Dozens of Israeli rabbis back call to forbid sale of property to Arabs

Dozens of Israeli rabbis today backed a call to forbid Jews to rent or sell property to Arabs in a move likely to further stoke tensions in some cities.

More than 40 municipal chief rabbis, whose salaries are paid from public funds, signed a letter in support of a ruling by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed in Upper Gallilee instructing his followers not to offer accommodation to non-Jews.

Anyone doing so, the letter said, "causes his neighbour a great loss, and his iniquity is greater than can be borne". It went on: "It is incumbent upon the seller's neighbours and acquaintances to warn and caution, first in private and then they are entitled to publish him in public, to distance themselves from him, to prevent trade from being done with him, not to have him read from the Torah and so forth until he reverses his decision that causes harm to so many people."

Following Eliyahu's earlier ruling, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who rents out rooms to three Arab students in Safed was threatened with having his house burned down and was denounced as a traitor to Judaism.

Safed, which has a large conservative ultra-orthodox population, has become a focus of anti-Arab sentiment although rabbis in other cities have also warned Jewish residents against renting or selling to non-Jews.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel demanded that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, condemn the rabbis' letter and take disciplinary action against those employed by the state.

"Rabbis who are civil servants have an obligation to the entire public, including Israel's Arab citizens. It is unthinkable that they would use their public status to promote racism and incitement," ACRI said in a statement.

Israeli-Arabs, who make up about 20% of the population of Israel, say they are facing increasing racism and discrimination.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/israeli-rabbis-ban-rental-sale-to-arabs

Is Israel today's nazi state?

I don't know why I bother, but here I go:

1 - Wanna compare the fundementalist Muslims, and what they want to do to Jews, to what the fundementalist Jews want to do to arabs?
2 - The fact that you don't know shit about Israel, like the fact that many, many citizens here despise the way the "leaders" of the jewish religon act, and their followers, does not make you right.

It actually makes you wrong.

And, do you compare what the Nazis did, and wanted to do, to the jews, to what some of the rabbis here want to do to the arabs?

This is why every day Palestine doesn't make a deal they are doing nothing but weaking their own position.   If it were me, I'd take what I could get.  Rebuild my country then complain to the UN that the deal was done under duress.

Holding your own people hostage just isn't sane.

http://www.canada.com/news/Suicide bombers strike anti Taliban gathering Pakistan killing/3933032/story.html

"A pair of suicide bombers attacked a large gathering of anti-Taliban elders inside a government compound in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 41 people in one of the worst terror strikes in the volatile tribal belt this year."

I think that's worse

While I have to say it is disgusting to attack people's ethnicity and faith in such a demeaning manner. Hamas and Palestinian and Muslim leaders do far worse. Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is going way to far, Israel isn't rounding up Muslims and executing them or throwing them in concentration camps.

I mean yes I can understand why Palestinians hate the Jews, but I can also understand why some jewish members of Israeli society hate Arabs.

Infact Arab countries treatment of Christian's, Jews and any and all other faiths is appauling. Why don't you write about the Christian lady going to be executed in Pakistan for defending her faith. or the Christian who was going to be executed in Afghanistan but got saved by Nato's pressure on the Afghan Gov. Or how about the Muslim organisations in Iraq calling for the ethnic cleansing of all Christian's in their country. or the Sudan genocide of Christians.

Jews aren't alone in getting upset with the arab world. Christian's are also being humiliated and tortured for their faith in almost every arab country known to man. Then lets not forget what Pakistani Muslims want to do to Indian Hindu's?

The arab world not just Palestine or Afghanistan the whole Arab world needs to open up and stop persecuting people for their faiths. If the majority of Muslim countries weren't out to slaughter all the Jews , Christian's , Hindu's and every other faith including their own Shiites and Sunni's.

If Islamic countries and leaders preached peace and mutual respect. Maybe not so many people of other faiths would have such dangerous and depraved views of their arab brethern!

Pakistan and Afghanistan are not an Arabic countries lol people need to stop assuming every Arabic is Muslim or every Muslim is Arabic.

Thats true they are Asian countries. Sorry for the confusing post. I should have said Muslim world. In Egypt for example Christians need to carry identity cards and muslims are not allowed to legally convert. Also Christians are expected to wear a tattoo identifying them as such. That sounds like Nazi Germany except for the killing and concentration camps.

Jordan, Syria , Saudi Arabia. All these countries even America's allies abuse and mistreat religious minorities. Especially Christians but also Jews and other faiths. But no your right I should be talking about the whole Muslim world rather then simply arab. Notice I also mentioned Darfur. I got carried away and made a mistake. But the point remains the same!

It's of course easy to find similar or even worse incidents in other countries as well. But it's only understandable that many people find this more shocking than similar incidents in other countries.

1. The jews are usually seen as THE ultimate victims of racism, which makes it disturbing to see some of them as offenders acting racist themselves.

There was something similar in Germany just a couple of weeks ago. A few years ago some foreign-looking guy got beaten up by two jobless drunk neonazis and he died shortly after. It was a huge story in the media, the man had a small boy and everybody felt sorry for the poor kid. Today the boy is a teenager in jail, because he started to act pretty much exactly like those people who killed his father: He started to spend most of his evenings being drunk on the streets, beating up and stealing everyone he believed to be german or whose face he simply didn't like. He did just the same as probably thousands of teenage boys, but his case got way more media attention because people had him in mind as a victim and expected him to act just the opposite based on his experiences.

2. People use different moral expectations for different countries. If someone gets death penalty in north korea, it's hardly going to shock anyone because you'd expect things like that to happen on a daily basis in a country with north korea's reputation. Death penalty in the USA causes much more attention in Europe, because it's strange to see a country considered to have high modern ethical standards do something usually believed to still happen only in medieval third world countries.

So it's of course correct to say similar or even worse things happen in countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria etc. as well. But are those countries really the kind of league Israel wants play in, the kind of countries Israel wants to be compared to? That's like the school kid who excuses his bad grades in school by saying "There were two kids who got even worse grades, so what are you complaining about anyway?"

Dont let it wind you up Ragebot.

I reckon Iran are about 3 years away from Nuclear Launch capability.

Once that happens Israel and Iran will sort the problem out permanently in around 20 mins.

Racists are racist, no matter where they life or who they are racist against.

Those gus disgust me like all racists do.