text:
"A Prophet Like Moses"
(Deuteronomy 18:15–18)
in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Dead Sea Scrolls
David R. Seely
Abstract: David Seely provides a wide-ranging survey of interpretations of the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15–18 concerning "a prophet like unto Moses." He examines relevant passages in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and shows how the prophecy has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ and others, continuing with Joseph Smith's role in the Restoration and onward to the present day.
[Editor's Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.
[Page 265]See David R. Seely, ""A Prophet Like Moses" (Deuteronomy 18:15–18) in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Dead Sea Scrolls," in "To Seek the Law of the Lord": Essays in Honor of John W. Welch, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson and Daniel C. Peterson (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation, 2017), 359–74. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/to-seek-the-law-of-the-lord-essays-in-honor-of-john-w-welch-2/.]
There is a passage in Deuteronomy 18:15–18 that speaks of a future prophet like Moses. Biblical scholars argue whether this prophecy was meant to refer to the continuation of the institution in general fulfilled by a variety of future prophets or to a specific, future individual [Page 266]prophet. Early Christians interpreted this passage in Deuteronomy as being fulfilled by Christ (Acts 3:20–23). Likewise, the Book of Mormon also alludes to the prophecy twice, identifying the future prophet as Christ. The first time it is Nephi declaring "that this prophet of whom Moses spake was the Holy One of Israel" (1 Ne. 22:21). The second time it is Jesus during his visit to the Americas attesting "Behold, I am he of whom Moses spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me" (3 Ne. 20:23). This paper surveys the variety of interpretations of the pronouncement in Deuteronomy 18 beginning with the Hebrew Bible and ending with the Christian interpretation in Acts, with a focus on the rich traditions preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls in order to consider how the Book of Mormon and New Testament identification of the prophet as Christ fit into these traditions. In particular, the survey is looking for any interpretations that point to a single individual future prophet, and if other interpretations before the New Testament identify this prophet with the Messiah.
"A Prophet Like Moses" in the Bible
Chapters 16–18 in Deuteronomy describe four institutions in Israel: judges (16:18–17:13), the king (17:14–20), Levitical priests (18:1–8), and the prophet (18:18–22). Especially for the Deuteronomistic History, these definitions continue as important landmarks for these respective institutions.
The term "prophet" (Hebrew: nabi') only occurs eight times in three passages in Deuteronomy: in chapter 13 where false prophets are condemned; in chapter 18 where the characteristics of the true prophet are described; and in chapter 34:10–12, the only passage that explicitly refers to Moses as a prophet (nabi') in Deuteronomy or the Torah—besides the two passages in chapter 18 that imply Moses was a prophet. The text in 34:10–12 reads: "Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom the LORD singled out face to face, for the various signs and portents that the Lord sent him to display in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, and for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel."1 The title of Moses as prophet is relatively rare in the Hebrew Bible and is only alluded to here and elsewhere in Hosea 12:14. However, throughout Deuteronomy and the rest of the Bible, Moses is [Page 267]called by titles referencing prophets: "the servant of the Lord" (Deut. 34:5; Num. 12:7–8; Josh. 1:1) and "the man of God" (Deut. 33:1; Josh. 14:6; Ps. 90:1). Moses is considered functioning as a prophet—although not explicitly called as such.
Here we are interested in the passage in Deuteronomy 18:15–18 that talks about the Lord raising up a prophet "like Moses." In the two relevant passages, verses 15 and 18, the Lord speaking to Moses says:
15. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your own people, like myself; him you shall heed.
18. I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own people, like yourself: I will put My words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him.
Because the noun "prophet" (nabi') is in the singular, at first glance it may seem that these passages are explicitly referring to a single future individual "like Moses." However, read in context it seems more likely that "prophet" is meant in a collective sense, referring to the future succession of prophets, just as the singular "king" in 17:14–20 refers to the institution of kingship and a succession of kings, and "the Levite" in 18:6 refers to the institution and succession of Levites. Thus, this passage seems to describe the continuation of the institution of prophecy—that prophets would be raised up to receive and deliver the words of the Lord as did Moses—rather than a single individual. Elsewhere in the Bible, many are called by the title of "prophet" and a passage such as Hosea 12:11–14 refers to a succession of prophets following Moses.
The standard scholarly interpretation of this passage is expressed by S.R. Driver:
The "prophet" contemplated is not a single individual, belonging to a distant future, but Moses' representative for the time being, whose office it would be to supply Israel, whenever in its history occasion should arrive, with needful guidance and advice: in other words, that the reference is not to an individual prophet, but to a prophetical order.2
While there is no evidence in the Old Testament that the prophecy of a prophet like Moses specifically referred to a specific future messiah, some scholars argue that this passage is fulfilled by a specific prophet [Page 268]like Joshua—the successor to Moses.3 Other scholars have noted that portrayal of Moses in Deuteronomy introduced a succession of prophets and influenced the portrayal of the prophets throughout the Deuteronomistic History (2 Kings 17:13). The figure of Samuel shows characteristics of a prophet like Moses,4 and Römer notes, "Elijah is also constructed in comparison and contrast to Moses."5 Thus, throughout the Deuteronomistic History the prophecy of a future prophet like Moses is fulfilled in a series of Moses-like prophets. Jeremiah also understood himself to be a prophet like Moses. The account of his call in Jeremiah 1 shows parallels with the call of Moses in Exodus 3. Jeremiah recorded, "The LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me: Herewith I put My words into your mouth" (Jer. 1:9). This echoes Deuteronomy 18:18: "I will put My words in his mouth."6
Early Jewish and Christian Interpretations of
Deuteronomy 18:15–18
Later interpreters, however, including Jews (1 Macc. 4:46; Philo, De specialibus legibus 1:64–65), Christians (John 1:21, 45; 6:14; 7:40; Acts 3:22; 7:37) and Muslims (who identify this prophet as Muhammad in the Quran 7:157) interpreted the singular reference to a prophet as a specific individual. In particular, some of these interpretations read this passage as referring to an eschatological figure who would come in the end-time preceding the messiah or messiahs.
In order to give some perspective to the passages related to the issue of "a prophet like Moses" let us look at a few representative examples of Jewish and Christian interpretations. In 1 Maccabees there are two passages that allude to a future prophet in language resembling Deuteronomy 18. 1 Maccabees 4:45–46 reads: "So they tore down [Page 269]the altar, and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until a prophet should come to tell what to do with them." And
1 Maccabees 14:41: "The Jews and their priests have resolved that Simon should be their leader and high priest forever, until a trustworthy prophet should arise." While these passages are somewhat vague they appear to refer to the coming of a future individual prophet although they do not necessarily refer to this prophet being like Moses.
Elsewhere, a passage in Philo does allude to the prophet like Moses talked about in Deuteronomy 18:15–18. After describing the nature of humans to seek after the future through divination and omens, as condemned in Deuteronomy 18:14, Philo says: "A prophet possessed by God will suddenly appear and give prophetic oracles" (De specialibus legibus 1:64–65).7 This is one of the clearest passages that demonstrates the Jewish interpretation of a single future prophet.
Later, Christians apparently interpreted the passage in Deuteronomy 18 as the promise of a single messianic prophet at end time that they would identify with Jesus (John 1:21, 24, 45; 6:14; 7:40–41; Acts 3:22; 7:37). A passage from the Gospel of John demonstrates that in the first century there was the idea of a future prophet and a Messiah as is also attested in the Qumran texts. The passage reads: "When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, 'This is really the prophet.' Others said, 'This is the Messiah'" (John 7:40–41). And a passage in Acts 7:37 reads: "This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, 'God will raise up a prophet for you from your own people as he raised me up.'"
Consequently, much of the scholarship on the "prophet like Moses" has been generated by New Testament studies and much of this scholarship deals with the eschatological prophet in conjunction with the future messiah or messiahs.8
"A Prophet Like Moses" in the Dead Sea Scrolls
At least two texts from Qumran, both of which are considered sectarian texts, directly cite or allude to Deuteronomy 18 in regards to prophets, and both appear to interpret verses 18–20 as a reference to an eschatological prophet like Moses (1QS 9:9–11 and 4QTestimonia [Page 270][4Q175], lines 5–8). In addition there are many other passages that may or may not be related to the coming of a prophet "like Moses." Here we will look at these passages to address four questions: 1) What are the views of the Dead Sea Scrolls about the future prophet "like Moses." 2) What is the role that this prophet is to have? 3) Who are the possible candidates to fulfill this role? And, 4) How do the interpretations of this prophet in the Dead Sea Scrolls fit in with the history of the interpretation of this prophecy in Judaism and Christianity?
There is a great wealth of literature on this topic with many different interpretations of the data.9 To facilitate our discussion we will focus our attention on the most important related texts.
The passage that is most often identified with the expectation of an eschatological prophet like Moses is found at the conclusion of the rules in the Rule of the Community (1QS) from Cave 1. The passage reads:
They shall deviate from none of the teachings of the Law, whereby they would walk in their willful heart completely. They shall govern themselves using the original precepts by which the men of the Yahad began to be instructed, doing so until there come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel. (1QS IX, 9–11)10
This passage presents the idea of a future prophet and two messiahs—all three seem to be eschatological figures—and all three may be considered messianic figures—that is anointed ones.11 Let us take a moment to analyze exactly what the Rule of the Community says about the role of these three eschatological figures. The passage in 9:9–11 occurs in the text after the rules of the Community (Yahad) are given, and it says that the Community is to be governed by these rules until [Page 271]the coming of the three eschatological figures who will then apparently overturn the old rules and institute new ones. The reference to the "Prophet" (nabi') appears to be an allusion to Deuteronomy 18:15. While it is not clear if the three figures together, or one or another of them, will fulfill this role in the Rule of the Community, it seems apparent in Testimonia (4Q175), which was written in the same hand as 1QS, that this legal role is the role of the future prophet "like Moses" referred to in Deuteronomy.
