July/August 1994, pp. 81-82

Myths and Facts

(In refuting myths about the Middle East, sometimes one doesn't have to look beyond the media that help perpetuate them.)

Were Israeli Soldiers Permitted to Shoot at Jews Killing Palestinians?

MYTH:"Your editorial...stated `Israeli military officials have admitted being ordered never to shoot a Jew who fires on Palestinians.' Although an Israeli military official did make such a statement, it should be noted that Maj. Gen. Shaul Moufaz, commander of Israeli forces on the West Bank, completely refuted the charge that such a policy exists in Israel." —Letter by Judith A. Rubinger of Maitland, FL, in Orlando Sentinel, March 29, 1994

FACT: "Meir Tayar, commander of the border police in Hebron, told the [Israeli government] commission...that as he understood his orders, he could not have opened fire on Baruch Goldstein even as Goldstein was shooting hundreds of unarmed worshippers...Gen. Shaul Moufaz of the Israel Defense Force confirmed the orders, telling the panel that the orders had been repeated in numerous briefings. The Jews were not the enemy, it had been stressed to army personnel, he said. But, Moufaz continued, it was also clear that Jews firing in clear breach of the law were to be dealt with by all available means."

—From report by Jewish Telegraphic Agency Jerusalem correspondent Dvorah Getzler, published in Washington Jewish Week, March 17, 1994

FACT: "On the question of firing at Jews in connection with disturbances, the answer was perfectly clear," (West Bank commander in 1992 and 1993) Brig. Gen. (Moshe) Yaalon said. "It discriminated between Jews and Arabs—absolutely clear discrimination, which is also understandable...Even in the most serious confrontations between soldiers and Jews, it did not occur to anyone, I hope, that a Jew would ever injure a Jewish soldier. So in case of disturbances there was an absolute prohibition to open fire. Even shooting tear gas to disperse a Jewish demonstration required the approval of the division commander."

—Quoted by correspondent Joel Greenberg, Washington Post, March 22, 1994

FACT: "The official Israeli inquiry into the massacre heard from Israeli witnesses that military orders forbade firing at Israeli settlers even if they were shooting to kill Palestinians. The newspaper Ha'aretz published sections of a pamphlet, distributed to soldiers last December, on how to deal with Israelis who create public disturbances in the territories. An underlined passage said: `It will be emphasized that soldiers are not to use weapons against Israelis.'"

—Columnist Anthony Lewis, New York Times, April 1, 1994

FACT: "Is there anything more damning than the Israeli general's testimony before the commission of inquiry that the Israel Defense Forces never even considered security measures to protect Palestinians from Jewish terrorists, even in Hebron? It simply never occurred to them, the general said. This despite the fact that these settlers are among the most fanatical and extreme of all settlers in the territories. Some of them have been convicted of engaging in terrorism and murder against West Bank Palestinians in the past. They are known quantities."

—Executive Director Henry Siegman of the American Jewish Congress in March 9, 1994 address

Was Goldstein a Lone Gunmen or Typical Fundamentalist Radical?

MYTH:"This was an isolated incident. Period. Despite what Faisal alHussein) may wish to have the world believe, Jews are not murdering Palestinians every day. This incident does not represent a mortal danger facing Palestinian Arabs. More importantly, this incident in no way represents either Israeli government policy or the direction toward which the government is directing the peace process. It was the action of a lone gunman."

—Jeff Green, Washington Jewish Week, March 17, 1994

FACT: "Rabbi Kahane's devotion to the Greater Land of Israel and to the future `Kingdom of Israel' was not an exception among modern Jewish religious fundamentalists. His glorification of antigentile violence was, however, unprecedented. The rabbi, who taught his students that `Jewish violence in defense of Jewish interests is never bad,' and that `a Jewish fist in the face of an astonished gentile is Kiddush Hashem (glorification of the name of God),' produced a special breed of Jewish youth. The Goldsteins in America...were educated and socialized to not feel guilty about their physical aggression, including violence against innocent civilians...Students of mine, conducting field research on Kach, have started to report that Kach and Kahane Chai activists were now `dying to kill Arabs.'"

—Ehud Sprinzak, author of The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right and professor of political science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, The Jewish Week, Queens, NY, March 1117, 1994

FACT: "A small group of nationalist-oriented rabbis have interpreted Jewish scripture to sanction the type of violence against Palestinian Arabs committed by Dr. Baruch Goldstein in Hebron Feb.25. ..And after the signing last year of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, such mainstream religious leaders as former Israeli chief rabbis and the prominent head of a West Bank yeshiva made declarations that resisting government evacuation orders and damaging the property of hostile Arabs find support in Jewish law.

"According to more radical religious leaders, often associated with Kach or a fringe of Israel's religious Zionist yeshivas, the Arab people are regarded as tantamount to Amalek, the archetypical Jewish enemy the Torah commands Jews to destroy. These religious leaders, who boast a small but loyal following, `consider Amalek to be any nation that raises its hand against the Jewish people—and we are at war now with the Arabs,' said Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, American-born chief rabbi of the West Bank town of Efrat...

"While a small number of rabbis failed to condemn Goldstein's act, people like him act independently of rabbinical approval, said former Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren. `They don't ask rabbis' for permission, he said. `They do it by themselves.'" —Steve Lipman, The Jewish Week, Queens, NY, March 1117, 1994

FACT: "I think that by looking at it as something alien, or as some accident, then we never have to examine ourselves. This is not an accident. This is clearly something that grows in this country (Israel). It's something that grows out of our tradition. .

"There's a lot in the Jewish religion that can lead to this type of racist understanding. It is there, but there are also many beautiful things there, many powerful things, many deeply spiritual things...What Goldstein did was remind me how dangerous it is to allow the language of Amalek to go unchallenged. Goldstein has challenged me to know the type of human, moral crimes you can commit in the name of making the Land of Israel the exclusive value, and sovereignty over the whole land the ultimate value...It's not just a lunatic fringe. It is a diseased element that is capable of infiltrating into the Jewish self-understanding."

—Rabbi David Hartman, quoted by Israel correspondent Larry Derfner, The Jewish Week, Queens, NY, March 1117, 1994

Should Israel Now Remove Jewish Settlers from Hebron?

MYTH:"The Declaration of Principles said very clearly that the settlements remain there for the interim period. Therefore, since it was agreed, I don't see at this stage that it is a condition for anything even to discuss this issue."

—Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking to reporters at the White House, Washington, DC, March 16, 1993

FACT: "Removing an obvious and proven threat to Israel's security, and to the peace process, by evicting the settlers in Hebron does not contradict the terms of the DOP. It is not something Israel must do for the Palestinians. It is something it must do for itself...A rabbi who eulogized Baruch Goldstein reportedly said that a million Arabs are not worth Goldstein's fingernail. That is an ugly, racist sensibility that owes much to Nazi ideology and nothing to Jewish tradition. The contrary is the case. Jewish tradition tells us that one human being, be he Jew or Gentile, who respects the sacredness of human life and pursues justice, outweighs in God's eyes a million Baruch Goldsteins for whom non-Jewish human life means nothing."

—Executive Director Henry Siegman of the American Jewish Congress in March 9, 1994 address

Is Arafat Planning To Break Accords?

MYTH:"Wasn't that PLO leader Yasser Arafat we heard calling for jihad just recently? Speaking before a Muslim audience in South Africa, Mr. Arafat said, `You have to come and to fight a jihad to liberate Jerusalem, your precious shrine.' Later, in Norway, Mr. Arafat tried to smooth it all over by explaining that jihad actually means prayer. And we...had been thinking for all these years that jihad (as in, for instance, Islamic Jihad) means holy war." —Washington Times editorial, May 23, 1994

MYTH: "In his Johannesburg remarks Mr. Arafat compared himself with the Prophet Mohammed when he signed an agreement with the Kuraish tribe that allowed him to pray in Mecca. The ceasefire agreement was supposed to last 10 years, but Mohammed attacked and captured Mecca after two years, claiming the Kuraish had violated the pact. Israeli Islamic experts warned that Mr. Arafat's remarks suggest he won't abide by the peace agreement."

—Jerusalem correspondent Amy Dockser Marcus, Wall Street Journal, May 24, 1994

FACT: "The rhetorical fireworks involving PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel are not a serious crisis, nor should either side make them one. Rather, Mr. Rabin's stern statements after Mr. Arafat used two controversial words in a speech in South Africa can be seen as the start of Round 2 in the negotiation for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories that began Sept. 13...It is no accident that the tiff between Arafat and Rabin this week was over Arafat's use of the word jihad in speaking of the Palestinian attitude if East Jerusalem is lost. For decades the international community, the U.N., and even the United States, has agreed that East Jerusalem is occupied territory that must one day be returned to the Palestinians...Arafat's words in South Africa were those of a man who has no leverage, who has not even yet seen the areas of limited autonomy he must police, whose popular base is eroding rapidly, and who must be wondering, as he looks at the terrible problem of Gaza and the possibility of losing Jerusalem, if he has not in some way been set up to fail."

—Christian Science Monitor editorial, May 24, 1994

FACT: "Police Minister Moshe Shahal told the Knesset, Israel's parliament...Israeli Islamic experts had been proven wrong once before when they raised similar doubts about the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat after he referred to the same example from Mohammed's life when discussing his trip to Jerusalem in 1977. That trip led to the signing of the Camp David peace treaty...Ahmed Tibi, Mr. Arafat's Israel adviser, told Israel radio that the Kuraish, and not Mohammed, had violated the truce, and that Mr. Arafat had meant to suggest that the Israel-PLO pact would collapse if one side violates it."

—Jerusalem correspondent Amy Dockser Marcus, Wall Street Journal, May 24,1994