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Red Rag column: Gratuitous hate; toxic Judaism; the Munich Olympics murders
By: Gideon Spiro
18 August 2016 (English translation posted 28 August 2016)

Gratuitous hate

A few days ago, Tish’a b’Av [1] was marked in Israel. As in every year, the secular public was subjected to the traditions of mourning along with unctuous words, spoken mostly, but not only, by rabbis, about the gratuitous hate, which, according to tradition, was the cause of the destruction of the Temple.

All that chatter about gratuitous hate is vacuous nonsense. Then as now, it was not gratuitous hate that caused disasters, but politics. I harbour strong hatred in my heart for enemies of democracy, among whom I count the settlers, fascists, racists and militarists who dance on blood, our leaders who send young people to sacrifice their lives for unjustified wars, and others of that type.

That is not gratuitous hate, but justified, rational hate, supported by a humanist and democratic outlook, which is the recipe for saving the Third Temple from destruction.


Toxic Judaism

The Establishment media – electronic and print – are rejoicing over the arrival of 200 Jewish immigrants (in Zionist language they are called “olim”) [2] from the USA. Among those 200 are a substantial number of youths who have come to enlist in the army. The fact that there are young American Jews who are willing to volunteer for the Occupation army and to be part of the machinery of oppression, proves how much the State of Israel has poisoned part of US Jewry.

It is a pity that no group of left-wing military refusers was there to greet the immigrants and the recruits alongside the government reception committee, to distribute material to the American youths explaining what it means to enlist in the army. One of the duties of the Left is precisely that: to disrupt ceremonies organized by the government and the Jewish Agency for youths who are immersed in mendacious Israeli propaganda.


In memory of those murdered at the Munich Olympics

Yarden Gerbi, who won a bronze medal in judo in the Rio Olympics, said after she received the medal that she dedicated it to the memory of the 11 Israelis who were murdered at the Munich Olympics. She was photographed with widows two of the victims, which moved many Israelis, and rightly so.

What Gerbi almost certainly does not know, along with thousands who waited for her at the airport, is that the 11 who perished could be with us today, if Prime Minister Golda Meir had not demanded that the Germans not accede to the abductors’ demands. A reminder of what has been forgotten: the original objective of the abductors was to capture the athletes, fly them to a third country and then conduct negotiations for an exchange of prisoners. The German government wanted to agree to their demands and conclude the incident without bloodshed, and received a negative reply from Golda Meir.

As one who participated in the Munich Olympics as a journalist, I was interviewed in one of the dailies in Germany, and I expressed my opinion that from the moment the abduction was carried out, the lives of the abductees should have been preserved and there should have been negotiations for an exchange of prisoners.

The government of Israel demanded that the German government take military action, with the result that we all know. Some of the 11 victims were killed by German fire.


Translator’s notes

1. The ninth day of the month of Av, when the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem is commemorated.

2. Literally “those who go up”, or “ascenders”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah#Etymology

Translated from Hebrew for Occupation Magazine by George Malent

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