The sectarian texts from Qumran place great emphasis on eschatology. Several texts, such as the War Scroll (1QM) and the Pesharim, deal almost exclusively with the end of time. The prevailing view in the sectarian texts is that during the end time two messiahs will appear to lead the congregation.12 From these passages it is possible to learn much about these messianic figures. On the other hand the prophet mentioned in the Rule of the Community IX, 9–11 who will serve as a forerunner to these messiahs is only specifically mentioned in the scrolls here and in Testimonia. From this we can deduce that there was less interest in the eschatological prophet than in the eschatological messiahs, and it is thus more difficult to understand the perceived role of this prophet and who he might be. From a close reading of the text we can summarize what we do know. First, it seems clear that the intention is of a single prophet; second, that this prophet is an eschatological prophet; and third, that his function in the Rule of the Community seems to be as lawgiver to replace the current set of rules with new ones; and fourth, both texts agree that the prophet will come before, perhaps as a forerunner, to the two messianic figures: the Messiah of Aaron and the Messiah of Israel. So who are these figures and what is the relationship between them? And, is the prophetic figure himself a messianic or "quasi-messianic" figure as some scholars have argued?
The role of the "prophet like Moses" is also specifically mentioned in Testimonia accompanied by the reference in Deuteronomy. Because it appears to be written in the same scribal hand as 1QS, Testimonia is considered to be from the same time period with a similar point of view. Testimonia is a short text composed of four units of citations of scripture, the first three providing a scriptural proof-text for each of [Page 272]the three anticipated eschatological figures: the prophet, the king, and the priest or Levite—the same three offices described in Deuteronomy 16–18 and referred to in the Rule of the Community 9:11. The Prophet is described in the terms of Deuteronomy 5:28–29 and 18:18–19—a prophet "like Moses."13 The King is described in terms of Balaam's prophecy in Numbers 24:17: "A star rises from Jacob, A scepter arises from Israel."14 And the Priest is described in terms of Deuteronomy 33:8–11 "And of Levi he said: Let your Thummim and Urim Be with Your faithful one." The fourth citation is a reference to Joshua and the foundation of Jericho.
The passage in Testimonia that describes the prophet quotes the passage in Deuteronomy 18:18–19 and reads:
I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own kindred like you and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. If there is someone who does not heed my words which the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. (4Q175, 5–8)15
Here the biblical idea that the Lord would simply call a succession of future prophets to replace Moses after he died appears to be changed. Testimonia shifts the calling of a prophet like unto Moses as a reference to a succession of prophets into a single eschatological figure and defines one of his tasks to be a mediator of law. If read in conjunction with the passage in the Rule of the Community an argument could be made that the prophet who is to precede the two messiahs is the one to be the lawgiver for the new laws.
The two messiahs—"anointed (ones) of Aaron and of Israel"—are mentioned elsewhere together in the Dead Sea Scrolls (CD 12:23; 14:19; 19:10–11; 20:1; 1QS 9:11) and scholars have argued that these two anointed ones—messiahs—are based on other similar models in [Page 273]scripture that include a spiritual and a political leader. Such pairs include Moses and Aaron, Aaron and Israel, Solomon and Zadok, the two "sons of oil" Jeshua and Zerubbabel, and later Bar Kochba and the High Priest Eleazar.16
Related to the prophet like Moses figure, a passage found in the Damascus Document identifies an important individual who will come as an eschatological teacher. This passage reads: "Until the rise of one who will teach righteousness (yoreh hatsedek) in the end of days" (CD VI, 10–11).17 It is possible that this is a reference to the eschatological prophet. The image in Testimonia of the Lord putting words in the mouth of the prophet that he will speak in the Lord's name can easily be interpreted as one who "teaches righteousness." In addition a passage in Hosea 10:12 alludes to a future prophet, "until he comes and teaches righteousness" which may be the language from which CD 6:11 is drawn.18
Identification of the Prophet
Elsewhere in the Qumran texts the king and the priest are called by other titles. For example the king is called the "Prince of the Congregation" (CD 7:20; 4Q285.5.5; 6:2–10; 1QM 5, 1; 4QpIsaa 2:14), and the priest is called the "interpreter of the Law" (CD 7:18; 4QFlor 1.i.11). Reflecting the emphasis in the Dead Sea Scrolls on the messianic figures over the future prophet much has been written about the significance and identification of the two messianic figures.19 Let us look at some texts from Qumran that describe the prophet, and the possible candidates of this figure, to develop a list of similar epithets and characteristics of the future prophet like Moses to see if a possible identification of who this prophet was thought to be is possible. We will first examine two candidates that have been proposed for the "prophet like Moses" at Qumran: the Teacher of Righteousness and Elijah.
[Page 274]From the beginning many scholars advanced the idea that the Teacher of Righteousness could be identified as a prophet, and specifically as the prophet "like Moses."20 The main objection to this idea is that the Teacher of Righteousness is never specifically called a "prophet" (nabi') in any of the texts. In fact he is specifically identified as a priest in Pesher Habbakuk (1QpHab 2:8–9) and the Pesher Psalms (4QpPsa 1–10.iii.15). Nevertheless, there is much evidence in the Qumran texts that suggest he may anciently have been considered a prophet and his ministry reflects many of the attributes of Moses: teacher, giver of the law, and interpreter of the law. In particular some believe that the Teacher of Righteousness was the author of the Temple Scroll, a work that may have been intended to serve as the law for the eschatological period as alluded to in the Rule of the Community.21 A study by George Brooke titled "Was the Teacher of Righteousness Considered to Be a Prophet?" provides a comprehensive survey of the evidence for whether the Teacher was considered a prophet at all and if so whether he was considered to be the prophet "like Moses."22
As evidence that the Teacher of Righteousness was portrayed with the qualities and functions attributed to biblical prophets we can identify passages in the Damascus Document and in the Pesharim. The passage found in the Damascus Document that identifies the eschatological teacher has also been interpreted as a reference to the Teacher of Righteousness. This passage reads: "Until the rise of one who will teach righteousness (yoreh hatsedek) in the end of days" (CD 6:10–11). From this description some have identified this eschatological teacher with the prophet "like Moses" and in particular with the Teacher of Righteousness. The Hebrew words for "teach" and "righteousness" yoreh hatsedek here are the same words used in the title Teacher of Righteousness Moreh Hatsedek and describes a figure who will, like Moses, and the Teacher of Righteousness before him, continue to teach righteousness. Of course the office of eschatological teacher may also be one assumed by the Teacher of Righteousness as a priest.
[Page 275]Two examples from the Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab) are similarly interpreted as references to the Teacher of Righteousness as the eschatological prophet, or teacher in that he is described as one who receives mysteries from God and as one who serves as a mediator—both characteristics of Moses. In Pesher Habakkuk 7:4 the Teacher of Righteousness is described: "Interpreted this concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries (raz) of the words of His servants the Prophets."23 And in 8:1–3: "Interpreted, this concerns all those who observe the Law in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver from the House of Judgement because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness."24
In regards to the question as to whether the Teacher of Righteousness was to be considered a prophet at all, if we were to assume there is autobiographical material about the Teacher of Righteousness in the Hodayot, there are many examples of the author portraying himself with prophetic attributes. As noted by Brooke: "This was not done explicitly by him claiming the title 'prophet,' but in terms of how he projected himself indirectly as a new Moses, as a new Jeremiah, as imitating the prophetic servant of the Isaianic servant songs, and even in his very act of writing hymnic poetry that could be understood prophetically."25
Even if the Teacher of Righteous was considered by the Community to be a prophet, it is strange that the term is never used about him. In terms of the identification of the Teacher of Righteousness as the eschatological prophet "like Moses," or even in his priestly office as the eschatological teacher, a further problem is that the texts were written and transmitted within the time period, either directly before, during, or after his lifetime and there is no indication that he was the forerunner of the two eschatological messiahs. It seems that if indeed the Teacher of Righteousness were to be identified with this eschatological figure there would have been some identification of this in connection with the two messiahs in the texts.26 In addition, all of the text talk of him as a historical figure in the past and separately mention the eschatological prophet and/or teacher in the future. In order to solve this problem some scholars have postulated the idea that the Teacher of Righteousness would rise [Page 276]from the dead and reappear but these theories have not gained universal acceptance.27
Brooke concludes that the question of whether the Teacher of Righteousness could be considered a prophet can be answered with a qualified "yes" or a qualified "no," but it is very unlikely that he was the eschatological prophet like Moses. In the end Brooke says, "The Teacher of Righteousness remains a somewhat shadowy figure."28 Another scholar, James Bowley, similarly summarizes the evidence, "Though in some ways he can be compared to Moses, the authority of the Teacher is nowhere explicitly based on the claim that he was a nabi'. Rather, he is presented as the divinely inspired and ordained exegete of the prophetic word."29 The consensus among scholars is that while the Teacher of Righteousness had many of the characteristics of a prophet, and may even have been considered by the Community as a prophet, he should not to be equated with the prophet "like Moses." Ironically, the fact that Moses is actually never explicitly called a prophet in Deuteronomy or in the Torah, the Teacher of Righteousness may be exactly a prophet "like Moses" in the sense that he, like Moses, functioned as a prophet, but was never actually called a prophet.
Another proposed identification of the prophet "like Moses" is the prophet Elijah. In the biblical passage at the end of Malachi the Lord exhorts Israel to "Be mindful of the Teaching of My servant Moses" and says, "Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of the LORD," (Mal. 3:22–23; [English 4:4–5]). A passage in Ben Sira (48:10) refers to Malachi when it talks of the future coming of Elijah to calm the wrath of God in order to restore Israel: "At the appointed time, it is written, you [Elijah] are destined to calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in fury, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and to restore the tribes of Jacob."
Thus, Jewish and Christian interpreters have identified Moses and Elijah as important persons that figure into the future. Perhaps echoing Malachi, Qumran texts also expect the return of Elijah and a Moses-like prophet among the sectarian (1QS, 4Q175, 11Q13) and the non-sectarian [Page 277]texts (4Q558, 4Q521).30 And in 4Q558 Malachi 3:23 [4:5] is quoted directly referring to the return of Elijah.
So the most common specific identification of the eschatological prophet "like Moses" in all of these traditions is Elijah. This fits well with the fact that since Elijah did not die but was taken into heaven he would be able to return (2 Kings 2:11).
