For at least 17 years, a man later fired by the “Rabbis for Human Rights” criss-crossed the planet, spreading the false notion that it is illegal and even criminal for Jews to purchase land beyond the 1949 armistice lines.
In that context, UN declared this week that businesses in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan valley, Golan Heights and the Dead Sea are, indeed, criminal in nature.
While current US government policy does not approve Israeli Jewish communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines, at no time has the US Government ever issued a statement that these Jewish communities are “illegal”.
The legal US policy dates to June 30, 1922, when both Houses of the US Congress endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine”, confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine – anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea”. That is the US law relating to Jewish settlement policies in all areas of the land of Israel, defined as Palestine under the British Mandate. and it has never been contradicted by any subsequent American law.
The time has come for Rabbis for Human Rights to distance itself from their former leader, and for RHR to state that it is perfectly legal for a Jew to purchase land anywhere in Israel, even if RHR does not agree with the idea of living everywhere in Israel.
The damage done to Israel at the UN by organizations which describe Jews who live beyond the green line as criminal in nature can be repaired.
Clerics of all denominations act under a moral code.
Now is the time for RHR to invoke that moral code.
They went too far. and they know it.
That is why RHR informed our agency that they fired their former director.