With God’s help, Independence Day 5781

There is indeed a difference. Whereas the prohibition against selling a house to a non-Jew in the Land of Israel is well grounded in the Talmud and in the halakhic decisors, the Mufti’s prohibition has no basis either in the Quran or in early Muslim legal literature, and is a modern nationalist invention.

Best regards, Shams Razel, Qubbat al-Najma

If the Rabbi thinks there is no difference between the Mufti’s claim and the rabbis’ ruling, do you agree with Ben Gvir that this shows the hypocrisy of the media?

I’m not familiar with it.

Why doesn’t the Rabbi support the prohibition against selling land or a house in the Land of Israel to a non-Jew?
Seemingly this is a prohibition brought in the Talmud and in Jewish law.
And it is directly connected to the commandment of settling the Land of Israel, which is considered equal to observing all 613 commandments. [Sifrei, Re’eh]

A person can decide on his own not to sell land or a house to a non-Jew. But issuing such a ruling in a democratic state reflects a profound misunderstanding of reality. Beyond that, with regard to a resident alien there is no such prohibition.
And regarding commandments that are said to be equal in weight, we have already found quite a few commandments said to be equal to the entire universe. Everyone chooses to magnify the commandments that seem important to him. There is no need to mention that in Maimonides such a commandment does not appear at all.

What is lacking in one’s understanding of reality when a rabbi calls on people to act according to Jewish law? [Putting aside the issue of a resident alien.] What difference does democracy make here—just a shabby form of government? [Besides the fact that a rabbi, or anyone else, can express himself as he wishes…]

There are situations in which any reasonable person understands that one should not act according to the original Jewish law—either because it has changed, or because it should not be applied in these situations.
What would you say about a rabbi who called on people to lower non-Jews, or Jews who desecrate the Sabbath, into a pit and not raise them out? Or one who instructed a husband that he may do whatever he wants with his wife?

People who were, so to speak, taken captive as infants in terms of consciousness, or the fact that our power is not strong enough, or various enactments over the generations following / updating because of the rise in women’s status—that’s one thing.
But I really don’t understand, and I’d be glad to learn, in what way I don’t understand reality well enough when it seems reasonable to me to call for observing Jewish law regarding whom not to sell to. [Renting is possible.] Certainly on the private level… what is wrong with that? After all, the redemption of the land over the last centuries is what returned us to our soil.
[Maybe because it is considered racist? Because it is not accepted in the world to discriminate on that basis? Maybe—but where there is an ethnic conflict that exacts a bloody price, in Britain for example, it is considered reasonable and accepted that individuals of one nation should not sell land / a house in an area that ‘belongs’ to the other nation… and usually the individual also would not want to buy in a hostile area…
And no one disputes that we are still in a kind of struggle… see Jaffa in recent days…]
I would be very glad to become wiser and understand the Rabbi’s view.

This is mixing apples and oranges. Jewish law does not distinguish between conflicts and ordinary non-Jews. It forbids selling them land or a house in the Land of Israel even without any conflict. And in fact the well-known rabbis’ proclamation dealt with every non-Jew, not only Arabs. Discriminating against non-Jews in general is racism that is unacceptable in today’s world, and even in Jewish law there is a different attitude toward a resident alien. If you want to fight against Arabs who are in conflict with you, then by all means revoke their citizenship—with sufficient evidence—and then you can do to them whatever you want. But not selling or renting a house to Arabs simply because they are Arabs, when they are citizens with equal rights, is plainly unacceptable.
By the way, in my opinion Jaffa is not an example of an ethnic or national conflict. Those elements get drawn into it against the background of a social conflict. But that is not the topic here.