The New Testament tradition recognizes both Elijah and Moses, perhaps based on Malachi as well. In John 1:21 the people ask John the Baptist if he is either: "And they asked him, 'What then? Are you Elijah?' He said, 'I am not.' 'Are you the prophet?' He answered, 'No.'" Later rabbinic traditions (b. Sanh 118a; b. 'Eruv 43b) also relate the future coming of Elijah as related in Malachi.
In regards to the history of the interpretation of the prophet like Moses we can summarize: the biblical passage in Deuteronomy refers to the institution of prophecy in Israel and a future succession of prophets in including perhaps specific prophets who are portrayed with characteristics of Moses. Influenced perhaps by Malachi 3 [English 4], interpreters in the inter-testamental period began to read this passage as referring to a single future prophet, and identified the specific future prophet as Elijah—an interpretation that continues in Christianity and rabbinic Judaism.
As illustrated by the passages in the Rule of the Community and Testimonia the expectation of the Community at Qumran had the expectation of the coming of a future eschatological prophet "like Moses" as prophesied by Deuteronomy 18. This prophet would receive and deliver the word of the Lord, would establish the new laws, and would precede the coming of the two messiahs. The allusion to a prophet "like Moses" in verses 15–18 evokes all of the characteristics known of Moses through the biblical text: leader, lawgiver, teacher, worker of miracles, and one who received revelation and spoke with the Lord "face to face." The Damascus Document talks of an eschatological teacher who would teach "righteousness" before the end. It is not clear if this figure is to be equated with the prophet or not. In any case, whenever the texts of Qumran speak of the coming of a prophet "like Moses," it was to [Page 278]be a figure who would be anointed, and would have power to bring the word of the Lord, to be a herald, and to precede the coming of the two messiahs. His power was not just that he would be a prophet, but that he would be a prophet "like Moses."
The New Testament followed by early Christian interpreters specifically identifies the prophet like Moses as the Messiah (Acts 3:17–26). So while the idea that the prophet like Moses was a specific future individual is attested in inter-testamental literature including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the identification of this prophet as the Messiah seems to be distinctive to Matthew and the New Testament. That this identification is also attested anciently in the Book of Mormon may be best explained by prophetic foresight.
While the Book of Mormon, like the New Testament, specifically identifies the future prophet like Moses as Christ, it also develops the idea that the institution of prophecy that continued in Israel included other future prophets like Moses. Similar to the Deuteronomistic History, the Book of Mormon records the continuation of the institution of prophecy in its history and in several cases specifically portrays prophets with characteristics of Moses. The prophets Lehi and Nephi, for example, like Moses spoke with the Lord, and delivered their family from destruction in Jerusalem and led them through the wilderness to the promised land. They became prophetic leaders and lawgivers to their people, and constantly reiterated the blessings and curses of the covenant, similar to those in Deuteronomy, associated with the promised land. The commandment repeated by prophets throughout the Book of Mormon: "And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper…And inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord" (1 Ne. 2:20–21; cf. 1 Ne. 4:14) is reminiscent of the language and theology of Deuteronomy (cf. 28:15, 29 and 29:9). And Lehi, like Moses, blessed his posterity before his death (2 Ne. 1–4; Deut. 33).31 Likewise, Abinadi confronted King Noah with the same language Moses faced Pharaoh. King Noah's response to the [Page 279]prophet "Who is Abinadi?" (Mosiah 11:27) echoes Pharaoh's "Who is the LORD?" (Exod. 5:2), and Abinadi threatened the people with a series of plagues reminiscent of those performed by Moses and Aaron on the Egyptians including pestilence, hail, the east wind, and insects (Mosiah 12:3–7; Exod. 7–10). Additionaly, Abinadi, as a synopsis of the law of Moses, delivered the Ten Commandments to Noah's priests.32
Finally, Latter-day Saint tradition continues to describe their prophets as prophets "like Moses." Joseph Smith was said to have received revelations "even as Moses" (D&C 28:2) and to lead his people like Moses (D&C 103:16). Brigham Young is referred to by the saints as the Mormon Moses or the American Moses who delivered them from bondage and led them into the wilderness to the Promised Land.33 For Latter-day Saints the prophecy of Deuteronomy 18 that the Lord will raise up a prophet like Moses has been fulfilled in the past by Christ and others and continues to be fulfilled through the Restoration to the present day.
1. Translations of the Hebrew Bible are from the New Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) and translations of the Apocrypha and the New Testament are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) unless noted otherwise.
2. S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1902), 229.
3. Hans M. Barstad, "The Understanding of the Prophets in Deuteronomy," Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 8, no. 2 (1994): 243.
4. Mark Leuchter, "Samuel: A Prophet Like Moses or a Priest Like Moses," in Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History, Mignon R. Jacobs and Raymond F. Person Jr, eds. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 147–68.
5. Thomas C. Römer, "Moses, Israel's First Prophet, and the Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Prophetic Libraries," in Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History, 129–46, in particular 141.
6. William L. Holladay, "The Background of Jeremiah's Self Understanding: Moses, Samuel and Psalm 22," Journal of Biblical Literature (JBL) 83, no. 2 (1964): 153–64 and "Jeremiah and Moses: Further Observations", JBL 85, no. 1 (1966): 17–27. See also Römer, "Moses, Israel's First Prophet," 136–40 and Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah: Prophet Like Moses (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015).
7. Philo VII, trans. F. H. Colson, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937), 137.
8. See for example Dale Allison, The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) and John Lierman, The New Testament Moses: Christian Perceptions of Moses and Israel in the Setting of Jewish Religion (Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen Germany, 2004).
9. See John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (New York: Doubleday, 1995); Alex P. Jassen. Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Michael A. Knibb, "Apocalyticism and Messianism" in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, John J. Collins and Timothy H. Lim, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 403–32; and most recently see Jeffrey Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
10. Translation from The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Volume 1, 2nd ed., Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, eds.(Leiden: Brill, 2014), 27.
11. The passage about the prophet and the two messiahs in not found in the other copies of the Rule of the Community found at Qumran, which raises the issue of the dating of the manuscripts and the development or deletion of the idea of the coming of a prophet and two messiahs.
12. The Damascus Document (CD) talks of the coming of the messiah(s) with a singular noun: "And this is the exact interpretation of the rules by which [they shall be ruled until there arise the messiah] of Aaron and of Israel. And their iniquity will be atoned…" (CD XIV, 18–19). The singular noun "messiah" has led some to believe that CD anticipated a single priestly messiah. See the discussion in Michael A. Knibb, "Apocalyticism and Messianism," 421–22.
13. A scriptural discussion also combining Deut. 5:28–29 and 18:18 is found in 4QReworked Pentateuch (4Q158), but it does not discuss the future prophet. See the discussion in James C. Vanderkam, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 39–43.
14. In the Damascus Document (7, MS A) the scepter in the oracle of Balaam is interpreted as the "Prince of the Congregation"—the Davidic messiah, and the star, instead of being interpreted as the priest by analogy to the messiahs of Aaron and Israel, is interpreted as "the Interpreter of the Law." See John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 63–64, 102.
15. Translation from James H. Charlesworth ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, Volume 6B: Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 313.
16. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming The Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: Doubleday, 1995), 322.
17. Translation from James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, 23.
18. Collins, The Scepter and the Star, 113–14.
19. Collins, The Scepter and the Star; Michael A. Knibb, "Eschatology and Messianism in the Dead Sea Scrolls." In Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions. SVTP 22 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 307–26. James C. VanderKam, "Messianism and Apocalypticism" in J. J. Collins, B. McGinn, and S. J. Stein, eds., The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. 3 vols. (New York: Continuum, 1998), vol. 1, 193–228.
20. Michael O. Wise, "The Temple Scroll and the Teacher of Righteousness," in Mogilany 1989: Papers on the Dead Seas Scrolls, Vol. 2, Z. J. Kapera, ed. (Kraków: Enigma, 1991), 142.
21. Michael O. Wise, A Critical Study of the Temple Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (Chicago: The Oriental Institute of Chicago, 1990), 184.
22. George J. Brooke, "Was the Teacher of Righteousness Considered to be a Prophet?" in Prophecy after the Prophets? The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Understanding of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Prophecy, K. De Troyer, A. Lange, L. L. Schulte, eds. (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 77–97.
23. Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 4th ed. (London: Penguin Books, 1995), 343.
24. Ibid, 344.
25. Brooke, "Was the Teacher Considered a Prophet?" 84–85.
27. Ibid..
28. Brooke, "Was the Teacher Considered a Prophet?" 97.
29. James E. Bowley, "Prophets and Prophecy at Qumran," in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, Vol. 2, Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 354–78, in particular 371.
30. Alex P. Jassen, Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 188. See also John C. Poirier, "The Endtime Return of Elijah and Moses at Qumran," Dead Sea Discoveries 10.2 (2003): 221–42.
31. See Noel B. Reynolds, "Nephite Kingship Reconsidered," in Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World, ed. Davis Bitton (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 172–77 for a list of 21 points of comparison between Nephi and Moses; "Lehi as Moses," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9, no. 2 (2000): 26–35; and "The Israelite Background of Moses Typology in the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (2005): 5–23. See also George S. Tate, "The Typology of the Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon," in Literature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experience, Neal E. Lambert, ed. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1981), 246–62 and S. Kent Brown, "The Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon," in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998), 75–98.
32. David R. Seely, "Abinadi, Moses, Isaiah, and Christ: O How Beautiful upon the Mountains Are Their Feet," in The Book of Mormon: The Foundation of Our Faith: the 28th Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1999), 201–16.
33. Not only did the early saints refer to Brigham Young as Moses, but Brigham Young also referred to himself as Moses. Willard Richard's Journal contains a quote by Brigham Young, "I feel all the time like Moses." "Unlike the original Moses though Young would reach what Clayton termed, 'the place which God for us prepared." (Willard Richard's Journal 14 March 1847). Quoted from John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 148, 443 n. 8.
Posted in Article, To Seek the Law of the Lord and tagged Bible, Book of Mormon, Dead Sea Scrolls, Deuteronomy 18, Moses on December 21, 2020 . Bookmark the permalink.
