Israel must not Succumb to Hadrian’s Curse - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Editor's note: After posting the translation of Dr. Kedar's article, an email was sent to Dr. Kedar by Elon Yarden, Israeli attorney, researcher and author. Please note that the Hebrew title of this article would be translated as "Murdering Tsafrir after his Death". Part of Mr. Yarden's aforementioned email is presented immediately below, in translation from the original Hebrew:

In response to your article, "Murdering Tsafrir after his Death", I bring to your attention facts which, apparently, were unknown to you and to the others who took part in the film:

• The fact that The Curse of Hadrian is solely of my creation, the fruit of many years of research, in which I invested the best of my strength and my ability.
• Tsafrir, obm, appropriated the name, the concept and the facts together - and even worked methodically to conceal my name in every forum that disseminated my ideas and my research. In so doing, Tsafrir, obm, violated not only my copyright, but also the faith that I placed in him, after giving him my books and spending endless hours with him on issues relating to my books.

I request that you bring this fact to your readers' attention immediately.

It goes without saying that I share your opinion in all that relates to the misuse that the producers and the Broadcast Authority made of these materials that were given to them.

I am now in the process of preparing a suit against Tsafrir’s heirs, as well as the producers of the film and the Broadcast Authority - on the grounds of copyright infringement, falsification, etc.

Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav.

This week, Channel 1 of the Israel Broadcast Authority broadcast the first of two parts of the film entitled “The Curse of Hadrian”.  The idea to produce this film was brought up ten years ago by my friend and colleague, Tsafrir Ronen, obm, to refute the narrative – or better yet – the lie that asserts  the existence of  a Palestinian people. The name Palestine was given to the land of Judea by Hadrian, a Roman Emperor who ruled from 117 to 138 CE, and who ruthlessly put down the Bar Kochba Rebellion.

He destroyed Jerusalem and established Aeolia Capitoline. He forbade the Judeans to  observe the Jewish commandments, such as Shabbat, praying and circumcision, and he executed the ten martyrs¹. To humiliate Judea and its sons he called the land “Filistin”, named for the Philistine people, the accursed enemy of the People of Israel. To cause the land to become desolate, Hadrian commanded that all of the fruit trees that grew there should be cut down.

Tsafrir Ronen, obm, strove with all of his strength to produce a full length film entitled “The Curse of Hadrian”, to expose the falsehood asserted by Arabs who today call themselves “Filistiniyun”, because there is no connection between them and the people whose origin is the Greek isles. He added archaeological materials and he interviewed people. In order to produce the film for a wide audience, Tsafrir needed funds. However, he did not have those funds and he sank into debt that brought him to the state where his heart became dysfunctional when he was 53 years old.

Tsafrir’s friends decided to realize his dream of producing the film, so the film was indeed produced, and I appear in the film in several places. I watched both parts of the film, and I am shocked to the depths of my soul, because this film is exactly the opposite of what Tsafrir, obm, intended: Tsafrir claimed all of his life that the “Palestinian narrative” is entirely built on lies and falsehoods, bluffs and fantasies, while Jewish history in the Land of Israel is solidly founded on documented history in the Bible, as well as in the books of other peoples (Greeks, Romans), and on irrefutable archaeology. In the modern era, the right of the Jewish People is based on international law since the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the San Remo Conference (1920).

The film that was produced, the first part of which was screened this week on Channel 1, is a betrayal to the memory of Tsafrir and his work, because the film presents “the two narratives”, the Israeli and the Palestinian, as if they are of equal value, exactly the thing that Tsafrir fought against. After I saw both parts of the film I phoned one of the people that took part in its preparation and I asked him to explain this distortion. He gave me a strange answer: “In Israel you cannot get a budget to produce films that present only the Zionist side in a positive way, and that do not, in parallel, reflect the existence of the Palestinian people and its rights”.

Thus, the State of Israel, which claims that it is the state of the Jewish People, is digging its own grave by funding the false “narrative” of those who want to establish their state on the ruins of the State of Israel. Is this what the Broadcast Authority is supposed to do? We pay taxes for this?

It is a shame and a disgrace. The names Maharasaich (your destroyers) and Maharivaich (your annihilators) appear at the beginning of the film and at its end.

Had I known that this is what the ultimate product would be, I would not have participated in it.

I have recently become aware that Tsafrir, obm, produced a draft of the film but did not complete its editing, and it also bears the name “The Curse of Hadrian”. I hope that we will someday have the privilege of seeing this film, and I assume that it is totally different from the film that was produced with the funds of the Israel Broadcast Authority. Tsafrir founded a satellite television channel that would have broadcast to the world in English, French and Arabic. He had prepared a business plan for this, which cost him a lot of money, and with this plan he tried to attract investors, and according to the plan the channel would have yielded a handsome profit. However, the investors did not stand in line, and Tsafrir spent much energy on this matter. I was involved in this initiative, and Tsafrir’s death stopped it in its tracks.

Tsafrir fought with all of his strength, those sectors of the Israeli public that had succumbed and accepted the existence of the “Palestinian narrative” as true and as equivalent to the “Jewish narrative”, and in deep conversations that I had with him he almost cried over this dismal reality. He said again and again that if we adopt the Palestinian lie and give it life, it will be the end of the State of Israel.

At one time I thought that he was exaggerating the problem, and that it is not so terrible. Today I totally agree with Tsafrir, because the Palestinian golem has turned on its Israeli creator: what began with Oslo as “Gaza and Jericho first” has now become a threat to the State of Israel’s existence, by the establishment of a Palestinian state with territorial contiguity from Dimona and Be’er Sheva in the south to Afula and Beit She’an in the north via all of the cities of the coastal plain, including Tel Aviv and its surroundings.

One after another, European parliaments are recognizing a Palestinian state, despite the fact that they have no way to assure that such a state will not be controlled by the Hamas terror organization. This would not have happened were it not for Israelis who supported the legitimacy of a “Palestinian narrative”, because the Europeans say to themselves: if Israelis, Zionists, adopt the idea of a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people, should we be more extreme than they are?

And so, adopting the “Palestinian narrative” is accepting the establishment of a terror state on the hills of Judea and Samaria, the People of Israel’s birthplace and center of life in the days of the Bible.  The State of Israel will remain in the coastal plain, the area that was then conquered by the Philistines, the invaders² from the Greek Islands. Thus, history laughs at everyone who does not learn from it, and this is how it avenges the crimes perpetrated against it.

Tsafrir, my dear friend, who will remove the dust from your eyes!!!³ You saw then, what people who are described as clever still do not see, even today. Rest in peace in your place of repose, because we are going out to a great war with the terrorist entity that the world will bring upon us because of our own acts, and because we did not learn from you what you so desired to teach us. May your memory be blessed.

¹The Ten martyrs - Tradition names ten great teachers who suffered martyrdom for having, in defiance of an edict of the Roman emperor, instructed their pupils in the Law. (JewishEncyclopedia.com)
²The name Philistines, or Plishtim, is based on the Hebrew word for “invaders”
³ Mishnah Sota, 5:5



Dr. Mordechai Kedar


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