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December 25th, 2015 
Awake Goy This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
It’s always nice when Jewish friends wish Christians a good and meaningful Christmas. Right on cue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sends his best wishes. Note his solidarity with Christian suffering in different parts of the world and Israel as a haven for a protected and flourishing Christian minority.
Christians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza aren’t featured in the video. Nor are the Palestinian Christian refugees outside the Holy Land. Does Netanyahu speak for suffering Christians? I doubt it.
Does Netanyahu speak for Jews? While he doesn’t speak for all Jews, Netanyahu certainly speaks for many. Most Jews think that Judaism and the state of Israel are innocent.
The New York Times Christmas edition carries a curious report on the video now circulating of “Jewish extremists celebrating the death of a Palestinian toddler in an arson attack last summer.” I think this title covering the same event is more accurate: “Israeli Settlers at a Wedding Party Cheer Burning of a Palestinian Baby.”
The video is causing soul searching among Israeli political leaders. The Times begins by quoting Prime Minister Netanyahu’s words:
The shocking pictures that were broadcast this evening show the true face of a group that constitutes a danger to Israeli society and to the security of Israel. We are not prepared to accept people who deny the laws of the state and do not view themselves as subject to them.
Netanyahu’s challenger in the previous election, Isaac Herzog, echoes these sentiments, adding a religious flavor:
You disgrace your skullcap, your prayer shawl and the name of God. Whoever dances at a wedding and celebrates the murder of a sleeping baby is not Jewish and not Israeli.
Taken together, the current prime minister and the leader of the opposition party are in deep denial. Is it the same denial that Yitzhak Rabin showcased when he referred to Baruch Goldstein, the mass murderer of Muslims at the the Cave of the Patriarchs, as an “errant weed?”
When do we admit that errant weeds aren’t errant at all?
On the one hand, the problem is that, as in all religions and nationalities, Jewish life and Judaism is divided between those who want justice and those who commit and celebrate atrocity. In Israel, too, as in other nation-states, the powers-that-be often set the groundwork for atrocity they deny and assign to errant weeds. If we’re honest, though, Israel’s errant weeds aren’t errant at all; they are the pioneering edges of Israel’s state policy of displacement, ghettoization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Jews know how difficult it is for Christians to admit how violent their history has been and, in some cases, still is. Even when admitting that history, many Christians attempt to disentangle Christian history and a purified reclaimed faith. Few Jews sign on to this history/faith splitting of hairs. Christianity is infected with atrocity. Despite the Merry Christmas’s all around, thinking Christians know there’s no way back.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog cling to a Jewish innocence that ended with the founding of the state of Israel. Judaism and Jewish life, like Christianity and Christian life, are infected with atrocity. There’s no way back for Jewish life, either.
Source Article from http://mondoweiss.net/2015/12/infected-by-atrocity
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