Shas leader: Whoever supports Yisrael Beiteinu supports Satan

[bemildred]

Shas' spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, said during his weekly Saturday-night sermon at his house that whoever supports Yisrael Beiteinu "supports Satan."

"These are people who do not have Torah, people who want civil marriages, shops that sell pig, and military recruitment of yeshiva students. My heart is heavy. Heaven forbid people support them. This is completely forbidden. Whoever does so, his sin is unbearable. Whoever does so supports Satan and the evil inclination," said the rabbi. (Ronen Medzini)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3668128,00.html

[Idealism]

1. There is no room for this in politics

[NOW tense]

2. I support Satan

He is a great hockey player.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. I've been saying for some time that the Shas party is the critical mass in Israeli politics

[LeftishBrit]

4. I tend to agree that Yisrael Beiteinu are the devil. But not for the reasons that Shas does!

At any rate, there are few things so delicious to a left-winger as the sight of the Religious Right and the Xenophobic Right eating each other, instead of getting into bed with each other! Long may it continue - and if only it was the same everywhere!

[bemildred]

5. Yes.

Also for the people that start whining about the superiority of "Western Democratic Values".

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. I read two interesting points recently

One regarding Yisrael Beiteinu and another regarding Shas.

As strange as it may sound, Yisrael Beiteinu is NOT opposed in principle to the two-state solution or opposed to withdrawing settlements from the West Bank. They hold a hardline and overtly racist position against the Arab citizens of Israel. But their attitude toward the Occupied Territories is no where near as hardline as Likud.

Regarding Shas, I recall recently reading that theologically speaking they could fairly be described as anti-Zionist. They may go through a series of theological loopy-loops in justifying why they participate in the State of Israel including several governments, but in they do not recognize the legitimacy of the modern Israeli state - at least in any religious sense. Like many other ultra-orthodox, they believe that true Israeli return will come only with the advent of the Messiah.

[bemildred]

7. Yes, stereotypes really do not illuminate much.

All the war-unity seems to be dissipating now too.

[bemildred]

8. Baba Sali’s Son: Don’t Vote for Lieberman

(IsraelNN.com) Baba Baruch, the son of the late holy sage from Netivot named the Baba Sali, said Sunday that his father appeared to him in a dream and warned that Israelis should not vote for Israel is Our Home party leader Avigdor Lieberman in the upcoming elections.

According to Baba Baruch, his father told him that Lieberman wants to destroy the Jewish identity of Israel by allowing civil marriages and relaxing the rules for conversion. Shas leader Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef has made similar claims about Lieberman.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/160447

[bemildred]

9. Kadima, Likud Tell Israelis Not to ‘Waste’ Votes in Elections

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Israel’s Kadima and Likud told voters not to “waste” their ballots on smaller parties as the latest polls showed a tight race between the two ahead of Feb. 10 parliamentary elections.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition Likud party dropped to a two-seat lead over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s ruling Kadima faction, according to polls published Feb. 6, the last day such surveys are permitted under Israeli election law.

Forming a government requires a party or coalition enlisting at least half the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. A poll of 1,000 Israelis published Feb. 5 in Haaretz newspaper gave Netanyahu’s party 27 seats and Livni’s 25, while another in Yediot Ahronot gave Likud 25 and Kadima 23. The Haaretz survey had a margin of error of 3 percentage points, and Yediot’s 2.6 points.

The results were a drop of 3-4 seats for Likud from previous polls. The Yisrael Beitenu party, which shares Likud’s skepticism toward a peace agreement with the Palestinians and has taken an even tougher line regarding the political loyalty of Israeli Arabs, gained support.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYetgRNOQPdk&refer=worldwide

[bemildred]

10. Shas feels hot breath of Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu

Internal polls by Shas show that the ultra-Orthodox party is losing ground to its competitors on the right - Likud and especially Yisrael Beiteinu. Shas officials are concerned that the Sephardi party might win only nine or 10 seats in the next Knesset, a decline from its current 12. The opinion polls in the weekend papers show similar results.

On Saturday night, Shas' spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, told supporters that a vote for Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was "giving power to the devil" and that voting for the party that approved "shops that sell pork and civil marriage" was "utterly prohibited." A Shas source said that while "there are good responses from the grassroots to the rabbi's statements," as things look now, "Lieberman's and Bibi's growing power is nibbling away at us." The source said the party was particularly concerned that the change in the balance of power deprived Shas of some of its status as the "swing vote" in coalition making.

