A recent poll in Israel showed a majority of Israelis (51%) support the racism of 50 top rabbis. Agreeing that "racism originates in the Torah," the rabbis signed a declaration banning Arabs from renting or buying real estate from Jews in Israel. A staggering 41% of secular Israelis, 64% of Orthodox, and 88% of Ultra-Orthodox agree with these rabbis (See, ynetnews.com "Poll: 55% back rabbis' anti-Arab ruling" and NPN's 50 Top Israeli Rabbis: Proud to be Racists).

Most "Israel-first" evangelicals have argued that the people of Israel are remarkably peace-loving and generous constituents of the Mideast's only democracy, even if their former leaders may have done violence to the Palestinians. But past and current events contradict this.

In the spring of 1948, Menachem Begin’s terrorists massacred more than a hundred Arab inhabitants of the sleeping town of Deir Yassin. Afterward, they stripped the surviving women and girls naked and paraded them in open trucks in triumphal procession through the Jewish section of Jerusalem, "where they were subject to the mockery and insults of the onlookers." In the weeks following, such violent animosity toward Arabs increased.

The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem extensively quotes the acknowledged Israeli expert on this period, historian Benny Morris. In 1948, according to Morris, hundreds of Arab towns and cities were attacked by the Zionists, their occupants forcefully evicted. The expulsion often began with artillery shelling and even aerial attack. Many Arabs were tortured or massacred by the Israelis in order to further terrorize. Those who fled were not allowed to take any possessions with them. The Zionists bulldozed their homes to prevent return. Arabs were attacked and robbed by Jewish soldiers en route to concentration camps. Even future Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, who authorized the expulsion, was concerned about incidents of rape of Arab women. Forbidden to ever return, and receiving no compensation, they and their posterity have little hope of ever regaining their lost dignity, property, and autonomy.

And then there is the ultimate insult: Israel, the nation founded on terror, has convinced the world that the Palestinian dream of returning to their homes is now the very definition of "terrorism" in the Mid-East!

Was an evil government alone to blame for such injustice? Immediately after the Arabs fled their businesses, orchards, factories, towns, and villages (even luxurious villas), Zionist troops and the people of Israel flooded in to seize the spoils. In fact, the sale of Palestinian property flourished as a small industry in Israel for several years.

For the past 62 years, Jews occupied one of those cities, Safed, after its Arab inhabitants suffered horrendous atrocities. The Encyclopedia presents testimony by a Jewish witness of the siege of Safed. "In one case she saw an intelligence officer torture about ten Arab prisoners with a hoe until they bled to death." [Jewish witness Netiva Ben Yehuda said:] 'He beat these wounded men, burnt men who had not slept for days with their lips swollen from lack of water.' The intelligence officer refused to allow the accumulated bodies to be carried out of the interrogation room since he wished to frighten the other Arabs who were brought in." The Encyclopedia continues, describing Zionist attack upon a village near to Safed: "An Arab member of the Knesset later noted: 'When the people who were being robbed insisted on being given receipts, they were taken to a remote place and shot dead.'" In a nearby village, an Arab eyewitness testified: "As we lined up, a few Jewish soldiers ordered four girls to accompany them to carry water for the soldiers. Instead, they took them to our empty houses and raped them. About 70 of our men were blindfolded and shot to death, one after the other, in front of us."(3) Deir Yassin was actually only the first of many massacres designed by the Zionists to create terror. (See, Israel: Founded on Terror) In Duwayma, in the Hebron district: "They killed some 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. They were killed by smashing their skulls with clubs…In the village there remained Arab men and women who were put in the houses without food. Then the sappers came to blow up the houses."

There were 25,000 Arabs expelled from Safed on May 7, 1948, 98% of its former population. Living in this city today is the aged chief rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, who authored the recent controversial ruling against Arabs. Eliyahu, like most Jews of Safed, believes theirs is an unquestionably Jewish city—it is unthinkable that an Arab should even be allowed to rent an apartment there. Rabbi Eliyahu, as a leading Orthodox Talmudic authority in Israel, actually ruled that the duty to discriminate against Arabs is now "Halacha," or binding Jewish law. Any Jew who violates his ruling and allows Arabs to regain a foothold should, according to Eliyahu, be collectively punished by the Orthodox community including being forbidden to read the Torah (Talmud).

Eliyahu says Arabs should not be allowed to rent because Arabs "meddle" in the affairs of Jews. I wonder what term he uses to describe the violent expulsion of Safed's formerly Arab population into concentration camps. The United Nations defines such not as "meddling" but genocide.

http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/MostIsraelisApproveRacistRabbis.htm