Remember the series of jokes that began with the mantra of "Knock, Knock"; "Who''s There?"?We have a new one. Who doesn''t like it when someone other than yourself comes a-knocking at your door?Rabbi Arik Ascherman heads the Israeli branch of Rabbis for Human Rights, another pro-Palestinian "non-violent" 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'' and even a ''protector'' in that Arabs who do seek to engage in violence and make false and unjust claims, exploit his presence at incidents near Jewish community villages in Judea and Samaria, as well as take advantage of his very good relations with the media and progressive anti-Zionist forces. I have seen him screaming at the Moskowitz Zionism Prize ceremony at David''s City and other events. Haaretz once reported on his mendacious claims that Jewish vineyards belonged to an Arab village, and the mukhtar contradicted him! He is quite anti-"occupation" but he has crossed a line which detracts, I think, from his moral position, not to speak of his interpretation of Judaism.
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 land farmed by Shiloh residents for decades. In any case, since he sees no problem in coming out to our homes, some Shiloh people decided they would visit his home. A news report informs us that:
Activists from the Shiloh region in Samaria made their way to Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest outside the home of Arik Asherman... 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...“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.”...
His supporters, to say the least, were not sanguine about this expression of freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom to protest. Here is an example:
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”. Interestingly, the Israeli police have provided a permit for this protest, while none of Sheikh Jarrah’s weekly protests ever received one.
This seems to be a copy of this, which, in a typical mean-spirited progressive fashion seeks to bully in its own way:
Israeli Settler Right Bullies Rabbi Ascherman, Protesting at His Home
(By the way, that linguistutic note above is false. 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 root, first for army saboteur - "chablan" and then to terrorist "m''chabayl". I willingly admit, though, that the reference to vineyards in Ascherman''s case is quite apt.)
I would like to assure Arik Ascherman and his fanatical anti-Zionist supporters that no violence is meant to him but that this is a matter, it would appear, of Jews only engaged in exercising their... human rights. He, of all people, should understand that.