as an exclusive political entity [ha, ha, as if Palestinian Christians were happy about the birth of ANY kind Jewish state or Israel in 1947! As if it were EVER merely an 'exclusive' Jewish state which they Resisted. And as if the Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian national movement ever sought to do anything but exclude Jews from Palestine in other than the smallest numbers possible, if any!]. It would imply the statement that humanity is not called to fulfill the kingdom of God, but merely an earthly destiny. Zionist messanism shows itself to be very much in tune with marxist messianism (surely Marxist messianism also sought the end of all nation states, ultimately?). It also represents a step backwards towards a medieval mentality where the state and religion were one [arguably less mediaeval than most Arab, or indeed Islamic, states or societies, including the Palestinian, which could well be described as discriminatory or "medieval" towards Jews based on its history of the last 150 years]. (Paragraph 20)’

Re. the allegation of an ‘exclusively Jewish state’, it’s ironic that Arab non-Jews have more rights in Israel than any Jew in the states of the Arab world NOT ONE OF WHICH these Christians can bring themselves to criticize.

They don’t question the exclusion of Jews (not resident in Palestine before 1917) and Jewish claims in the allegedly secular PLO charter of 1964. They don’t question the institutionalization of Islam in just about every Arab state, and the normative discrimination against against non-Muslims, certainly Jews.

In any case, Kairos is something similar. Which is why it is unjust.

This paragraph really dates the 1967 document:

‘Western Christians still believe that they can salve their conscience in pitying the fate of the Israelis, in giving them arms and supplies: but History puts yet another question before them: Why are they so sympathetic towards the fate of the Jews they have driven from their homes, when they are never troubled by the fact that millions of Armenians and other Eastern Christians have been massacred and have had to leave their countries? (Paragraph 9)’

They wouldn’t raise the issue of an Armenian and other oriental Christian genocide before most Palestinian Arab Muslims now, especially as Erdogan vies with Ahmadinejad for leadership of the Islamic world by taking up the Palestinian cause.

But the short answer to the question is that there is an Armenia. There has been no Judea for nigh on 2000 years. Palestine was created in its place, precisely to alienate Jews from it forever.

‘I really don’t think it’s the duty or business of British Jews to blindly defend the many indefensible policies and actions of a foreign government (ie. Israel). ‘

One might say the same about British Muslims and foreign i.e. Palestinian leaders.

‘And, I’ve got news for you, the UK’s Muslim population is not the enemy of Jews and Judaism, as so many on here seem to think.’

British Jews might feel differently, especially as sympathy for Israel and Zionism is being increasing stigmatised by not a few British Muslims as nothing less than evil, and accompanied by very threatening language, and actions, sometimes.

‘So, when you choose your ‘allies’, I hope you don’t fall into the arms of the EDL, BNP or the like, because they don’t give a s**t about Jewish religion, culture or values. They just want an “As A Jew” to prop up their rascist bile.’

No kidding, Arkb?

Gosh, aren’t you a clever, perceptive chap, and aren’t we lucky to have your august presence issuing such sagacity.

‘I really don’t think it’s the duty or business of British Jews to blindly defend the many indefensible policies and actions of a foreign government (ie. Israel)…But when you’re the lone voice supporting the attack on the Mavi Marmara, the war on Gaza or home demolitions in the occupied territories, fighting against justice for Palestinians, then I’m aftraid you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of history.’

Here, Arkb is addressing ‘British Jews’, who implicitly blindly defend the indefensible (else why would Arkb be ‘advising’ them to do otherwise?).

But ‘British Jews’ aren’t a ‘lone voice’: there are non-British Jews, for a start.

The Mavi Marmara had on board Turkish self-defined jihadis, who warmed up singing songs commemorating Muslim slaughter of Jews; who sought to break a blockade on a the government of a de facto state that professes eternal jihad until the end of any Israel; and thus allow, directly or indirectly, deliberately or incidentally, that government to import whatever it wishes to prosecute that jihad.

Which jihadis also set about Israeli soldiers’ enforcing that blockade with staves, piping, knives and, it turned, gunfire.

Consequently, Arkb, many British Jews, lone or not, do not share your views. Especially as you seek the return of millions of Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian refugees, rapidly ending a Jewish majority, and any Israel shortly thereafter, dissolving it, for its alleged apartheid qualities into the surrounding sea/desert of Arab, Islamic states and societies apartheid with regard to Jews, including the Palestinian.

So, obviously, they aren’t going to pay you much mind, nor your threats, disguised as ‘advice’.

Likewise concerning Cast Lead, for related reasons, not least that Israel behaved no worse and arguably better than most states, none of whom were or are faced with an existential threat, short, medium or long term.

But it seems to me both you and Hamas are not much concerned with or for an Israel on an other than temporary basis.

So, with your advice, you know what to do.