Greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish
By Haitham Sabbah • Jun 5th, 2009 at 17:05 • Category: Biography, Features, Haitham's Choice, Israel, Newswire, ZionismNOTE: The following piece was published by Yedioth Ahronot on 21.12.2006 online.
Stalin's Jews
By Sever Plocker
We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish
Here's a particularly forlorn historical date: Almost 90 years ago, between the 19th and 20th of December 1917, in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution and civil war, Lenin signed a decree calling for the establishment of The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, also known as Cheka.
Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to KGB.
We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags.
Whole population strata were eliminated: Independent farmers, ethnic minorities, members of the bourgeoisie, senior officers, intellectuals, artists, labor movement activists, "opposition members" who were defined completely randomly, and countless members of the Communist party itself.
In his new, highly praised book "The War of the World, "Historian Niall Ferguson writes that no revolution in the history of mankind devoured its children with the same unrestrained appetite as did the Soviet revolution. In his book on the Stalinist purges, Tel Aviv University's Dr. Igal Halfin writes that Stalinist violence was unique in that it was directed internally.
Lenin, Stalin, and their successors could not have carried out their deeds without wide-scale cooperation of disciplined "terror officials," cruel interrogators, snitches, executioners, guards, judges, perverts, and many bleeding hearts who were members of the progressive Western Left and were deceived by the Soviet regime of horror and even provided it with a kosher certificate.
All these things are well-known to some extent or another, even though the former Soviet Union's archives have not yet been fully opened to the public. But who knows about this? Within Russia itself, very few people have been brought to justice for their crimes in the NKVD's and KGB's service. The Russian public discourse today completely ignores the question of "How could it have happened to us?" As opposed to Eastern European nations, the Russians did not settle the score with their Stalinist past.
And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf."
Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In his Book "Stalin: Court of the Red Star", Jewish historian Sebag Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young Jewish women.
Stalin's close associates and loyalists included member of the Central Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the "first Stalinist" and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine, an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind aside from the Nazi horrors and Mao's terror in China, did not move Kaganovich.
Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We'll mention just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD's special department and the organization's chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist.
In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges. In a fascinating lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too, when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers, among the greatest known by modern history.
The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things.
Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin.
Haitham Sabbah is an uprooted Palestinian blogger. He is the webmaster and editor of Palestine Blogs, also webmaster and co-editor of Palestine Think Tank. His personal blog is Sabbah's Blog: http://sabbah.biz/
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I'm all in favor of open debate, and appreciate that Palestine Think Tank is prepared to give a space to 'dodgy' articles like this. However, I don't agree with it at all. People who try to associate the things which went wrong with the Russian Revolution with Jews can only do it by selecting the evidence which fits their theory, and ignoring that which doesn't. Some of the commissars were Jews. But most weren't. Lenin and Stalin weren't. So Yagoda was Jewish, Yezhov had a Jewish wife, and Stalin was surrounded by Jewish groupies. That's scraping the barrel, isn't it!
no, its not scrapping the barrel,
"His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. "
in mainstream historical narrative, the jews are only ever mentioned as innocent victims or warriors of justice…given the deceit and murderous barbarity they have displayed to the Palestinians, it is not very credible that all the Jews ever did was be victims and freedom fighters. Altho most of the Western world amazingly believes this little fiction. As for selective evidence, the fact is that the Jews were heavily involved in the Russian revolution, why is saying so selective? To not mention it would be selective. your dislike of selective evidence seems to be very selective. Would you rather the Jewish involvement not be mentioned? Jewish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade is NEVER mentioned and they were heavily involved. However the role of the jews in the civil rights movement is frequently mentioned.
And so, what is your point???
That Jews are born evil, in addition to brilliant? Just like Blacks are born criminals, in addition to artists and sportspeople?
This is not even worthy of being considered racist, it is just plain irrelevant nonense!!!
RE: "I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things."
Why on earth should that be? Why should the Austrians not prefer to be proud of Mozart, and consider Hitler a German? What is wrong with taking pride in your ethnicity? As long as you reject the WRONG things and expell the BAD people. It would be a lot worse if those butchers were celebrated by Jews, you should be comforted that they shun them instead, never mentioning their Jewishness.