Shas received around 300,000 votes in the previous election, mostly from voters who were not ultra-Orthodox. Calls to tens of thousands of voters from Shas campaign headquarters have revealed that many of their voters are now leaning toward Lieberman.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1062704.html

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. So even racist warmongers like Yisrael Beiteinu are right about some things...

N.T.

[bemildred]

12. Israeli Elections: Is Avigdor Lieberman Satan?

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The "no loyalty, no citizenship" policy threatens to challenge the grudging status quo which has allowed to the Haredi community to thrive in Israel, reaping generous state subsides for their social welfare and educational network, despite the fact that many in their ranks veer from ambiguous to outright hostility towards the concept of the state that funds them.

Many of the 'black hats' believe Zionism to be a secularist aberration which has hijacked Judaism; that to reinvent the Jewish nation in the Holy Land prior to the return of the Messiah is downright heresy.

Just like Israel's Arabs, most members of the ultra-Orthodox community don't serve in the army. Yisrael Beiteinu thus questions their loyalty and right to citizenship.

By way of retaliation the Haredi - led by Shas, a religious political party that has served on numerous coalition governments - cast aspirations as to whether Yisrael Beiteinu and its supporters are Jewish at all.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/julian_kossoff/blog/2009/02/10/israeli_elections_is_avigdor_lieberman_satan

[bemildred]

13. Israel Election: Politics of Paralysis

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Such a political lineup is a sign of how Israel is adrift. In the past, Israel had leaders with vision and the fortitude to implement it. Ben-Gurion succeeded in establishing the Jewish state in 1948. Golda Meir scored an incalculable strategic victory by defeating Arab armies and occupying Arab territories in the 1967 war. Menachem Begin made peace with Egypt in 1979. Yitzhak Rabin signed a deal with the PLO before his assassination in 1995.

Today's Israeli leaders have fuzzy vision and lack the means to implement much of anything. Kadima founder Ariel Sharon, and his successors as party leader Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, realized that political realities and Palestinian demographics meant Israel could no longer occupy the West Bank and Gaza forever. Yet, none of them has put forth a sensible plan for peace with the Palestinians or shown the will to reach a final comprehensive settlement. Although Olmert-Livni resumed Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians, their three-year terms in office as PM and foreign minister will be remembered for two senseless wars - massive assaults on Lebanon and Gaza that seem to have only strengthened the militant Islamist factions that were targeted in the attacks. Israel's international standing, meanwhile, has been significantly eroded by those wars as well as its halting commitment to peace. Meanwhile, Barak, erstwhile peacemaker but defense minister during the latest war, prefers to campaign as a military man. In evident references to Lieberman and Livni, respectively, he reportedly questions whether they've killed anybody or carried a gun.

Israel's drift has been partly caused by the failure of any of its leaders to offer new vision and take meaningful steps to implement it. One of the results is a further fragmentation of Israeli politics, which is likely to paralyze the country's future course, at least for the time being. If Netanyahu, Livni, Barak and Liberman slice up the vote, there could be weeks if not months of haggling before a prime minister can form a new government. That government in turn will be deeply divided on many of the issues related to the peace process, led by a prime minister who himself or herself lacks a strong vision or the clout to implement one.

Certainly the Palestinian groups, Hamas in particular, have done their share to push Israel's political fragmentation along. Israeli voters are understandably wary of politicians who negotiate with Palestinians and get suicide bombings and rocket attacks in return. Hamas's pathetic failure to run Gaza as a model state following Israel's pullout four years ago did nothing to bolster Israel's sagging peace camp. (See pictures of Gaza digs out.)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090210/wl_time/08599187842300

[IndianaGreen]

14. Nice anti-Russian tirade, but where was the esteemed rabbi when the Russian rabble came to Israel?

A bunch of black marketeers and lumpen proletariat from a collapsing Soviet economy that made unsubstantiated claims of Jewish heritage, claims that under closer scrutiny would have prompted a traditional rabbi to require them to undergo conversion.

[bemildred]

15. Yah, it's hard to know which side to pick. Maybe neither is the right answer. nt