Our agency received the book, Torat HaMelech, for review, more than a year ago. We read Torat HaMelech and concluded that this was a compendium of Rabbinical opinions about how to cope with non- Jews during a time of combat. All perspectives were presented in the book. Shortly after our agency received the book for review , an New Israel Fund client, an organization known as the “12th of Heshvan” ( The day that Yitzhak Rabin was killed) distributed select quotations from the book, leading people to believe that the book advocates the murder of non Jews. The organization went to the Israeli police, who confiscated all copies of the book from the publisher. Other reporters could not receive a copy of the book for review. They had to rely on the snippets that they received from the “12th of Heshvan” organization To convince the public of their perspective, the “12th of Heshvan” organization used a radical community organizing tactic, taken from Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals: Accuse the adversary of an extreme position, even if he never took that position. The adversary falls into the trap of defending a position that he never took, instead of challenging the integrity of the temerity of the accusation. The accusers of Torat Hamelech and its Rabbis – Rav Leor, Rav Shapiro, Rav Elitzur and Rav Yosef – have by now convinced the public domain of Israel, including every level of the Israeli law enforcement system, that the book advocates the premeditated murder of non Jews, and the book’s authors have therfore gone on the defense. Jerusalem lawyer Asher Fink, who is organizing the campaign to arrest the authors and endorsers of the book, said to our agency that he would not accept the idea that the book, Torat HaMelech, represents a compendium of ideas on the subject. Fink was emphatic in insisting that the book represents a manual for murdering non Jews. Fink said that he studied in a Yeshiva, and that the Rabin killing changed his perspective and influenced his life . It would be appropriate for journalists, academics and Rabbis to request review copies of Torat HaMelech, to decide for themselves whether the book is a compendium of opinions or a murder manual. Meanwhile, a prominent Rabbi who had attacked the book, Torat HaMelech and its authrors, in the well read publication Shabbat B’Shabbato, admitted to our agency that he never read the book. However, as mentioned, the police have confiscated all copies from the publisher. Meanwhile, our agency sent a letter of query to every official of the Israeli law enforcement system to ask them if they have read the book, TORAT HAMELECH. Israel Minister of Justice Neeman’s spokesman provided an angry “no comment” to the question as to whether Neeman had read the book. Neeman , for the record, is the first Orthodox Jew and the first talmud scholar to hold the position of Israel Minister of Justice. Other Israeli law enforcement system officials would not respond to the question as to whether they had ever read the book. One Israeli police official said, off the record, that “selections of the book that we have received were enough to warrant a police investigation”. Yes, “selections†of a book provided the basis for the arrest of a scholar who gave endorsement to a book.. So there you have it. A nation that prides itself in democratic due process prosecutes authors of a scholarly work because a political lobby hands over tendentious selections of that book to to the police. Is there something rotten in Jerusalem? See also: http://israeljustice.com/

2 COMMENTS

  1. You hit the nail right on the head. The public needs innoculation against brainwashing, which requires an understanding of Alinsky-type tactics as well as a study of media theory and how it works on the intellect and the senses. While the national-religious public is becoming active in media, the public understanding of how it works is not progressing much.

  2. Perhaps the text should be made available online, to give the public a chance to judge the book for themselves?

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.