I thought only Muslims had misogynistic attitudes?  Are these Judeo-Christian values on display? Is this the Western Civilization prized as superior by the likes of Bill Maher? Imagine if this Rabbi were Muslim, Robert Spencer and his buddy Pamela Geller would be all over it like a hot cake. (hat tip: Mikebloke)

West Bank Rabbi Bans Women from Voting

The chief rabbi of a West Bank settlement has prohibited women from standing in a local community election.

Rabbi Elyakim Levanon of the Elon Moreh settlement, near Nablus, said women lacked the authority to stand for the post of local secretary.

He wrote in a community newspaper that women must only be heard through their husbands.

No women have registered for the election due to be held later on Wednesday, Israeli media reported.

The rabbi made his comments in the community’s newspaper after an unidentified young woman wrote to him asking if she could run for the position of community secretary, the Israeli news website Ynet News said.

‘Giving authority’

“I am a young woman and I think I have desire and energy to do things,” Ynet News quoted the woman as writing to Rabbi Levanon.

“It’s not right for men to be the only ones deciding how to run the community,” the letter reportedly said.

But in his weekly column, Rabbi Levanon wrote that, according to the teachings of influential rabbis, women were not allowed to apply for the position.

“The first problem is giving women authority, and being a secretary means having authority,” Rabbi Levanon wrote in the community’s newspaper.

“Within the family certain debates are held and when opinions are united the husband presents the family’s opinion.

“This is the proper way to prevent a situation in which the woman votes one way and her husband votes another,” he wrote.

He also said it was not appropriate for women to mix with men in late evening meetings of community leaders.

Women’s groups have condemned the comments.

“Such talk is scandalous enough to call the rabbi for a clarification. I expect leaders of the religious public in Israel to condemn the rabbi’s instruction,” Nurit Tzur of the Israel Women’s Lobby said .

AP-West Bank Mosque Arson

Another mosque has been torched in the West Bank:

Israeli Firefighters: West Bank Mosque fire likely arson

Israeli firefighters said Thursday that the fire which occurred in a West Bank mosque earlier this week appears to have been deliberately set.

The Palestinian Authority already implicated Jewish settlers in the fire on Tuesday, which destroyed holy books and prayer rugs in the Nablus-area village of Luban al-Sharqiya. The blaze came at a sensitive time as the Israelis and Palestinians were due to begin new U.S.-brokered indirect peace talks.

Upon first seeing the mosque in flames, residents, along with Israeli police, believed it had been caused by an electrical short-circuit.

But fire department spokesman, Jeky Binyamini, said on Thursday that this wasn’t the case, and cited arson as a likely cause of the fire.

Israeli defense officials are increasingly concerned over the series of mosque burnings in the past six months. In December a mosque in the West Bank village of Yasuf was set on fire. The Shin Bet security service briefly detained several suspects, and it is not clear whether they will be charged.

In April, stars of David were spray-painted on a mosque in the village of Hawara. No suspects were detained in the incident.

Imagine if a Muslim had done this, the usual chorus of Islamophobes would be pontificating on how such violence is intrinsic to Islam itself. There would be a concerted effort to link the actions of a few extremists to the religious texts and then to the faith itself.

Using such logic, should we ask: what is inspiring these Israeli settlers to commit these violent actions?  Could it be the scriptural commentary on the Torah that say it’s okay to decimate the enemy’s cities and even kill their babies?

Should we now generalize this extremist understanding to all of Judaism?

Of course, we know better than to do that.

West Bank Mosque

The ongoing attack by settlers on the Occupied West Bank continues. I am sure Pamela Geller would applaud these settlers.

‘Settlers’ desecrate West Bank Mosque

Palestinian security officials have said that Israeli settlers desecrated a mosque in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli army confirmed that “anonymous suspects” scrawled graffiti, including a Jewish star of David alongside the name of the Prophet Mohammed written in Hebrew.

Palestinian and Israeli officials said on Wednesday that the suspects set fire to two cars outside the mosque in Huwara, near Nablus.

