Thursday, January 20, 2011

"Knock, Knock"; "Who's There?"

Veteran readers of this blog are acquainted with Rabbi Arik Ascherman.  He heads the Israeli branch of Rabbis for Human Rights, another pro-Pal. Jewish organization that seeks to remove Jews from their historic homeland.  He has also, in my opinion, allowed himself to be used as a 'cover' in that Arabs who do seek to engage in violence and make false and unjust claims exploit his presence and relations with the media and progressive forces.

And he has been quite active in the Shiloh area although I am not yet aware that he has admitted that he lost a court case involving Shiloh.

Om any case, since he sees no problem in coming out to our homes, some Shiloh people decided they would visit his home.

A report:-

'Rabbis for Human Rights' Accused of Inciting Violence

Activists from the Shiloh region in Samaria made their way to Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest outside the home of Arik Asherman, a Reform rabbi who heads the group Rabbis for Human Rights. The protesters accused Asherman of inciting violence in Samaria in the name of peace.

...Jews in the region say Asherman encourages PA Arabs to approach Jewish villages, where they often fight with Jewish youth. “The leftist activists and the Palestinians came up here to fight with the Jewish residents,” one resident said, referring to a fight last week near Shiloh in which three Jewish youths and one PA man were injured.

“We usually have good relations [between Jews and Arabs], but there are those who try to incite violence in order to make us look bad,” he said.

Another demonstrator criticized Asherman for planning to plant trees for PA residents on Tu B'Shvat, a Jewish holiday celebrating trees and the land of Israel. “Even on a Jewish holiday, he goes to celebrate with the Arabs,” he charged.

Asherman told Arutz Sheva that “we have a problem with the settlements... We need to end the occupation.” However, Rabbis for Human Rights avoids politics, he claimed, promoting any peace agreement “whether that means one state or two states or ten states, whether it means we evict all the settlers, or that they stay where they are.”...

Picture here  and another here.

His supporters, to say the least, were not sanguine about this expression of freedom of assembly, freedon of expression and freedom to protest.

Here:

The Israeli settler far-right, as part of its campaign of vitriol and intimidation is stalking Rabbi Arik Ascherman, founder of Rabbis for Human Rights. They will be demonstrating outside his home later today (Wednesday) against his alleged campaign to destroy Jewish sovereignty over all of historic Eretz Yisrael. The far-right says he “sabotages the redemption of the land” (using the term m’chabayl, the root of the Hebrew word for “terrorist” [which is not true.  L'chabayl is the Hebrew word for to destroy or as used in the Song of Songs"the little foxes that ruin / spoil the vineyards").  From there, modern Hebrew adopted the word, first for army sabateur - "chablan" and then to terrorist "m'chabayl"]. Interestingly, the Israeli police have provided a permit for this protest, while none of Sheikh Jarrah’s weekly protests ever received one.

which seems to be a copy of this:

Israeli Settler Right Bullies Rabbi Ascherman, Protesting at His Home

To Arik Ascherman and his fanatical anti-Zionist supporters, rest assured, we are only engaged in a matter of...human rights.

_________

P.S.

Just caught this in The Forward, discussing Arab finances making their way to anti-Yesha activities, including Ascherman's RHR:

Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, which currently receives NDC funding, told the Forward: “The money is for the purpose of using Israel’s legal system to challenge takeovers of Palestinian land. Rather than saying that this is undermining Israel’s democracy, it is actually strengthening it by making sure people have access to the legal system.”

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