Look, I hate what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, but all this anti-Jew stuff, it sickens me to death, and it serves absolutely no purpose other than to confirm the Zionists' worst prejudices.
The point is that mentioning Jewish involvement in positive efforts is always mentioned and mentioning jewish involvement in, say the the Russsian revolution or the transatlantic slave trade is perceived as unbalanced or prejudiced – why? This is hardly treating the Jews as equal, as you rightly state we all do know about Mozart and Hitler, whether the Austrians celebrate Mozart and not Hitler is not the point, the point is we know about both.
@Nadya –
Shall we speak about Arab involvment – heavy involvment one should say – in the slaves trade in Africa? For hundred of years? Till the 20th century? Till today in some places?
There were Jews living in Russia. The Soviet Revolution meant equality for all, freeing the Jews from the reservations in which they were forced to live. No wonder many Jews supported it. Some of them reached high.
The Soviet Revolution proved to be a failure and disaster – to Jews too, BTW. But it was something like 5% Jews and 95% Christian (or Atheists with Christian origin) Russians and other nations.
Somehow, there are articles here about the Jews role in this, not about the role of the Russians.
Also, Gulags weren't an invention of the Soviet Revolution – they existed long before, and many revolutionists were sent there, including Stalin. The Soviets adopted it, and made it even worse.
The Russian revolution began as an attempt to free the world from the horrors of capitalism — a system that nowadays kills over 30,000,000 people a year and forces many hundreds of millions to live in misery. Those numbers may have been smaller in 1917, when the world's population was much smaller, and neo-colonialism hadn't yet replaced colonialism except in Latin America, but imperialist capitalism was, then as now, a system of unrelieved horror for a large part of the world's population.
We on the left have been debating since the 1930's to what extent the original Bolsheviks may have contributed to the rise of Stalinism, and even over the question of excesses before Stalin came to power. (The suppression of the Kronstadt uprising is one of those topics that has been debated since it occurred in 1921. The suppression of the Makhnovist movement is another.) However, I have no interest in the opinions and moral judgements of anybody, such as Niall Ferguson, who defends not only the murderous capitalist system in general but imperialism and colonialism in particular.
But if you're looking for Jews to blame for mass murder, you can start with Alan Greenspan.
So the point is: Jews are just human beings. Big deal.
Aaron Aarons: your and my freedom to enter into voluntary agreements, that is the essence of capitalism, and within a framework of political checks and balances, it does not have to be "murderous", quite unlike communism, which is rule by an "enlightened" vanguard and a road straight to ruin and tyranny.
Tarik Hussein writes:
The essence of capitalism — real, historical capitalism — has been to slaughter people to take their land and resources and then to allow the survivors — sometimes — the free choice of whether to work in life-destroying conditions or die of hunger along with their children. Capitalism has, in fact, been a road to ruin and tyranny for the great majority of the world's people, even if people in some places are given the right to vote on which group of capitalist politicians get to manage their oppression. (If they don't vote "wrong", as they sometimes do, their votes might actually be counted!)
Noa
I have no problem about people discussing Arab involvement in the slave trade, it well known, again u are missing the point, yes people know about Arabs and the slave trade – but the Jewish involvement is never mentioned – this is selective – is it not?
Noa
People talk about the Russians and the communist revolution, and even if the Jews only represented 5%, if they played a role lets discuss it and acknowledge it openly…
I'm pretty sure Israeli kids are taught about Adolf Eichman in high school-It sounds like the only reason they don't hear about this Yagoda person, responsible for up to 10 million deaths, is precisely because he was Jewish-I think zionists like to pretend all Jews have always been innocent victims & morally superior to all others-What a clever disguise!!
Aaron Aarons: That is not the essence just of "real historical captitalism", that is the essence of history as a whole, of mankind, of how we have evolved as a species divided into eternally warring tribes. This is the heritage we need to overcome.
The question is: How do we do this?
Here I believe in capitalism where people can enter into voluntary agreements with each other based on their individual circumstances, but of course, with maximum protection against force being used.
