Across the border
Indigenous Middle Eastern Jews condemn Israeli aggression
BY DAVID BLOOM
Thursday, August 3, 2006
Indigenous Middle Eastern Jewry from Lebanon, Morocco and
Iran have issued recent condemnations of the Israeli assaults on Lebanon
and Palestine.
The first here is from the Jews of Lebanon website.
Lebanese Jewry goes back to 1000 BC and did not empty out in 1948 as many
Middle Eastern Jewish populations did, most emigrating to Israel. The bulk
of Lebanese Jewry left during the Lebanese civil wars from 1975-92. There
are some 100 members of the community remaining today.
According to Ed Corrigan in the Journal of the Middle East
Policy Council, Winter 1990-91, Number 35, Beirut Jewry had close ties
with the Palestinian community:
"Two little known facts are that the PLO helped protect
the Beirut Jewish community (and also the American embassy) during the
Lebanese Civil War, and it was the Israelis who destroyed their synagogue
during the siege of Beirut. (Some 60 Muslims and Jews were sheltering in
the synagogue when its roof was blown off by IDF fire – WW4.) Nor
has it been widely publicised that nine Palestinian Jews were among the
victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacre."
From the Jews of Lebanon website:
Condemnation of the
war in Lebanon
July 26, 2006
We once again renew our appeal for people to differentiate
between Zionism and Judaism and ultimately between our mission and the
current crisis in our beloved Lebanon. Hundreds have been killed in the
latest violence between Israel and Lebanon and we pray that this will open
the door to a final and comprehensive peace agreement. Though we believe
in the universal principal of the right to self-defence we condemn the
indiscriminate and disproportionate response from the state of Israel.
Ultimately, we condemn the violence wholeheartedly.
Our heartfelt condolences to the innocent lives that are
lost in this conflict – whether Lebanese or Israeli.
At the end of the site’s mission statement, it says:
"Long Live the Lebanese (no matter what their religious
convictions are!)
"Lebanon… not a nation but a message."
Via JSF, Jews Sans Frontieres:
One of the three prisoners Hizbollah wants freed from
Israeli jail is Nasser Nissim, an Israeli citizen of Lebanese origin with
a Jewish mother and Shiite father. He was convicted of spying for
Hizbollah in 2002 (BBC, July 26).
Moroccan Jewry was once one of the largest Jewish groups
in the Middle East. Some of the Berbers in the Atlas mountain range
converted to Judaism before Muslim Arab forces invaded and in fact the
Jewish warrior princess Dihya al-Kahina held out against the invaders for
40 years at the end of the seventh century CE. The Jewish Virtual Library
says Moroccan Jews numbered 250,000-265,000 in 1948, after which Jews left
for Israel. Today some 5,230 remain. The current Israeli defence minister,
Amir Peretz, is Moroccan born. Abraham Serfaty, perhaps Morocco’s best
known political dissident, was a communist who was tortured and exiled by
the current king’s father, Hassan II, only to be invited back by Mohammed
VI as a government official. An anti-Zionist, one of Serfaty’s regrets is
that he failed to persuade Moroccan Jewry not to leave for Israel.
Moroccan Jews condemn Israeli "crimes" in Lebanon,
Palestine
August 2, 2006
Text of report by Moroccan news agency, MAP
Rabat: A group of Moroccan Jewish intellectuals launched,
on Wednesday (August 2), an appeal to "all those who have the privilege of
calling themselves Moroccan Jews or Jewish Moroccans to clearly express
their indignation and their suffering for the crimes committed by Israel"
in Lebanon and Palestine.
In this appeal, a copy of which was sent to the Moroccan
news agency MAP, the signatories, Messrs Edmond Amran Elmaleh,
Abraham Serfaty and Sion Assidon, invite the Moroccan Jews "here in our
country and throughout the world" to "clearly express their indignation
and their suffering as men and women for the crimes which are being
committed in the name of Israel’s security".
They also invite them to stand up to demand an end to the
bloodbath which is resulting from this suicidal policy of terror,
stressing that Qana, the Lebanese village bombarded by the Israeli army,
"is the symbol of a policy, that of destruction and the killing of
civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, which is continuing as we launch this
appeal".
As far as the signatories are concerned, "Israel is once
again possessed by a murderous rage, taking its suicidal policy to its
height, with the active diplomatic and logistical complicity of the United
States".
They said that "the state of Israel remains fixed on an
invariable objective, namely to force the Palestinian people out of a land
which is theirs" by trying to hold the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance
responsible for this dialectics which means that repression begets
resistance" (quotation marks as received).
According to AP:
Moroccan Jews: Try local born Peretz for war crimes
August 3, 2006
Three Jewish Moroccans have submitted Rabat’s high court
with a petition against Defence Minister Amir Peretz, accusing the
Moroccan born Israeli of war crimes.
Leftist activist Abraham Serfaty, author Amran Elmaleh and
human rights group official Sion Asidon claim Peretz may be tried in their
country due to his Moroccan citizenship.
"The criminal terrorist, Zionist Amir Peretz, has retained
his Moroccan citizenship and is still registered in Morocco’s census," the
three told reporters during a press conference. "Moroccan law allows the
trial of any Moroccan national who has committed war crimes in or out of
the country."
Lawyer Abd al-Rahim Gaami, who represents the three, said:
"Amir Peretz’s political statements and the orders he has issued to his
soldiers have brought about crimes of war and massacres against innocent
civilians."
Persian Jewry goes all the way back to the Babylonian
exile in the sixth century BCE, preceding the Muslim presence. The
community now numbers approximately 15,000-30,000. Iranian Jewry’s
position can be precarious – 13 members were arrested for allegedly spying
for Israel in 1999 although they’ve since been freed. There is a Jewish
representative in the Iranian Parliament. The leader of Iran’s Jewish
community was outspoken in condemning President Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust
revisionism (The Washington Post, November 20, 2005).
IRNA, Islamic Republic News Agency:
Shiraz, Fars Prov., July 24
The Association of Jews in Iran’s southern city of Shiraz
on Monday condemned Zionists’ crimes in attacking the defenceless Lebanese
and Palestinian civilians.
In a statement, a copy of which was made available to
IRNA on Monday, the Jews said, "We Iranian Jews, like our compatriots,
voice hatred and resentment against the crimes committed in the region,
southern Lebanon and the Palestinian occupied lands, condemning such
actions."
The Jews hoped for an end to all wars, bloodshed and
invasions in the world and for the restoration of peace and calm instead.
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