Israeli Far Right Still the Darlings of WND

WorldNetDaily‘s Jerusalem correspondent Aaron Klein has a follow-up to his earlier pieces publicising a plan by Israeli radicals to hold a mass rally at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is the site of the old Jewish Temple (destroyed in 70CE), and now the location of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque. Klein warns that Muslims are not happy:

Several thousand demonstrated Friday in Cairo against a plan by Revava, a Jewish organization with the stated mission of ”restoring self-esteem to the state of Israel by restoring national pride and values,” to bring 10,000 Jews to the heavily restricted Temple Mount April 10 to spark Israeli dialogue about reclaiming the holy site from its Islamic custodians.

i.e. “spark Israeli dialogue about whether Israeli forces should illegally invade and take over the sacred space of another religion despite the bloodshed and international strife that would follow, for the benefit of a bunch of religious fundamentalists who detest Israeli democracy and whose understanding of Judaism is widely rejected anyway.” But that’s just the start of Klein’s weasel-speak:

…The Palestinian media have been portraying the Revava visit as an attempt by Jews to attack the Al Aqsa Mosque to spark a confrontation that can be used to delay Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to vacate Jewish settlements this summer from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

That damned Palestinian media! But the moronic Klein then continues:

A police official said Israel also is concerned the Jewish visit will prompt an outbreak of violence, and said police are worried some Jews will use the visit to carry out an attack on the Temple Mount in hopes of disrupting the Gaza withdrawal.

“This visit cannot happen. It will cause violence on the Temple Mount and will result in a deterioration of the security situation in Israel,” the official said. “It is just an excuse by Jewish extremists to start a conflict and try to stop [the Gaza withdrawal].”

So, the way the “Palestinian media” has been “portraying” the planned visit has actually been confirmed by the Israeli police.

As I have noted on this blog previously, there is a gaping hole at the heart of Klein’s reporting on this issue: the very obvious way he declines to tell us anything about the background of Revava or of its leader, David Ha’ivri (or “David Haivri”). This is because that background is very unpleasant, and Klein knows that WND’s readership of Christian Zionists would rather imagine pious Israelis on a religious pilgrimage than the reality of thuggish fanatics (who, by the way, also hate Christians). Here’s a report from the New York Daily News, published last August:

Violence-spewing Jewish radicals are raising big bucks in New York even though they’re tied to groups identified by the U.S. as terror organizations.

…Among the pro-settler Jews raising thousands in New York is David Haivri, who has long ties to the movement founded by Meir Kahane, the radical Brooklyn-born rabbi slain by an Egyptian Islamist in New York in 1990.

Haivri denies that he advocates violence, and:

…Haivri, cited by Israel as one of the Kahane movement’s central figures, noted that his recent fund-raising was done under the auspices of a new group called Revava, which is not on the U.S. terror groups list.

But Haivri has long been affiliated with Kahane Chai and the Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea, two banned groups.

The two groups, and about 50 others, are aliases for Kahane Chai, the Treasury Department says.

The groups are linked to violence against Palestinians and have also been called terror groups in Israel.

“If you’re an American Jew, or for that matter a Christian evangelical contributing to them, you’re contributing to a group very likely to use violence against Israeli security forces,” warned Yossi Alpher, a former official of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.

Of course, a large chunk of Klein’s readership believe that Jews must build a new Temple as prelude for the return of Christ; if Israelis who fail to play along with this fantasy get hurt, that’s their own look out. But if Klein really believes that Haivri and his cronies are the good guys, why won’t he tell the whole story?

7 Responses

  1. […] as merely “a Jewish Temple Mount activist group”. I’ve noted Klein’s failures before; the latest example of Klein’s feeble “reporting” has just […]

  2. […] of hard-right Kahanist extremists (and large numbers of American Christian Zionists), who, despite being championed by the likes of WorldNetDaily, have very little support in Israel. As the Jerusalem Post has […]

  3. […] Klein, a man whose constant shilling for the fringes of the Israeli far right has been discussed on this blog before. The topic concerns the 4 August shooting incident at Shfaram. As Klein described it at the […]

  4. […] a typically vague description employed by Klein when he’s trying to downplay his cosy contacts with the racist and extremist Israeli far-right. However, the Anti-Defamation League notes that […]

  5. […] own forays into Klein’s writing can be seen here, here, here, and here. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)WorldNetDaily Warns on US […]

  6. […] puffing of the Israeli religious right has been covered by me several times in the past – see here, here, and here. Terry Krepel has also written a general survey of Klein’s journalism at […]

  7. […] a couple of times – I brought some of these points to Terry’s attention (e.g. here, here, and […]

Leave a Reply to Archaeology and Occupation « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.