And to control and perfect this model I believe in a democracy where the people's mistakes can be corrected by the people, and where you can ONLY win power by means of persuasion, and not by arguing that the people are all manipulated by dark forces without realising it, except you who have truly seen the light…
Or have you?
This article and some of the responses exemplifies the overarching problem of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
One individual seeks to condemn all Jews for the role of some Jewish businessmen in the slave trade or another condemns a murderer of Jewish origin or a non Jew with a Jewish wife during the Soviet period .
(Oddly it fulfills Ben Gurion's hope that Jews could be saints and sinners in society.)
I hope you will see that making blanket derogatory statements about Jews or ANY other people is tantamount to a blood libel. Those of us partaking in this conversation are presumably educated and should know better.
I am aware that the settlement of Jews in Palestine in the 20th Century has created years of tragic upheaval for the Arab inhabitants who preceded them. Palestinians in their own way have become just as poisoned by the situation as Israelis.
Thus today, I have found greater relevance in the words of an individual who opted to live in Palestine as a Zionist for a short duration. In the end he moved on and opted for the idea of becoming a citizen of the world and created Esperanto:
"I am profoundly convinced that every nationalism offers humanity only the greatest unhappiness… It is true that the nationalism of oppressed peoples — as a natural self-defensive reaction — is much more excusable than the nationalism of peoples who oppress; but, if the nationalism of the strong is ignoble, the nationalism of the weak is imprudent; both give birth to and support each other…"
L.Ł. Zamenhof
( December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917)
Shai, your alacrity in using the term “blood libel” is a case in point. Italian Jewish professor of history Ariel Toaff published his book “Blood Passover” in 2007 proving that Jews did kidnap and ritually sacrifice Christian children at Passover and used their blood to make Passover bread. The ADL forced him to cease publication after just two days.
Fortunately, a copy can be found here.
http://www.bloodpassover.com/
The whole point is that while, for example, white Europeans are prepared to expose the horrors inflicted by their kind on those of another kind, Jews, with some notable exceptions, are not.
@Philip –
It is frightening to think that an entire people could be accused of blood libel. I will not doubt that there are some psychopaths to found within the Jewish people just as there are in Palestinian society or any other group. The police records in any country could verify that humanity is fraught with its destructive and unethical elements. There is no record of blood in written mainstream Jewish religious text. I am not defending Judaism since I do not practice any mainstream faith.
The ramifications tend to smear an entire people and this is poisonous. There will be no reconciliation among warring nations if we create dangerous myths.
@Nadya – Jews were not "heavily involved in the Russian Revolution," they led it. For a dispassionate, heavily documented account, read "Soljenitsyne's Deux Siecles Ensembles — 1917-1972," unfortunately not yet translated into English.
The First Congress of the Soviets lengthily discussed and voted on one decision only: the importance of the fight against anti-semitism, with specific measures to punish the "anti-semites."
Even the Decree for Peace and the all important Decree on Land (which led to collectivization later) were passed much later, on October 27.
The names of the speakers , most of them Jewish, at the First Congress, as well as the fact that the protection of a minority that was less than 3% of the population in a country that was devastated by war and famine was considered the most important item to secure cannot be ignored.
Numbers don't lie.
Laughably, the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants had 3 members who were peasants and 7 who were urban Jews…
As for the repressive apparatus, not only was the leadership of Ceka overwhelmingly Jewish but at the local level, the security officers were anywhere from 35% to 90% Jews. The diasparity with the percentage of Jews in the population is again notable as was the fact that many of these were not even Russian Jews but were recnt arrivals form Poland and elsewhere.
@Shai –
"It is frightening to think that an entire people could be accused of blood libel."
Something you need to think about in the context of Palestine, where not only "could" the Israeli be accused of "blood libel" against the Palestinians but are and should be.
" I will not doubt that there are some psychopaths to found within the Jewish people just as there are in Palestinian society or any other group."
Hmmm, remind me again, of the two who has the boot on the neck of the other?
@Ariadna Theokopoulos – Maybe you can outline the Jewish involvement in slavery. Demonstrate, don't assert. And, of course, the Jews start everything, and are also responsible for sinking th Titanic. It was a Goldberg, not an iceberg, if you must know.