About David R. Seely
David R. Seely is professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. He received his undergraduate and Masters degree at BYU in ancient Greek and Classics and his PhD from the University of Michigan in Near Eastern studies. Together with Professor Moshe Weinfeld, he published the Barkhi Nafshi hymns from Qumran in the Oxford series Discoveries in the Judean Desert and he co-authored with William Hamblin the book Solomon's Temple in Myth and History, and with Richard Holzapfel and Dana Pike Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament. In addition, he co-edited with John W. Welch and Jo Ann H. Seely the volume Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem.
View all papers by David R. Seely →
Go here to see the one thought on ""A Prophet Like Moses" (Deuteronomy 18:15–18) in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Dead Sea Scrolls".


text:
By +972 Magazine
|Published August 16, 2018
Between garbage and sewage: Israel's future plans for Khan al-Ahmar
To avoid being transferred to a garbage dump in East Jerusalem, the villagers of Khan al-Ahmar will have to convince three other Bedouin communities to evacuate the area. After that, they can live near a wastewater site.
By Hagai El-Ad
A child looks on at the remains of demolished homes in the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar, July 4, 2018. (Yaniv Nadav/Flash90)
Since the mid-1970s, Israel has been working to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank area which lies east of Jerusalem. Special efforts have been invested in emptying the "Ma'ale Adumim bubble" — the sizable swath of land extending eastwards, from the outskirts of East Jerusalem about halfway to Jordan, to be enclosed by the planned separation barrier – of Palestinians. These efforts are explicit, ongoing, and violent.
How to fight the demolition of a West Bank school? Start the year early
By Oren Ziv | July 16, 2018
The West Bank villages under threat no one is talking about
By Orly Noy | July 11, 2018
'They destroyed everything': Israel's decades-long war against the Jahalin Bedouin
By Joshua Leifer | June 13, 2018
'We aren't going anywhere': This Palestinian village is preparing for the worst
By Oren Ziv | July 3, 2018
Nonetheless, the state's recent brazen admission of its intentions before the High Court of Justice, in its response to a new petition against demolishing the village Khan al-Ahmar, is a new low.
To justify the forcible transfer of Palestinians out of their homes, the state peppered the court with formalistic arguments based on the "rule of law," context be damned. The residents of Khan al-Ahmar were accused of "building illegally," as though Israel leaves Palestinians in Area C any option to build legally.
They were faulted with living too close to Route 1, which connects Jerusalem with the Dead Sea, conveniently ignoring the fact that they were there years before the road was ever built, and are willing to move 100 meters to the north, away from the road, to placate the state. These and other absurd legalisms were enlisted in order to avoid spelling out before the court Israel's aforementioned true motivation: cleansing "the Ma'ale Adumim bubble" of Palestinians.
Yet this underlying motivation becomes ever more explicit as the state, in its response to the new petition, suddenly tied the future of Khan al-Ahmar to its neighbors. Of course, we are not speaking of the settlers who live nearby, but rather three other Palestinian communities that are now somehow also slated for expulsion. The state did not even bother to come up with an excuse for this, but simply declared that the planned expulsion now includes not "only" the 30-plus families of Khan al-Ahmar, but the entire "four compounds of the Jahalin Abu Dahuk tribe, comprising some 80 families" — that is more than 400 people in total.
Doubling the number of people to be expelled was presented as a precondition to offering Khan al-Ahmar an alternate relocation site, this time next to a wastewater treatment center: "This plan will be promoted in keeping with all the provisions of the law, and advancing it will be contingent upon having all the relocating families sign an affidavit stating that they commit to evacuating the Khan al-Ahmar compound independently and without violence."
SUBSCRIBE TO +972 MAGAZINE'S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
In other words: the state is ready, and has been for more than two months, to transfer Khan al-Ahmar's families directly to the initially proposed "permanent site" near the Abu Dis garbage dump. It has emphasized it is "in the final stages of preparation for fulfilling the final demolition orders for the Khan al-Ahmar compound." But since a new petition was filed anyway, why not try and leverage it to transfer even more Palestinians from the "Ma'ale Adumim bubble?" Never mind that they have nothing to do with the petition. Never mind the mind-boggling cynicism of expecting a Palestinian community to persuade hundreds of other Palestinians to join them in "consensually" abandoning their homes, supposedly for their own good. Never mind how explicit it makes the state's true intentions: to dispossess and expel as many Palestinians as possible from the area marked for cleansing.
Over the years, and through dozens and dozens of petitions by various Palestinian communities, the High Court deepened the breach of justice it set by its failure to rule from the outset against the expulsion of protected people from their land. This failure became an outright disgrace on May 24 this year, when the justices green-lighted forcible transfer — a war crime — in the case of Khan al-Ahmar. The new petition, filed by a group of Palestinian attorneys, may be the court's last chance to look reality in the eye, to stop serving the state's policy by accepting formalistic quibbling, and prevent this crime from taking place.
Map of the communities near Khan al-Ahmar marked for demolition and transfer. (B'Tselem)
On the ground, the authorities are subjecting all the Palestinian communities in the area, including Jabal al-Baba and Abu Nuwar, to incessant, violent pressure, mostly through constant threat of demolitions and the denial of basic infrastructure. Israel's endgame here is to remove all these communities and use the separation barrier to de-facto annex the "Ma'ale Adumim bubble" — devoid of Palestinians. Of course, it intends to also retain control over the areas beyond the separation barrier: the enclaves in which it will graciously allow isolated islands of Palestinians to continue with what remains of their lives.
How foul is this policy? From the state's perspective, the residents of Khan al-Ahmar can "choose" to live by the Abu Dis garbage dump — or by the a sewage treatment plant, which happens to serve, among others, the settlement of Kfar Adumim: the very same settlement whose residents repeatedly petitioned the High Court to have their Palestinian neighbors kicked out. This is Israel's plan: the Palestinians who were the neighbors of Kfar Adumim will either become the neighbors of that settlement's sewage or of Jerusalem's garbage. It does not matter — as long as the area is cleansed.
Hagai El-Ad is Executive Director of B'Tselem. This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.
abu dis
Bedouin Palestinians
High Court of Justice
israeli settlements
khan al ahmar
The right's plan to get rid of Israel's High Court
Israel doesn't have to be an apartheid state
Accepting "absurd legalisms…accepting formalistic quibbling…Over the years, and through dozens and dozens of petitions by various Palestinian communities, the High Court deepened the breach of justice it set by its failure to rule from the outset against the expulsion of protected people from their land.the justices green-lighted forcible transfer — a war crime."
This is a rogue state. Lawless. Fanatic, ruthless, cruel and devious. Hiding behind a constructed officiousness. Israel it seems never does anything honest and above board when it comes to the occupation. The process here spelled out by Hagai El-Ad is more testimony to that fact. But what has also emerged all too clearly is that the so-called "High Court" is really the High Handmaiden, the willing perfect participant; a rubber stamp; a legalistic fig leaf provider; a co-conspirator in war crimes. The High Court has over the years in step after step made itself an integral part of the occupation machinery. It was always thought to be the last partial holdout in the seamless web, and now is fully inside the web if it will not stay the hand of this organized criminal enterprise and will not protect these protected persons under law. This is it. This is the game changer:
https://972mag.com/the-demolition-of-khan-al-ahmar-is-more-than-just-a-war-crime/136648/
If the High Court fails to protect Khan al-Ahmar it fails completely and loses all credibility.
What the hell are you talking about? it was proven in the High Court how the Bedouin (who are now "Palestinians") squatting there are relatively new to the area using undeniable evidence (aerial photos), they are of the Jahalin tribe from southern Israel, they are there because of an inner tribal conflict which made a few families flee the tribe in the 1970's. The are used by the Palestinians as political pawns due to the strategic place where they decided to settle in.
From the day they arrived they knew they were squatting inside an Israeli municipality, and that it was not a long-term solution for them just like the other similar Bedouin settlements which eventually relocated. The only reason the Palestinians are taking such an interest in them is because that region sits on one of the key areas in the "Fayyad Plan" vision.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12416/palestinian-illegal-building
All explained in detail in the Facebook comments section and regular comments section in the link you yourself provided.
I've got news for you honeybunch,
1. Aaaall those settlers of Kfar Adumim, every single one of them, are "relatively new to the area." You are priceless.
2a. Kfar Adumim in NOT "an Israeli municipality." (To say it is, is a quite brazen lie.) Kfar Adumim is a (illegal) settlement in occupied territory, not inside Israel. This is a fact. I repeat, it is neither an "Israeli municipality" nor "an Israeli township."
(To anticipate a predictable fudging response, that it is under temporary Israeli occupation authority "administrative control" (by way of an Oslo "accord" that was supposed to have led to a solution years ago but has instead been used in bad faith to extend the occupation by Israel) does not make it "an Israeli township." You cannot by sleight of hand turn the temporary Oslo arrangement into a final status accord. (See "An agreement on indefinite occupation: Oslo celebrates 19 years," Noam Sheizaf, September 13, 2012.) I
Kfar Adumim is no more "an Israeli township" legally than fifteen Americans moving to France and renting houses in one locale make a French village "an American municipality."
3. You repeat right wing disinformation as "fact." The families from the Jahalin tribe in Khan al-Ahmar were expelled from their home in the Negev to the West Bank in the 1950s by the Israeli Army. After the initial expulsion, members of this community leased land for residence and for herding in the area where the Kfar Adumim settlement is now located. After they were expelled from there, too, they resettled in their current precise location. Kicked from place to place by the Israelis. Aerial photographs and testimony by villagers show that the residents wandered within the Jerusalem-Jericho region before gradually establishing permanent residence in Khan al-Ahmar in or around the 1970s. Khan al-Ahmar is just one of a number of villages that are home to the Jahalin. But they were there certainly no later than the settlers, who arrived in 1979. Really, the shamelessness of portraying the Arab residents there, but not the Jewish ones, as "recent arrivals"!
The Israeli Supreme Court Justice who ruled that the Israeli army can move Susiya and Kfar al-Ahmar to a different location was Noam Sohlberg, himself a settler in the West Bank!!! Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse!
