An excerpt from JIJ’s
newsletter:
Bibi's "Mission"
Impossible
Following our recent elections, Benjamin Netanyahu was asked by
President Shimon Peres to form a coalition government; a mission that proved to
be more difficult than expected. Tzipi Livni breached pre-election promises by refusing to join a
national unity government, forcing Netanyahu to create a narrow
right-wing/religious government. What does this mean in plain English? The
ultra-religious parties are back in the seat of power in Israel.
How will that affect your life? Well, if you are a Conservative Jew,
Reform Jew, Messianic Jew, an Evangelical Christian (perhaps residing in Israel on a temporary student or volunteer visa)
or are affiliated with any other type of minority religious stream in Israel, you
better start praying.
Here is a direct quote from the coalition agreement between
the Likud and Shas parties,
under a section titled "Religion and State": "The government will look into the claims regarding
the expansion of the scope of illegal missionary activity in Israel and the
steps required to deal with it, to the extent necessary."
You may think that this is no big deal; since no person in the history
of the modern state of Israel
has ever actually been indicted with "illegal missionary activity"
(i.e. proselytizing minors are bribing someone to convert to a different
religion). But let's not be naive. Shas did not have
a narrow legal definition of "missionary" in mind when that coalition
agreement was signed. Every Messianic Jew in Israel, for instance, is
profiled by Shas' rabbis as "an
illegal missionary" regardless of their actual vocation or behavior.
Shas, who had control of the Ministry of Interior in Israel for several decades up until they were
replaced by the Shinui Party in 2004, proved that
they are capable of creating a well-oiled machine of discrimination against
members of all minority religions within Israel. Well, guess
what. Thanks to Mr. Netanyahu's current quandry,
they are back. Not only will they have the right to appoint a new Minister of
Interior from their ranks tomorrow, they also received the chairmanship of the
Knesset Committee on Internal Affairs.
We are not saying that it is time to enter your bunkers and
bob-shelters, but we would strongly recommend that you do not mention the name
of any Messianic Jewish friends, when asked at Ben-Gurion
Airport if you know anyone in Israel. An
innocent Evangelical family from Hong-Kong, who came to Israel for a
"Bible Roots Tour" accidentally did that last week and was
immediately arrested, put in jail and told that they would be sent back to
Hong-Kong on the next available flight. Why? They were told by a Ministry of
Interior clerk at the entrance terminal that they were suspected of
"illegal missionary activity". Does that term sound familiar? It was
only through the spontaneous efforts of the JIJ team, together with other
justice-loving partners such as Mr. Eeki Elner (www.affi.org.il ),
that the family from Hong-Kong was released from jail after several hours. It
should be noted that they were required to deposit a $30,000
cash bail sign a declaration to the effect that they will not engage
in "missionary activity" during their travels in Israel.