@Ariadna Theokopoulos –
There is no doubt that the Jewish settlement in Palestine has fostered ongoing tragedy for the earlier inhabitants. I lived in Israel and left primarily because of my conflict with this issue. I did serve in that army but chose to leave before I found myself in Ramallah or Gaza. The issue being made in the article is a hyperbolic description of Jews as the "worst people who ever existed in the Universe and beyond" Propagandists can also can make a "big deal" about the cruelties of the Syrian government towards its own people (such as the massacre at Hama – an estimated 7,000 to 40,000 people were killed – or how the Kurdish people suffered not only under Saddam Hussein but by other Arab regimes.
The point is that WE cannot look indifferently at tragedy period. We cannot lose our humanity and overwhelm our senses in wild accusations and hate. You need to search your soul and determine what kind of person you really want to be.
@Aaron Aarons –
The Russian Revolution also set out to end the slaughter known as World War One and people who participated in it for such reasons are to be commended IMHO, in spite of things not going well at many turns. You are right to compare the alleged and asserted numbers said to have been killed in the USSR with the fact that capitalism today ends so many more lives every year.
You are wrong though in my opinion to object to Jews being pointed out for doing negative and horrenduous things. Americans and I think westerners in general are awe struck by Jewishness and are constantly fed the line that Jews are God's chosen, that they are long suffering and always wrongly persecuted, that they have suffered more than any other group of human beings, etc. Not only does this awe strengthen Israhell, but "The Jews" as an entity are a major prop, voice and part of the very capitalism that ruins so many people's lives. It is healthy to point to this Emperor's lack of clothes.
[...] intellectuals grasped that the method that successfully transformed Russia into a Soviet Union, at the expense of millions, was not going to liberate them. They obviously realised that the Jewish Marxists did not intend [...]
@Eugene Weixel –
First off, Russia wasn't freeing itself from Capitalism. Tsarist Russia was still in the feudal system, having not even reached mercantilism yet. World War 1 was caused by nationalism, not capitalism. Furthermore, I will take you at your word and assume that capitalism is responsible for all those deaths, even though that's ridiculous, especially considering the paucity of capitalist countries in the world, but I will also add that Communism has produced misery everywhere it has touched. Sure, Cuba made some progress, as if it could get any worse after Batista, but compare Cuba in terms of freedom, wealth, and growth to Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, etc. Cubans are unnecessarily oppressed, and for what? Democracy has finally taken a foothold in Latin America. The Gini index is dropping most countries.
As for "Israhell", the name you chose for it provides the irony on its own. Life in Israel is far from hell. It vastly better than any other Middle Eastern nation. Muslims in Israel can vote. That's more than can be said about Muslims Saudi Arabia or Syria, or sham democracies like Iran and Egypt, and Palestinians have more rights than non-Muslims in most of the Middle East, with a few exceptions like Lebanon, which is obvious because Lebanon is some 40% non Muslim.
, Shai
What shall we call this then,genocide, ethnic cleansing, holocaust or what?
“And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and woman: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.” (Ezekiel 9:5-6)
“And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.” (Deuteronomy 2:34)
When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor (aka slaves) and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you. Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes” (Deuteronomy 20:10-17)
“This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, Then David ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath, and killed him, and cut off his head with it…. And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem; but he put his armor in his tent. And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand.” 1 Samuel 17:46
“at Jezreel by this time tomorrow…And when the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons, and slew them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him at Jezreel. When the messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons,” he said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.”. (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 6) “God has now fulfilled the prophecy of the prophet Elijah. So Jehu put to death all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, as well as all of his close friends and priests, until he had left not one single survivor.” (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 10) “He put to death all of Ahab’s house, who were left there and so blotted it out, in fulfillment of the word which YAHWEH had spoken to Elijah.” (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 7)
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you. And when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)
“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.” (Exodus 23:27)
And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. At God’s instructions, the Israelites “utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones” leaving “none to remain.” 2:34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. (Deuteronomy 2:33-36)
Joshua said to the people of Israel, “The Lord has given you the city of the all silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. The people utterly DESTROYED ALL THAT WAS IN THE CITY, BOTH MAN AND WOMAN,YOUNG AND OLD, AND OX AND SHEEP, AND ASS, WITH THE EDGE OF THE SWORD. (Joshua 6:21,23)
“And he should go and worship other gods and bow down to them or to the sun or the moon or all the army of the heavens, …..and you must stone such one with stones and such one must die.” Deuteronomy 17:3-5
“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:17-18)
"In Deuteronomy 7:1-36, ".the Lord thy God shall have destroyed many nations before thee, the Hethite, and the Gergezite, and the Amorrite, and the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite, and Hevite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than thou art,…thou shalt utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no league with them, nor show mercy to them: and shall slay them until they are utterly destroyed.and thou shalt destroy their names under heaven: no man shall be able to resist thee, until thou destroy them."