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-what-to-know-about-west-bank-village-at-eye-of-diplomatic-storm-1.6246936
This is all basic information available on Wikipedia, via Btselem, Haaretz and elsewhere. Please spare us sneaky "Gatestone.org disinformation pieces. That you have to reach that far outside the respectable mainstream to get your "information" is a statement all by itself. Yet another set of Ido Geller's "facts" that are sneaky distortions masquerading as facts.
4. One has to laugh at the sheer brazenness of their describing "The Fayyad Plan" (Official title: "Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State") as "the creation of a de facto state — without the need for negotiation with Israel — through facts on the ground." I mean this is about as shameless as it gets. The entire occupation, Kfar Adumim of course included, is just this that you accuse the heinous "Fayyad Plan" of trying to accomplish (just change "Israel" to "the Palestinians")! OMG! Priceless!
Do you understand any of this? It's like watching car crash in slow motion.
(take #2, almost a day and still no post, good job 972Mag) (part 1):
1. Kfar Adumim, like Maa'le Adumim, resides in Area C which according to the Oslo accords is legally under Israel's control.
2. That area will remain under Israeli control in every future peace plan as was acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership back in 2008, just like the Ariel bloc, all consisting of about 6% of the West Bank. It was meant to be part of the land swap exchange.
3. I never said Kfar Adumin is an Israeli municipality. You're the one who is lying, read my post again. I said it is in an Israeli municipality, which is Mateh Binyamin. They are considered to be boroughs of Kfar Adumim.
4. The settlers of Kfar Adumim, unlike the settlers of Khan Al-Ahmar, are part of the Ma'ale Adumin bloc.
5. "it is neither an "Israeli municipality" nor "an Israeli township." – It belongs to an Israeli municipality and it's part of the Ma'ale Adumim bloc of area C that will remain under Israel's control in every future peace plan.
6. "Oslo "accord" that was supposed to have led to a solution years ago" – if only the Palestinians didn't kill the Oslo Accords, or as Arafat himself admitted, use it as a deceit to continue with his "Phased Plan" strategy.
7. See "An agreement on indefinite occupation" – see Arafat admitting that the Oslo Accord was a deceit against Israel based on Muhammad's Hudaybiyyah "Peace" Treaty in his speech in South Africa on May 10th 1994.
8. Kfar Adumim is no more "an Israeli township" legally than fifteen Americans moving to France and renting houses" – France reside in America ? that area belong to a pre-defined bloc that will remain in America ? that Area is legally under American control ?
9. "Kicked from place to place by the Israelis" – It was proven, without even a tiny shred of doubt, that the Jahalin Bedouin are lying about their history and time of settlement in that region based on evidence by satellite photos in Court. Evidence the court accepted and the Jahaln lawyers couldn't contest.
(more to follow)
(part 2): 10. "Aerial photographs and testimony by villagers show that the residents wandered within the Jerusalem-Jericho region" – of course they did, they are a nomadic tribe, in that case they can claim most of Israel from the Negev to Jericho. And Jordan. Please by all means, show me said aerial photos. I'll link my evidence in the Facebook comments section. Let's compare the evidence.
11. "they were there certainly no later than the settlers, who arrived in 1979" – the place is no different that the similar hundreds of tents and tin huts along the Negev area where Bedouin settled illegally, the only different here, as I already mentioned, is the fact that the region sits on one of the key areas in the "Fayyad Plan" vision and they are used by the Palestinians as strategic pawns.
12. "shamelessness of portraying the Arab residents there, but not the Jewish ones, as "recent arrivals"" – Who controls the area according to law ? who will continue to do so in any future peace plan ? these Bedouin are no different than the similar hundreds of small illegal settlements of Bedouin in Israel. The difference is their use by the Palestinian leadership.
13. "The Israeli Supreme Court Justice who ruled that the Israeli army can move Susiya and Kfar al-Ahmar" – again with the stupidity of linking premium sites behind a paywall ? Anyway you're lying, a ruling at this level is never made by a single judge, it was three wasn't it ? you "forgot" Anat Baron and Yael Willner ?
14. "Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse" – he based his ruling on actual fact and evidence, read the verdict. And he wasn't alone doing so.
16. "Please spare us sneaky" – and you bring me the most pro-Palestinian sources available which sometimes border of fantasy and fiction with no relation to reality. Hilarious.
17. "One has to laugh at the sheer brazenness of their describing "The Fayyad Plan"" – one has to laugh about someone who attempts to discuss a subject without any knowledge of it or the strategic importance of Khan Al-Ahmar to this plan which is why the Palestinians are pulling so much effort on it and not the other many similar Bedouin settlements.
"Do you understand any of this?" – of course, as I just explained in detail. I also pointed to some of your lies, as usual.
OK, so in fact you don't understand any of this. Or pretend you don't. I think we could simply leave all of the above standing as self-evident nonsense to anyone reasonably informed. I mean, you would think, Ido, that you would acknowledge self-evident untruths and inaccuracies you've been caught disseminating (and this by the promiscuous enthusiast for calling every person who disagrees with him a "liar") but that was too much to expect.
Everyone might want to read Ido "You better tell the Arabs to reverse their Three No's of the Khartoum Resolution" Geller, here, starting on August 13th:
https://972mag.com/why-the-israeli-left-cant-reconcile-with-the-most-zionist-law/137025/
Because what Ido is doing here on this page is just a more drawn out, multilayered version of that chicanery.
IDO: "Area C…That area will remain under Israeli control in every future peace plan as was acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership back in 2008, just like the Ariel bloc, all consisting of about 6% of the West Bank. It was meant to be part of the land swap exchange."
This is an extraordinarily self-serving, history-twisting ASSUMPTION. That Ariel and all of Ma'aleh Adumim and E1 were agreed upon; that by mutual agreement "that area will remain under Israeli control in every future peace plan" and that this "was acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership back in 2008" is just false. Ludicrously false. They were huge sticking points in the Olmert-Abbas discussions and negotiations before them. These were in their entirety areas to be negotiated like all of the West Bank. You try to make the Oslo Accords something they were not—a sort of, preliminary, kind of final status agreement, and you are obviously trying to "normalize" the most contentious settlements. This is chicanery.
More to follow.
IDO: "just like the Ariel bloc, all consisting of about 6% of the West Bank. It was meant to be part of the land swap exchange."
Pure baloney. Two layers of it. The settlers might have "meant" this but the Palestinians surely never "meant" this. And that the land the settlements effectively control is just 6%–this is the hoariest old settler tactic of pretending that the precise plots of land that settlement houses sit on constitutes all that the settlements effectively control and effectively seal off and claim. Again, you act as if we were born yesterday and can be sold 100-year futures in swampland in southern Florida as the seas rise around us.
IDO: "I never said Kfar Adumin is an Israeli municipality, I said it is in an Israeli municipality."
Oh, wowee. Let me repeat myself then, more to your liking. Kfar Aumim is NOT either inside or in "an Israeli municipality." Mateh Binyamin is NOT "an Israeli municipality". And elsewhere you have called Kfar Adumim "an Israeli township." It is NOT "an Israeli township." All of these are settlements inside occupied territory that is not Israeli territory. A fact.
You keep repeating this phrase "will remain in Israel in every future accord"—WHO SAYS? The settlers? It is ALL open to negotiation. Again you cannot sneak in the Oslo Accords as a final accord and agreement on borders. Please try to maintain at least a semblance of integrity here. And you simply cannot honestly call it "an Israeli municipality" or "an Israeli township." That is simply pretending a final status accord exists and Israel has defined borders. It does not. You cannot normalize Ariel and Maaleh-Adumim-E1. Why do settlers think they are entitled to such chicanery? What culture is this that promotes this? Never ceases to amaze.
Again, Allah knows for how many times, I don't call people I don't agree with liars, I call people who do not tell the truth liars and when I do I back it up. Very clearly so.
When you claimed I said Kfar Adumin is an Israeli municipality you lied, I never did. When you said a single judged ruled against something because he was biased you were both lying and misleading, there were other judges on that panel and if you look at the verdict he
based it on facts and the evidence provided to him. Do you understand ? this has nothing to do with disagreement, this is to do with you not telling the truth.
"Everyone might want to read Ido" – oh yes please do, how I point in detail how you're a clueless liar over and over and over again. Good stuff. Also read the rest of the posts above it.
"Because what Ido is doing here on this page" – exactly. Showing again how you're a clueless liar. Brainwashed by pro-Palestinian propaganda.
"This is an extraordinarily self-serving, history-twisting ASSUMPTION" – no it isn't:
https://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Details-of-Olmerts-peace-offer-to-Palestinians-exposed-314261
Israel was never going to withdraw to the 67 line, that was never its border. A land swap was always going to be part of the agreement. This was acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership and Abbas marked it on his documents. See the evidence I just provided.
This was going to be part of the agreement and it will always be part of the agreement. Israel will never hand that area to the Palestinians. This is the basis for any future peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Pure baloney" – Wrong: it was made clear to the Palestinians that Israel will never hand those areas to the Palestinians and they acknowledged this, as stated by the Palestinians themselves going back to the 2000 Camp David Summit, that they will consider a one-to-one land swap with Israel, taking areas within the Green Line. The 1967 borders are dangerous to Israel's security, it was never Israel's border and Israel was never going to withdraw from the entire West Bank.
"the land the settlements effectively control is just 6%" – you can disagree with reality, this is not going to change – out of all the West Bank there was a percentage of land which was non-negotiable. It differs from agreement to agreement: 8% during the 2000 Camp David Summit: 91% of the West Bank and 1% from a land swap at the final stage, and 6.3% for the 2008 agreement which included the Ariel bloc, the Jerusalem-Ma'aleh Adumin bloc and Gush Etzion).
"Let me repeat myself then, more to your liking" – liking has nothing to do with this, this is what you wrote: "Kfar Adumim in NOT "an Israeli municipality." (To say it is, is a quite brazen lie)". You lied, plain and simple. I never said it was.
"Mateh Binyamin is NOT "an Israeli municipality"" – and you lie some more. Yes it is. it consists of 42 Israeli settlements.
"It is NOT "an Israeli township."" – it is a town consisting of Israelis govern by the Israeli law and it accepts funds from Israel to operate. Bu other that that you're right. This is sarcasm by the way.
