The Bnei Menashe claim to be a lost Jewish tribe currently living in a remote corner of India. They identify as Jews and are to be sent to Nepal for fast-track conversion to so-called Orthodoxy (in the “strict” Zionist-fundamentalist sense) and thereby qualify for immigration to I$rael under the “Law of Return”. Despite that these Indian Jews have been DNA-tested and were not found to have any ancestral connection to Middle Eastern populations, they have friends in high places and fulfill a certain useful role at the moment.
The “friends” in question are Michael Freund, former assistant to I$raeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a U$-based evangelical religious organization called the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The latter, like many such evangelical outfits, is possibly something of a CIA-front. (1) (2) (3)
Rabbi Eliyaho Avichail, who has worked with the Bnei Menashe Jews since the 1980s, believes that Armageddon is at hand, to be waged in Jerusalem — all the world is pitted against Israel. Avichail professes to believe that there are around 6 million members of “lost” Jewish tribes who must be brought to I$rael as a matter of urgent biblical military logistics.
There are, however, less speculative reasons for I$rael to seek the migration of Bnei Menashe tribals. In fact, the Bnei Menashe are to man an armed settler outpost in illegal settlement areas in the West Bank right next to Hebron, the largest Palestinian city. They are to help destroy I$rael’s agreement to freeze the expansion of its settlements. The Bnei Menashe are particularly useful as Zionist cannon fodder because most I$raelis would not wish to put themselves in such a direct firing line. As Dror Etkes, who monitors settlement growth for Yesh Din, an I$raeli human rights group, says:
“‘There is a mutual interest being exploited here,’ he said. ‘The Bnei Menashe get help to make aliyah [immigration] while the settlements get lots of new arrivals to bolster their numbers, including in settlements close to Palestinian areas where most Israelis would not want to venture.’” (4)
In recent years, I$rael has been desperately searching for Jews to reinforce its garrison population and thus its capacity to subjugate and exploit the long-suffering Palestinian people, their land, and labour. Many non-Jews (able to migrate by virtue having even the loosest connection to non-Jewish spouses, children and grandchildren of Jews) have been subjected to racism, discrimination and even violent attacks upon entry to I$rael. The inability to assimilate many Jews, particularly from the former Soviet Union, into “respectable” settler society has led to much Knesset hand-wringing over a deepening divide in Jewish society as immigration of non-Jewish “Jews” reaches critical mass. Some establishment Zionists have even complained of the formation of a possible “fifth column”. (5) Indeed, the lack of Jewish identity, backward consciousness and social marginality of many “Jews” from the former Soviet Union has seen a rise in overtly Nazi political activity amongst some.
I$rael faces a contradiction between preserving national unity on the basis of the continuing oppression of Palestinians whilst admitting hostile non-Jewish elements and a “multi-cultural” concept of national democracy that would afford its Arab population the self-determination so deadly to the Zionist project. In the meantime, all it can do to postpone the inevitable bifurcation is to call on Unkle $am’s KKKhristian footsoldiers to help it out of its bind, in this case, with the help of desperate Third World people.
Sources
(1) ‘CIA, Mossad Promoting Evangelism in Northern Iraq’, http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8805131479
(2) ‘Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. “Thy Will Be Done”: The Conquest of the Amazon by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett( Harper Collins, 1995), reviewed by Carmelo Ruiz, http://www.cephas-library.com/church_n_state_rockefeller_and_evangelism.html
(3) ‘Bush’s Conversion Agenda for India: Preparing for the harvest …’, VK Shashikumar, Tehelka, February 2004, http://www.christianaggression.org/features_bush.php
(4) ‘Israel fast-tracking Indian immigrants to subvert settlement freeze’, Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 28 January 2010, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11037.shtml
(5) ‘Non-Jewish Immigrants Forcing Israel to Choose Between Being a “Jewish” State and a Democracy’, Allan C. Brownfeld, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2000, pages 66-67, http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/042000/0004066.html
1 comment:
Whether or not one believes that the Bnei Menashe are physical descendents of the Tribe of Menashe, the important thing is that they – as you write – identify as Jews. It is this identification with the Jewish People and Tradition which makes them potentially eligible to convert to Judaism and so take their place alongside their brothers and sisters in Eretz Israel.
The Jews are a nation and have been ever since the Exodus (the leaving of Egypt, not the ship). So, as the New York Times reported this week, various studies have shown that most Jews share a lineage that can be traced back to the Middle East. However, over the centuries many people from various backgrounds have converted to Judaism and so become part of the nation.
Therefore, your comment that the Bnei Menashe do not have an ancestral connection to Middle East populations is irrelevant. The important thing is whether they have the connection now to Jewish faith and practice and commit themselves to raising their children in the same way. However, your comment re DNA implies that, in your eyes, those Jews who can show an ancestral connection to the Middle East would have a legitimate claim to residing there – and most Jews have such a connection.
Your claim that the Bnei Menashe are being sent to Nepal for “fast-track conversion” is based on what information? Far from having friends in high places, the Bnei Menashe have struggled to have their Jewishness recognised by the Israeli rabbinate; it has taken years for them to reach the point whereby the sincerity of their commitment (which is not based on ‘Zionist’ criteria but on their willingness to submit to the requirements of God as revealed in the Torah and Jewish Tradition) has been accepted. Even though they have lived as Jews for many years, and have suffered discrimination and even persecution as a result, they still have to undergo a formal conversion process. Given that they have already been living as Jews this process may be faster than for those people who are converting without any such experience but they will be individually evaluated no less rigorously.
Your hatred of Israel and the Jews who live there – and those who want to live there – is palpable. Your ignorance of the country and of the Jewish People is pervasive.
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