In Samuel 15:3, "Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath; spare him not, nor covet any thing that is his; but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
In Numbers 31:1-35, ".the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Revenge first the children of Israel on the Madianites. when they fought against the Madianites and had overcome them, they slew all the men. Therefore kill all that are of the male sex, even of the children: and put to death the women that have carnally known men. But the girls, and all the women that are virgins save for yourselves .and the spoils which the army had taken, was. thirty two thousand persons of the female sex that had not known men."
In Numbers 33:50-52, ".the Lord said to Moses: Command the children of Israel. When you shall have passed over to Jordan, entering into the land of Chanaan, Destroy all the inhabitants of that land: beat down their pillars and break in pieces their statues, and waste all their high places."
In Samuel 27:8-9, "And David and his men went up, and pillaged Gessuri, and Gerzi, and the Amalecites; for these were of old the inhabitants of the countries. David wasted all the land, and left neither man nor woman live."
In Isaiah 13:15-18, "Every one that shall be found shall be slain; and every one that shall come to their aid, shall fall by the sword. Their infants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes: their houses shall be pillaged, and their wives ravaged. with their arrows they shall kill the children, and shall have no pity upon the sucklings of the womb, and their eye shall not spare their sons."
“If there is found among you, in one of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, and transgresses his covenant by going to serve other gods and worshipping them-whether the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden-and if it is reported to you or you hear of it, and you make a thorough inquiry, and the charge is proved true that such an abhorrent thing has occurred in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has committed this crime and you shall stone the man or woman to death." (Deuteronomy 17:17)
And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them: 3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son." (Deuteronomy 7:2-3)
..
@just wondering –
Ezekiel 9:5-6 is a vision. Not a command of God. It's kind of a doomsday vision about the destruction of Jerusalem. All these dead people are Jewish. It is very clear if you read the whole chapter and not only 2 sentences.
Deuteronomy 2:34, yes, we know, it's the old conquest of the land war. Gods command to this very specific war at this very specific place: Not rules of war everywhere. Please note that it took place, *if it took*, more than 3,000 years ago, and that most researchers thinks it never happened and is only a myth. Anyway, it doesn't have any archaeologic evidences.
Deuteronomy 20:10-17 – same story, only please note that the forced labor thing was very common in wars and conquests during that era, all nations in the middle-east did it.
In fact, same for all Deuteronomy and Numbers quots. and
1 Samuel 17:46 – David vs. Goliath story! Come on! It was a war between two nations, and let's remind you, David was the weak of the two.
If you search in all nations' mythology, I assure you you'd find enough bloody stories. Iceland (all these who-killed-who sagas), Ireland (their mythology is full of wars), Germany (shall we start?)… Pre-columbian south and central American nations had extremely bloody religions — I could go on and on. So what?
All of these quotes you gave prove nothing about medieval (and modern) blood libels, since what Shai meant is there is no record of *use of blood* in any mainstream Jewish religious text – in fact in ANY Jewish religious text .
Because BLOOD ISN"T KOSHER.
The whole idea of Kosher slaughter is to pull the blood out of the meat. That's why the meat is saltened, that's why you souldn't eat liver at all unless it had been roasted on open fire. You don't use blood at all.
Certainly you don't use blood of humans, humans are not Kosher at all too.
Certainly you don't use blood to bake your Matza bread.
@Noa –
Thank you Noa.
Much of what concerns me among some of the comments in this forum is the attempt to dehumanize Jews. Certainly Palestinians feel themselves dehumanized by occupation. Israelis are required to look inward and recognize and address the Palestinian tragedy. Some have, such as myself.
It concerns me when a number of educated Palestinians and their supporters rely on promoting the Jewish "enemy" to a higher super evil status. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic forgery written in Czarist Russia is still published in Egypt and accessible to the Arab world. The individuals who promote this perpetuation of dangerous myths are lost. One can only hope they are an impotent minority.
Palestinians need to rise above and take the moral high ground if at all possible. Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? This person or movement will frighten all the generals and reach the hearts and minds of Israelis and the world.
@Shai –
where is the Israeli Gandhi?
@Mary Rizzo –
No one asked where is the British equivalent to Gandhi. The oppressed generally have to lead the struggle. But fyi, the Israelis have a good number of peace activists. I can get you a list if you are interested.
Next you'll be telling us that Jews invented suicide bombings and shooting up the Olympics.
All historians know that Jews suffered the most under Stalinism.
The biggest murderers were Hitler and Stalin and neither was Jewish. (Or do you also think Hitler was Jewish?)
Well, it is eniviteable that Jews will be involved with murder, as are christians, blacks, the japense and all the rest of the people who exist today (sorry to leave some out). This however does not mean we can place blame on any of these religions or cultures for the actions of their people, but rather blame astrocities such as massmurder on human nature. Religion or culture is just a vehicle which humans use to understand the complex lives in which we our faced with so many decisions. The universe does not discriminate, as evil and good both exists in equal quantities, it is our curse that we are able to perceive them both. Jews are not victims as germans are not murderers. As a jew I am able to accept that Hitler was a person, and not neccesarily evil at heart. However, his actions were evil, which probably represented a void in his life. No murderer is happy. Murder is caused by anger, guilt or shame; all prevalent human emotions. Inherent evil should not be considered when contemplating such issues. The concepts of psychology and human nature explain it all. More concern should be placed on understanding the human condition rather than obssessing about behaviours caused by culture or genetics. To be fair all humans DNA is more than 99 percent similar. Let us be intellectual and drop cultural barriers which hurl us always to the stone ages.
@noa
Doesn't a mohel suck blood from a circumcised penis or is that kosher?
@Philip –
It is done for medical reasons, and he doesn't swallow it. He spits it immediately.
@Noa –
To Suck but not to Swallow!!!
@J.T. –
Russia was and is a part of the world cpaitalist market system, though is was a backward country that had lots of feudal aspects. It was drawn into a global catastrophe called World War One that cost millions of its people's lives. Russians who wanted to end this disaster and who wanted the majority to have "bread peace and land" overthrew the regime that was committed to continue the slaughter. Those who participated in trying to end the slaughter of WWI were doing something commendable.
Cuba today has better medical care for its working class than has the Untied States for its own workers. Cuba has a higher adult literacy rate. In the United States, if you are a shareholder in a company that was given virtually for free license to broadcast over the airwaves you have "free speech" and you are able to confuse, confound, flummox, panic and manipulate everyone else. That's exactly what this "freedom" is and what it's used for. US policy towards Israhell is a noteworthy fruit of this state of affairs but it isn't the only one.
In general in the USA every dollar has an equal vote. In Cuba there are elections and money plays no role in them. One could argue about how democratic these elections are, but one cannot dispute that around half of US voters don't think it's worth their time to bother voting and policial candidates routinely nmake promises they do not keep, often knowing well ahead that they don't intend to keep their promises. Lied to routinely by every voice that "counts", stampeded into panics, manipulated- that's the American public. Awe of things Jewish is pushed in the media in many ways.
Jewish Israelis have higher standards of living than many US citizens, yet US citizens through their taxes supplement Israel's budget with billions every year. US diplomats and media defend and shield Israhells most blatant ly illegal acts against the Palestinian people.
The Black Muslims used to say "a white man's heaven is a black man's hell." Israeli occupied palestine has a majority of non- Jewish people and I think it can be said that for them, and for any Israeli Jews of conscience, it's got to be some sort of a hell.