"that is not Israeli territory" – no, it is a territory with full Israeli civil and security control derived by the Oslo Accords that as far as I know are still in effect.
Israel has no intention whatsoever to hand those areas to the Palestinians as I already explained.
"WHO SAYS? The settlers?" – no, just every Israeli Prime Minister since the negotiations started. Again: the 67′ border was never meant to be Israel's borders.
"the Oslo Accords as a final accord" – never said it's final, that's you "paraphrasing" again. It is however the current applied law by both Israel and the PA.
"is simply pretending a final status accord exists" – like I said, that is not on the table, it hasn't been for close to 20 years now and it's 100% never going to be.
"and Israel has defined borders" – the armistice line was never meant to be Israel's border. It was created solely because that's where the Israeli and Arab forces stopped fighting. Therefore that 1949 line, that people call 1967 border is really only a military line. In fact, 1949 Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties.
"You cannot normalize Ariel and Maaleh-Adumim-E1" – of course you can. What you can't normalize is the Palestinian leadership calling for the elimination of Israel and the murder of Jews and how they see all of Israel as theirs.
I'm not done yet, Ido, so you'll have to wait, but I think we can leave as self-evident here Ido Geller's sleazy practice of calling people "liars" in this forum, and Ido Geller's essential triviality.
Ido says that Kfar Adumim is both "in an Israeli municipality" and is "an Israeli township" (the latter said on another page).
(Definition of municipality: a city or town that has corporate status and local government.)
Ben mistakes that for Ido saying "Kfar Adumim is an Israeli municipality." Ben left out the word "in", you see.)
Does Ido do the normal thing and chalk that up to a simple misunderstanding deriving from the ambiguous meaning of "municipality" (it is often used as a synonym for "town" in ordinary English usage in newspapers) and the triviality in this case of "an" versus "in an"? No Ido does not. And does Ido move on to important things or try to distract with trivialities? Ido does the latter. What Ido does is say that Ben "lied" about Ido claiming Kfar Adumim is a municipality! You can't make this stuff up! Ido is that sleazy! Ido is that promiscuous with the word "liar"! This is as good as the "Three No's of Khartoum" debacle in pinning to the board who Ido Geller really is and the kind of thing he does–routinely. As good an example as any for those who have not been following Ido's antics.
And the icing on the cake:
Ido links to an article (in the right wing JPost) that states:
"[After the meeting Abbas] asked for the map that Olmert described to be drawn from what he remembered because Olmert refused to give him a copy. The Israeli prime minister told him that he would not give Abbas the map until the Palestinian leader was willing to ink his initials on it, or in other words, agree to the borders that Israel offered… Abbas marked the settlement blocs that Israel was asking to keep: the Ariel bloc, the Jerusalem-Ma'aleh Adumin bloc (including E1) and Gush Etzion."
Abbas of course never agreed to this as we know and the talks did not progress. Now Ido would pass that off as "evidence" ("proof"!) that Abbas agreed that "the Ariel bloc…was meant to be part of the land swap exchange"! Meant by Israel for sure! Not by the Palestinians!
Again, Ido appears to think that we can't read!
The actual truth of the Olmert-Abbas negotiations was recorded by the close friend of Olmert, an insider of the process, Bernard Avishai:
"…Not that Abbas was willing to make Olmert's problem his own. "We have criteria for which settlements must be removed," Samih Al-Abid, a former minister in the Palestinian Authority and a negotiator, reasoned…. By these criteria, Ariel is the most blatant problem. Olmert told me that Abbas "kept coming back to it." Ariel, after all, was plunked down in the hills between Nablus and Ramallah precisely to make a statement that the historic Land of Israel was being claimed as indivisibly Jewish. Its residents, many of whom were Russian immigrants taken directly from the airport to Ariel and given cheap apartments by Ariel Sharon, have no local industry to speak of. When the Baker Institute teams suggest compromises of between 3 and 4 percent, Ariel is almost always removed. One possibility raised by Al-Abid was "space for time." If Israel agreed to vacate a large settlement like Ariel, a complex task, Palestine would agree to give it considerable time to do so.… The negotiations on borders ended here, with Olmert telling Abbas among other things that no Israeli prime minister could ever remove Ariel, and Abbas telling Olmert that no Palestinian president could ever accept it. "I told him, 'Sign,' " Olmert said. " 'You will never get a better proposal from any Israeli government for the next 50 years.' " Abbas would not sign. He asked for Olmert's map, which Olmert refused to give him unless he signed off on it. Olmert told me he thought Abbas delayed partly because he hoped to get a better deal on the map from an Obama administration. Removing Ariel, in any case, remained perhaps the most freighted border dispute, since this settlement would be the most disruptive to Palestinian development…"
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html
So much for Ido Geller's grasp of matters, not to mention the aforementioned matters of integrity. Here we are entering a huge detour, a distraction (the subject of this article after all is ("Between garbage and sewage: Israel's future plans for Khan al-Ahmar") because Ido Geller took us there.
(part 1): "Ido Geller's sleazy practice of calling people "liars" – pointing out how people don't say the truth and then explaining how that is so is "sleazy" ? hey, whatever makes you feel better when I exposed your lies, I don't mind. It doesn't cancel them out though.
"Ben left out the word "in", you see" – no, Ben said "Kfar Adumim in NOT "an Israeli municipality."" and that wasn't what I said (it's inside an Israeli municipality, and I later named it).
"simple misunderstanding deriving from the ambiguous meaning of "municipality"" – um, it is a town consisting of Israelis governed by Israeli law and it accepts funds from Israeli government to operate and it resides in an area with full Israeli civil and security control.
"try to distract with trivialities?" – nope, I just explained it. Again.
"Ido does is say that Ben "lied" about Ido claiming Kfar Adumim" – because he did. As I showed in the former post.
"ou can't make this stuff up!" – you sure did. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your lies. Would you like me to post many other examples ?
"This is as good as the "Three No's of Khartoum" debacle" – I literally explained to you like to a child how you had no idea what you were saying. 7 times. Why are you continuing to lie about this ? why do you think digging yourself deeper into the liar hole is a good idea ?
"kind of thing he does–routinely" – hilarious, nice projection. OK I'll post the huge amount of examples where I proved in detail how you're a liar in the Facebook comments section. I would do it here but on this site it would take a month to appear.
"Abbas of course never agreed to this as we know and the talks did not progress" – no mention how the talks did not progress because according to the Palestinians Abbas thought Olmert's proposals for Jerusalem and the right of return were unacceptable ? also the Palestinians decided to wait for the next US President and they thought Olmert was finished politically.
All written in the link you just quoted but for some reason you neglected to mention that. Hmmm.
(part 2): "Abbas of course never agreed to this" – Again: this was non-negotiable as evident by being mentioned in every agreement since 2000. Just like Israel will never agree to the Right of Return. Abbas did consider the land swap and he still does, see the evidence posted in the Facebook comments section about last year.
"Now Ido would pass that off as "evidence" ("proof"!) that Abbas" – And some more lies. This is what I actually said: Israel was never going to withdraw to the 67 line, that was never its border. A land swap was always going to be part of the agreement. This was acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership.
I never said they agreed to it. That's you lying again. And I did just provide evidence the Palestinians consider it at least since last year as part of a peace agreement.
"Again, Ido appears to think that we can't read" – I know you are a clueless liar who doesn't know what he's talking about and I back that up with the many examples in the links I posted in the Facebook comments section.
"no Israeli prime minister could ever remove Ariel" – why thank you for proving that what I said was 100% correct.
"no Palestinian president could ever accept it" – Abbas did consider accepting Olmert's offer back in 2017. I see your information is not up to date. See the link in the facebook comments section ("it cements the vision of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert for a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement", "plan that would see the Palestinians giving up 6.5 percent of their lands to Israel").
"So much for Ido Geller's grasp of matters" – Thanks. I just proved you wrong, again.
"not to mention the aforementioned matters of integrity" – hilarious.. so you just forgot your lie about the judge and ignored it again ?
"because Ido Geller took us there" – Ido Geller answered your posts. You took us there. I don't mind because you know I enjoy our little chats. You did ignore large parts of my posts but hey, I would be surprised if you didn't.
Oh how he wriggles! Such transparent BS, 100% of it, that it needs no comment from me. Except to point out the sheer comedy of this:
Ben: Ben left out the word "in", you see.
Ido: no, Ben said "Kfar Adumim in NOT "an Israeli municipality."
Oh, I seeeeee, Ben left out the word "in" before "an" but Ben did not leave out the word "in" before "an" because Ido says so….ooooookkkkkkkk.
Quintessential Ido!
"Oh how he wriggles!" – and another "rephrasing" or is it "artistic license" again ? about me refuting your nonsense. I can never tell which idiotic excuse you're going to use for your lying nonsense.
"it needs no comment from me" – hilarious. The lie about the judge was my favorite so far, almost as hilarious as your lie about a special term invented in Hebrew to de-humanize Arab "resistance fighters". Good times.
"Ben: Ben left out the word "in", you see." – Ben had no idea what he was talking about as I explained in detail twice, which he ignored of course. And yes, Kfar Adumim belongs to an Israeli municipality, contrary to what you said of course.
"Quintessential Ido!" – And again you ignored the posts where I show how you're a clueless, ignored the evidence I provided, the links where I show in detail how you're a liar who has no idea what he's talking about.
More quintessential Ido. Caught red-handed, he issues another distraction. So that a simple incompleteness—I said "the Justice who ruled" but I should more accurately have said "one of the three Justices who ruled"—becomes "a lie" about Sohlberg! Not an incompleteness or an inaccuracy to be taken into account, but, of course, "a lie."
Lost in smoke is that one of the three Justices, and in fact the Justice who wrote the opinion approving the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar, Justice Noam Sohlberg, is a West Bank settler. Who refused to recuse himself. Again, talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse! The same non-recusing fox, who, after the Chief Justice barred the Israeli Supreme Court bench from attending a "settler jubilee" in Gush Etzion, went ahead and attended anyway as "a private individual"! And no one said a word. Such are the ethics and propriety of Justice Sohlberg and such is the fairness, the impartiality, the "blind justice" of the Israeli court system. In fact, an integral part of a seamless occupation machinery.