Brigadier General Nitzan Alon, the Israeli military commander for the West Bank,  “ordered an immediate investigation into the incident, condemned the acts and said that those responsible should be brought to justice.”

Israeli soldiers erased the graffiti after the attack.

In December, Israeli settlers vandalised another mosque in the northern West Bank village of Yasuf, torching Muslim holy books and spraying hate messages in Hebrew.

The incident triggered clashes between villagers and Israeli troops.

A 17-year-old Israeli from a nearby settlement was later detained.

Last month there were skirmishes between Palestinians and Israeli police who were on high alert in Jerusalem where they prevented men under the age of 50 from entering the al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City.

The skirmishes intensified an already charged atmosphere there as a rebuilt 17th-century synagogue was opened in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, a few hundred metres from the al-Aqsa compound.

Many Palestinians view Israeli projects near the mosque compound – a site holy both to Jews and Muslims – as an assault on its status quo or a prelude to the building of a third Jewish temple there.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira has been arrested for allegedly firebombing a mosque.  Rabbi Shapira published a book entitled The King’s Torah in which he claimed that it was permissible under Jewish law for a Jew to kill a non-Jewish civilian (including a child). He also advocated the expulsion or genocide of all male Palestinians above the age of thirteen.

One month ago, CNN reported:

Jerusalem (CNN) — Israeli police were questioning a relative of the late Jewish extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane in its probe of a Palestinian mosque firebombing in the West Bank earlier this month.

Today, BBC News reports:

Rabbi arrested, suspected in West Bank mosque arson

Israeli police have arrested a rabbi on suspicion of involvement in an arson attack on a mosque last month.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the head of a Jewish seminary in the settlement of Yitzhar, was arrested after he refused to co-operate, police said.

Mr Shapira denies any involvement in the attack, his lawyer was quoted in the Israeli media as saying.

Attackers burned the mosque’s carpet and a shelf of Qurans, and wrote slogans in Hebrew on the floor.

Police arrested some students from the seminary, the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva earlier this month, saying they wanted to investigate whether they were involved in the mosque attack.

Security sources said Rabbi Shapira was “suspected of involvement in an attempt to set fire to a mosque”.

Rabbi Shapira’s lawyer told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahranot that his client “denies any connection to the event”.

He was not co-operating with his investigators “in light of the Israel police’s conduct and their treatment of rabbis recently,” he said.

Rabbi Shapira published a controversial book last year which includes discussion of interpretations of the circumstances under which Jewish law permits Jews to kill non-Jews.

There have been protests by seminary students and a right-wing member of the Knesset outside the police station where he is being held.

The article then talks about extremist Jews who are threatening to attack Palestinians unless the Israeli government acts in a certain way:

Some hard-line settlers say they will attack Palestinians in retaliation for any Israeli government measure they see as threatening Jewish settlements.

It is a policy they call the “price tag”.

All Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

The price tag for the settlements?  Palestinian blood.  (Sorry, VISA or Mastercard not accepted.)  The goal is to make it too costly to restrict illegal Jewish settlements.  That’s the textbook definition of terrorism:

(n) terrorism: (the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear

But I thought all terrorists are Muslims?

In another case of what if they were Muslim, Israeli settlers spurred by a mandate from G-d attacked a West Bank Mosque, sprayed graffiti on it and burned Qurans inside of it. Of course this isn’t big news for most, and we will see the likes of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Rabbi Jonathan Hausman either remain silent on this or somehow justify it. (hat tip: retaane)

Settlers attack West Bank Mosque and burn holy Muslim books

Suspected Jewish settlers today attacked a mosque in the northern West Bank, burning holy books and spraying threatening graffiti in Hebrew on the building, Palestinian officials and Israeli police said.

Extremists broke into the mosque in the village of Yasuf, near the city of Nablus, and burned Muslim holy books and prayers carpets, while sprayed slogans on the floor reading “Price tag – greetings from Effi.”

The so-called price tag is the Jewish settlers’ policy of attacking Palestinians and their property in retribution for any Israeli government curb on settlement expansion. Effi is a Jewish name.

The dawn attack appeared to be the work of hardline settlers furious that the right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu has given in to US pressure to try and enforce a temporary freeze on the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where some 300,000 settlers live.
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While the attackers escaped, the Israeli government was quick to condemn the attack. “This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government’s efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel’s future,” said Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, whose department is overseeing the freeze.

When they discovered the desecration of their mosque, Palestinian villagers started throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, whom they often accuse of complicity with settlers when they carry out such attacks on them and their olive orchards. Two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were hurt in the clashes.

There have been rising tensions since Mr Netanyahu announced the proposed freeze last month, in an effort to meet US and Palestinians demands for a total halt on settlement construction, deemed illegal by the international community but often backed by the Israeli state.

Thousands of angry settlers gathered for a demonstration close to the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem this week, vowing to continue building and condemning Mr Natanyahu’s decision to bow to pressure from Barack Obama, the US president. They carried banners that said “Obama wants us frozen, God wants us chosen,” and “God’s Bible gave us this land.”

The settlers believe that the West Bank – which they call by its Biblical name, Judea and Samaria – should be part of a greater Israel, and are adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

They have torn up freeze orders delivered by the Israeli authorities to settlements in the West Bank, and blocked inspectors trying to enforce the building ban. Last week at the settlement of Qedumim, close to Nablus, residents prevented inspectors from entering while cheering as trucks of building materials were brought in.

A right-wing cabinet minister said that the freeze was largely a sham and that the settler population could grow by as many as 3,000 people in the next 10 months, the period of the proposed moratorium.

“This is neither a freeze nor a suspension,” Benny Begin, the son of former prime minister Menachem Begin, told a conference in Tel Aviv, according to an Israeli newspaper. “Construction in Judea and Samaria will continue in the next 10 months.”

“We are … saying that we don’t intend to restrict or suspend new building permits,” he added.

And Mr Netanyahu has tried to temper anger by allocating special development grants to tens of thousands of the settlers, sparking anger from Mr Barak’s centrist Labour party, which has threatened to vote against the measure.

Haaretz brings us an update on the case of the West Bank Settler Rabbi who endorsed the murder of Gentiles including babies and innocents.

Who is Funding the Rabbi who Endorses Killing Babies?

Right-wing spokesmen, including some elected officials, rushed to place Yaakov “Jack” Teitel in the fringe group alongside Yigal Amir, Eden Natan Zada, Eliran Golan, Asher Weisgan, Danny Tikman and a few other “political/ideological” murderers.

True, they acknowledge, there are among us several lunatic rabbis who agitate to violence. Really, just a handful; even a toddler could count them.

The more stringent will note that unlike the Hamas government, our government does not pay the salaries of rabbis who advocate the killing of babies.

Is that so? Not really.

For example, government ministries regularly transfer support and funding to a yeshiva whose rabbi determined that it is permissible to kill gentile babies “because their presence assists murder, and there is reason to harm children if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us … it is permissible to harm the children of a leader in order to stop him from acting evilly … we have seen in the Halakha that even babies of gentiles who do not violate the seven Noahide laws, there is cause to kill them because of the future threat that will be caused if they are raised to be wicked people like their parents.”

Lior Yavne, who oversees research at the Yesh Din human rights organization, checked and found that in 2006-2007, the Ministry of Education department of Torah institutions transferred over a million shekels to the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar.

The Ministry of Social Affairs has allocated over 150,000 shekels to the yeshiva since 2007, scholarships for students with financial difficulties studying there. And what can they learn with the help of public funding from the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira? According to selected items published last week in the media, the boys can learn that Teitel is not only innocent, but also a real saint.

Their spiritual leader stated in his book, “Torat Hamelekh” that “a national decision is not necessary in order to permit the shedding of blood of an evil kingdom. Even individuals from the afflicted kingdom can attack them.”

A brochure distributed in Judean and Samarian communities stated that “needless to say that nowhere in the book does it state that these remarks are aimed only at gentiles in ancient times.”

The commandments in the book do not suffice only with gentiles; you can also find in them approval to attack leftist professors: every citizen in the kingdom opposing us who encourages the fighters or expresses satisfaction with their actions is considered a pursuer and his killing is permissible,” wrote the rabbi and adds, “and also considered a pursuer is someone whose remarks weaken our kingdom or have a similar effect.”

Not long ago, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that he would ask European Union countries to halt their support for the Breaking the Silence organization because he was displeased with their publications.

The minister surely has reservations about the rabbi’s publications.

He is invited to approach his colleagues at the Ministry of Education and at the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Yaakov Teitel

Yaakov (James) Teitel, a Jewish settler in the West Bank has with glee and happiness reveled in the murders he committed against innocent Palestinians. Showing no remorse for the slayings, he justified the carnage he wrought by declaring, “I know God is pleased.” This deranged attitude and action represents a man who does not represent Judaism, but what if he were a Muslim how swiftly would Islam be blamed and Muslims cast under suspicion?

Alleged Jewish Terrorist: I know God is Pleased

The Jerusalem District Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday charged alleged Jewish terrorist Yaakov (Jack) Teitel with two murders, three attempted murders and other acts of violence.

“It was a pleasure and an honor to serve my God,” said Teitel at the Jerusalem courthouse. “I have no regret and no doubt that God is pleased.”

Teitel also denied recent reports that he had operated as an undercover Shin Bet agent.
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Teitel, 37, born in Florida but a resident of the northern West Bank settlement of Shvut Rahel since 1997, was arrested last month for suspected murder and for his alleged role in a string of attempted murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed after a gag order on the case was lifted.

He was arrested on October 7 and police said he later confessed to most of the allegations against him.

The indictment charges that Teitel smuggled a disassembled firearm into Israel from the United States in 1997 by placing it in a video player, and used that gun to murder taxi driver Samir Akram Balbisi in June of that year.

According to the indictment, in August 2007, Teitel murdered Issa Jabrin, a Palestinian shepherd from Susya, after which he fled Israel for three years.

The indictment also lists Teitel’s efforts for more than a decade to harm Arabs, gays and lesbians, leftists, police officers and messianic Jews.

Teitel had admitted to, among other offences, sending a booby-trapped Purim gift basket to a family of messianic Jews in Ariel, which seriously wounded their teenage son, Ami Ortiz, and planting a pipe bomb at the Jerusalem residence of Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell, who was lightly wounded.

At this stage, however, Teitel will not be charged with the murder of two policemen in the Jordan Valley eight months ago. While police also suspect him of this crime, they do not yet have enough evidence to charge him with it.

Earlier in the week the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court extended his remand for another three days – and, for the first time since his arrest on October 7, Teitel himself appeared in court for the hearing. The Shin Bet security service had barred him from attending previous remand hearings.

During the hearing, Teitel’s lawyer protested the difficult conditions of his imprisonment, saying he was chained to his bed 24 hours a day. The court ordered the Shin Bet to look into this complaint.

Rabbi Yaakov Yosef recommends the book

An Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in the West Bank has written that it is permissible for Jews to kill Gentiles including children and babies who threaten Israel or break the commandments. This is a strange pronouncement not in line with what the majority of Jews believe but we must ask what if the Rabbi was an Imam, what would the reaction be?

West Bank Rabbi: Jews can Kill Gentiles

Just weeks after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi on Monday released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book “The King’s Torah” that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation.

Shapiro based the majority of his teachings on passages quoted from the Bible, to which he adds his opinions and beliefs.

“It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation,” he wrote, adding: “If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments – because we care about the commandments – there is nothing wrong with the murder.”

Several prominent rabbis, including Rabbi Yithak Ginzburg and Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, have recommended the book to their students and followers.