For one Palestinian village: A judge, settler and demolisher
https://972mag.com/the-palestinians-judge-jury-and-house-demolisher/106844/
"…Justice Sohlberg, who is the most prominent yet not the only settler on the bench…"
"For one Palestinian village: A judge, settler and demolisher" – Some facts about Arab Susya:
1. While Palestinians claimed an Arab historical connection to the site, historical documents have thoroughly debunked this claim.
2. The Arab town was built on the archaeological site of Susya, an ancient Jewish town. If you were wondering who actually has historic ties to the place.
3. Arab presence in Susya is very recent.
4. The "Palestinian village" that Israel is supposedly uprooting never existed.
5. Aerial photographs of Susiya show that the land was previously unsettled.
See evidence for all of this in the Facebook comments section.
On Susya and Khan al-Ahmar both: You're so full of worn out, debunked cliches we've all heard before. (And a kind of vicious officiousness–see Shulman, to follow.) You and Ben-Dahan. Tell it to Plia Albeck. Tell her she was hallucinating. Educate yourself:
https://972mag.com/deputy-defense-minister-embattled-palestinian-village-doesnt-even-exist/109133/
David Shulman:
"Susya is a microcosm of the Israeli occupation, a lucid embodiment of its norms and habits. Only the scale of the planned expulsion is a little unusual; normally the process, though relentless, proceeds in smaller steps. Note that the legal aspect of the situation, which I've only outlined, is little more than a superstructure, one might even say a distant theory; on the ground what one sees is a refined form of human malevolence, incapable of justification in rational terms. The Israeli army, the police, the bureaucrats of the Civil Administration, the government, the cabinet, the Knesset, the military and civilian courts, and large parts of the Israeli press—all are deeply implicated in an act, or a series of acts, of gratuitous violence inflicted on innocent human beings, in broad daylight. No one should pretend that any of this is anything but a crime."
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/jun/28/susya-demolition-israeli-occupation/
So you mentioning only one judge and not the panel he was on, the other judges, is just another "artistic license" ? you mentioned wriggling ? hilarious.
I said "the Justice who ruled" – The Justices who ruled you mean, Yael Willner and Anat Baron as well. Unanimously. Based on the given evidence. Another of your "rephrasings" ?
"one of the three Justices who ruled" – yes, that's exactly what you should have said, and also mention how there were other judges and it was a unanimous verdict based on evidence. This is called saying the truth and not twisting it to match your opinion.
"an incompleteness or an inaccuracy to be taken into account, but, of course, "a lie."" – you didn't tell the truth, so you're saying it was just another example of your usual gross ignorance ? I'm fine with that.
"is a West Bank settler" – already went over Khan al-Ahmar in detail, you just ignored it. Please, by all means, address the posts above, I'll gladly discuss this with you.
"putting the fox in charge of the henhouse!" – the fact that he is a settler somehow cancels out all the evidence and facts about Khan al-Ahmar ? interesting. Also interesting how you ignore the other judges who dealt with the case and issued similar rulings like Hanan Meltzer, Yitzhak Amit, Anat Baron, etc. You think Sohlberg's ruling was something new ? now please inform me, is this a lie or just another example of your ignorance ?
"seamless occupation machinery" – Again: the situation of Khan al-Ahmar is different, I explained this in detail over and over again. Why are you ignoring this ? why haven't you addressed my posts about this ?
IDO: "a unanimous verdict based on evidence. This is called saying the truth"
This takes brazenness to new heights. The Israeli courts system/occupation machinery as, of all things, an objective source of objective "evidence" and "truth." Ido Geller, the routine shouter about "lying" takes a disingenuousness lie to new heights. I mean new lows. But it is so typical. Nietzsche's tragic cry is reverberated as low farce: Gellerisch, Allzugellerisch!".
IDO: "the Jahalin Bedouin are lying"
Well of course, everyone who has an argument inconvenient to you is "lying". We know you. What has happened to the Jahalin tribe is what I said above, and no Israeli court proved otherwise, nor, from long experience, is any Israeli court on these matters any source of truth as opposed to obstruction, obfuscation, and oppression. Including the infamous Sohlberg and Co. As usual, every fact that counters your narrative becomes "a lie." For a fact, the Jahalin were repeatedly kicked around by Israel since the 1950s, refused any services whatsoever by Israel, in a 70-year odyssey of dispossession, while Israel and the occupation authority lovingly attended to the settlers' every need in the same area:
'They destroyed everything': Israel's decades-long war against the Jahalin Bedouin
https://972mag.com/they-destroyed-everything-israels-decades-long-war-against-the-jahalin-bedouin/136152/
You would think that a people whose whole narrative is based on the Israelites wandering in the desert, persecuted, pursued by the powers that be, would think twice about what they do to these people, and feel shame, but apparently not.
IDO: "here Bedouin settled illegally"
Says who? An Israeli occupation regime that is for fifty years illegally settling settlers there and violating every international norm on the treatment of protected person in the entire region? Are you kidding me?
IDO: "Who controls the area according to law ?"
"Controlling" an area under occupation is NOT ownership. "Under law" is itself extremely dubious and tortured logic as the entire occupation is illegal. That "under law" is in fact an "under Oslo Accord" but those same territories all simultaneously remain illegally occupied and subject to final status negotiations. All of it. In every fictitious claim you make is the illicit assumption that the Oslo Accords are a kind of final status agreement. They are not.
Re Sohlberg and my "lying" about it, yet another asinine deployment of the words "liar, lying, lied, etc." Enough said. There are several others in the same posts, but who's counting. It's like rain. And that's being kind.
IDO: "linking premium articles behind a paywall in your responses won't make me pay to see them…again with the stupidity of linking premium sites behind a paywall?"
That's simply revealing. Your refusing to pay for and read Haaretz and read it regularly would be like an American, in a very small United States (say, limited to NY, NJ, DE, MD and DC) saying he refuses to buy and read either the New York Times or the Washington Post. I regard you as fundamentally uninformed, ignorant, with a very deliberate know-nothing attitude. On the face of it. And that's OK. Lots of right wing voters are like this. But it says quite a lot about you. You want to be taken seriously but offer no basis for us taking you that way. Your only possible excuse is penury, but you seem well able to afford your laptop and facebook account and loads of time occupying this site. You're not gainfully employed?
IDO: "…without any knowledge of it or the strategic importance of Khan Al-Ahmar to this [Fayyad] plan…"
This is the kind of Israeli patronizing attitude and sheer narcissism that leaves even the jaded among us astounded. Everyone knows "the strategic importance" of this area for both sides and for whether a viable 2SS is even remotely possible. +972 Magazine has been writing about this for I don't know how long, in countless articles. But for Israelis like you only Israel's calculations of "strategic importance" are legitimate and just fine, and the Palestinians' calculations of strategic importance are somehow suspect and devious. Israeli narcissism. Just amazing. Gellerian patronizing. Equally amazing. Gellerian and Israeli obtuseness. Jointly amazing. Enough said.
(part 1) "This takes brazenness to new heights" – how does ruling based on evidence presented in court and facts is "brazenness" ?
"The Israeli courts system/occupation machinery" – so you have no clue about the times the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Palestinians ? when they ordered dismantling and demolition of Israeli settlements ?
"he routine shouter about "lying" takes a disingenuousness lie to new heights" – You didn't clear this up: you didn't tell the truth. Was it lying or simply your usual ignorance ?
"Gellerisch, Allzugellerisch!" – gesundheit. This is hilarious coming from a clueless liar who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about as I prove over and over and over again.
"the Jahalin Bedouin are lying" – as proven in court. As their lawyers could not contest.
"Well of course, everyone who has an argument inconvenient to you is "lying"" – this is not about inconvenience. This is about Jahalin Bedouin not telling the truth as evident by court evidence. A fact you conveniently ignored. Again.
"no Israeli court proved otherwise" – wrong again. What I said was proven in court, which you ignored of course. That was the reason they approved the demolition, after many delays as requested by the jahalin lawyers.
"Including the infamous Sohlberg and Co" – refuted your nonsense in detail about him. You, as usual, elegantly ignored it. Sorry, "discounted" it. Ignore it as much as you like, it's not going to cancel itself.
"every fact that counters your narrative becomes "a lie." – nope, every opposite of the truth is a lie. Or in your case, per your own admission, could be just the usual ignorance.
"the Jahalin were repeatedly kicked around by Israel" – the Jahalin are a Bedouin nomadic tribe from South Israel. They claim they settled there since the 50's after they were removed from Tel-Arad but actual evidence clearly show that they are not telling the truth.
I explained this several times now. Israel offered to relocate them to a permanent location close to where they settled illegally and the negotiations have been going on for years. This Bedouin tents and tin huts settlement is no different than the other hundreds Bedouin illegal settlements you can see driving to south Israel.
The reason they are used as political pawns by the Palestinians as the fact they settled in one of the key areas in the "Fayyad Plan" vision of Palestinian statehood.
(part 2): "in a 70-year odyssey of dispossession" – You seem to be missing one of the key concepts of the nomadic lifestyle of Beduin nomads. Only relatively recently they had adopted the more permanent modern lifestyle.
"They destroyed everything: Israel's decades-long war against the Jahalin Bedouin" – Beautifully neglecting to present the Israeli side of the issue, but since it's a Pro-Palestinian news blog I would expect nothing less.
I went over this with you in great length, you mostly ignored what I said about the Jahalin and why the Israeli Supreme court reached its decision. Still waiting for your aerial photos evidence to compare it to what I've got.
"You would think that a people whose whole narrative" – Ah, Appeal to Emotion, Argumentum ad Passiones, one of your less common logical fallacies. Bringing biblical fantasy and war time atrocities to the mix. Almost as if the Jahalin are shoved into ovens or mass executed and not offered to relocate to an area they won't be settling in illegally.
The Israeli government offered solutions and delayed the demolition for years. Only the fact that they sit on a strategic location for the Palestinians has put a stop on solving the issues like it was resolved with other Beduin tribes who moved to permanent settlements.
"Says who?" – says the law both the Israelis and the Palestinians signed on. An illegal settlement in area C based on lies and misinformation.
"Are you kidding me?" – no, I'm simply aware of the court ruling and what it was based on, the signed agreement with the Palestinians.
""Controlling" an area under occupation is NOT ownership" – it is based on the Area C definition of the Oslo Accords who is still in effect.
"the entire occupation is illegal." – you'll have to be more specific since to the Palestinian leadership all of Israel is "the occupation". As you are well aware they see all of Israel, from the River to the Sea as theirs and they are not hiding this fact.
"remain illegally occupied and subject to final status negotiations" – and as I explained several times, some areas, about 6% of the West Bank, are not up for negotiations. The Palestinian acknowledged this fact and were willing to accept it pending land swaps as I proved to you before. Which you of course ignored.
"that the Oslo Accords are a kind of final status" – they are not. I'm well aware of this. They were meant to be part of a process the Palestinians apparently never meant to honor. As I already proved to you several times, Arafat himself admitted it was a deceit, basically another step of his "Phased Plan". However at this moment, until further notice, this is the law governing the West Bank and it applies to Israel and the PA.
"Re Sohlberg and my "lying" about it, yet another asinine" – Again: you didn't tell the truth, so you're saying it was just another example of your usual gross ignorance ? I'm fine with that.
(part 3): "That's simply revealing" – the fact that I don't pay to read 'Ha'aretz' ? I don't for any news source on the web, especially pro-Palestinian "news" site that sometimes border on fantasy and science fiction.
I simply point out that you keep posting a link behind a paywall as evidence after I tell you over and over again, knowing fully well that I'm not going to see this evidence. That is simply revealing. Or suggesting that you have an attention span of a gold fish.
Keep posting them, I'll keep not reading them. Fine by me.
"saying he refuses to buy and read either the New York Times or the Washington Post" – what's with you and idiotic incorrect comparisons ? I read Ha'aretz in Hebrew when available, one of my co-workers brings his copies. I don't pay for news site on the Web. Not Ha'aretz, not anyone. If you notice all the evidence I provide are from free and ad based sites.
"I regard you as fundamentally uninformed, ignorant" – Interesting projection technique. How many times have I proved in detail that you're a clueless liar who has no idea what he's talking about ? there are many examples of this posted in the Facebook comments section.
"Lots of right wing voters are like this" – This is especially hilarious because I voted for the Israeli Labor Party last elections, very right wing of me, right ? next elections I'm going to vote Lapid.
" You want to be taken seriously" – nope, I want to point out in detail how you're a clueless liar who has no idea what he's talking about. See the many examples here and in the Facebook comments section.
"but offer no basis for us taking you" – right besides me pointing in detail how you're a clueless liar brainwashed by pro-Palestinian propaganda to the point of brain damage, all listed in detail in the links in the Facebook comments section. All your embarrassing mistakes and lies. And there are a lot more similar links.
"loads of time occupying this site" – I love this site, probably not for the reason they intend, and I have you to entertain me. Loved your use of the word 'occupying' there.
"gainfully employed" – oh I am. I get paid for refuting clueless nonsense on news blog. Part of you really believed that for a second, didn't you ?
(part 4): "This is the kind of Israeli patronizing attitude" – so pointing how the Palestinian plan of creation a de facto state without the need for negotiation with Israel, The Fayyad Plan, through facts on the ground in areas under full Israeli administrative and security administration is patronizing ? one of the key areas in the "Fayyad Plan" vision of Palestinian statehood, as opposed to the mutually agreed-upon negotiations of the Oslo Accords, is precisely the region near the highway where Khan al-Ahmar is located and that is the reason the Palestinians put so much effort and focus on them.
The best interests of the Jahalin Bedouin were beside the point for the PA, they wanted to take control on an area they knew Israel will never hand them as part of any peace negotiations as we already discussed.
Like it or not, the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinian Authority signed and the European Union witnessed, clearly state that Israel has sole responsibility for issuing building permits, zoning and planning.
Some of them Bedouin in neighboring similar settlements signed relocation agreements. Others simply pulled up stakes and moved elsewhere to avoid the construction and traffic around the highway. All of them understood that they could not remain where they were.
Then the PA and the European Union jumped in, giving this cluster of tents and shacks a name, pumping money into "Khan al Ahmar," and kicking up a vast media storm about destitute Arabs being dispossessed from their "historic" community.
"Enough said" – Correct. At least we agree on something.
I stand by every sentence. As the occupying power Israel already had administrative control over the West Bank. The Oslo Accords do not give Israel the right to violate international law of protected persons under occupation, which is what it is doing here with the residents of Khan al-Ahmar. The striking disparity between the vicious officiousness with which Israel treats Arab residents of the territories, versus the breezy disregard for law enforcement with which it treats Jewish settlers, is telling. Smoke and mirrors cannot obscure this. It is race-based violations of human rights and international law. The Oslo Accords do not overturn this or excuse it and implying they do or operating under the cover that "well, the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords, didn't' they, huh?, we have witnesses, we have administrative control!" (this is the nonsense level we are at) is no excuse and no get out of jail free card. Amazing that basics like this have to be covered in an otherwise intelligent forum. But here we are.
Again, the Oslo Accords, which Israel violates all the time when it wants to, do not give Israel the right to violate existing laws regarding occupation. The Oslo Accords are also not final status accords, not sort of, not even a little bit. I keep repeating this because it keeps getting obfuscated.
'"You want to be taken seriously" – nope.'
As you wish.
"I stand by every sentence" – so again you ignore reality, evidence and facts and substitute it with your own ? what a shock.
"As the occupying power Israel already had administrative control over the West Bank" – a lie or you're showing how you're clueless again ? which is it ? based on the Oslo Accords there are three administrative divisions: Areas A, B and C.
Area A has full civil and security control by the Palestinian Authority and B has Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control.
"which is what it is doing here with the residents of Khan al-Ahmar" – no it doesn't, as I explained in detail, over and over and over again and you ignored it. Read the court verdict, look at the evidence. Read the background of the case and why the Palestinians has a very big interest in that place specifically.
I explained this in detail over and over again. Ignoring it won't somehow make it go away, it only shows your denial of reality.
"It is race-based violations of human rights and international law" – didn't know Palestinians belong to a distinctive race, is it like their newly invented nationality ? what's with you and completely disregarding the Palestinians own responsibility ? their own actions and agendas ? as I explained in detail the situation in Khan al-Ahmar is different, if you like to discuss something else I don't mind.
"do or operating under the cover" – as I explained about 3,572 times, Israel is going to keep a small part of the West Bank in any future agreement, I proved this to you several times, your own link said that very clearly. I also explained why the 67′ border was never meant to be Israel's actual border and why.
"well, the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords" – Like it or not, the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinian Authority signed, clearly state that Israel has sole responsibility for issuing building permits, zoning and planning in that area. Just like Israel can't do any of that in Area A or B as per the agreement.
As I said in the past I'm in favor of handing almost all the West Bank to the Palestinians or to Jordan as part of a legitimate peace agreement. The rest can be worked out using land swaps as agreed by the Palestinian leadership.
"Again, the Oslo Accords, which Israel violates all the time" – reads the PLO's "phased plan" from 1974, when it decided to eliminate Israel step by step, if anyone violated the accords it was the PLO, and these violations were clearly premeditated as I proved to you several times (Which you ignored of course). But as it stands right now,
the Oslo Accords is the legal document stating who has authority and where.
"The Oslo Accords are also not final status accords" – as I already said: yes, I'm well aware of this. But currently it is the legal basis of both the PA and Israel's actions. Why are you ignoring the fact that the Palestinians, namely Arafat, never meant to continue with the Oslo Accords and he saw this as just another stage of his Phased Plan ?
"I keep repeating this because it keeps getting obfuscated" – you're lying about this as well ? I just addressed this, again.
"As you wish." – as usual you ignored what I actually said: I point out in detail how you're a clueless liar who has no idea what he's talking about. See the many examples here and in the Facebook comments section.
Bruce Gould
Btselem's report on Khan-al-Ahmar:
https://www.btselem.org/facing_expulsion/20180815_update_on_planned_expulsion_of_khan_al_ahmar
Whatever alternative the state proposes, forcible transfer is a war crime. All persons involved in approving and executing the transfer of the Khan al-Ahmar community would bear responsibility for this crime, whether it is achieved by physical force or by making the residents' lives so unbearable that they leave, ostensibly of their own free will…The threat to the community of Khan al-Ahmar is imminent and must be stopped now. If the community is expelled, the threat to neighboring communities and to thousands of Palestinians in some 200 farming and shepherding communities throughout the West Bank – who already suffer some level of abuse, violence and dispossession – could become a reality, too.
The situation in Khan-al-Ahmar, as evident by the court ruling, is different than "farming and shepherding communities throughout the West Bank".
The article when mentioning their relocation area is neglecting to mention how other members of the Bedouin Jahalin tribe already live there. The reason residents of Khan-al-Ahmar are refusing to consider it is the inner tribal conflict between them and the Jahalin members living in the relocation area. And of course that they are used as political pawns by the Palestinians.
Last year 10 U.S. senators sent a letter to Netanyahu about Khan al-Ahmar:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.jstreet.org/images/Sanders_Letter_to_Netanyahu
"Because of the community's location, demolishing Khan al-Ahmar would make it increasingly difficult to establish a contiguous Palestinian state as part of any future two state solution."
(note to senators: the two state solution is dead.)
Click here to load previous comments
+972 Blog
Welcome to the +972 Magazine general channel, where we post breaking news, live blogs, videos, staff reports, photos, and contributions from guest writers.
To submit articles, pictures or video for publication, please view our guest post policy in the "About" section of the site, and write to: oped@972mag.com.
For any other inquiry, contact: info@972mag.com.
Op-eds reflect the positions of their authors alone, and not those of +972 Magazine, its bloggers, or its editors.
More from +972 Blog
In Israel just as NY, racial profiling harms more than just victims of police killings

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
class CreateChats < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    create_table :chats do |t|
      t.string :chat_id
      t.string :from_id
      t.string :first_name
      t.string :last_name
      t.text :text

      t.timestamps null: false
    end
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub