Enough of Dan Blather. Anybody see this:
A group of prominent right wing rabbis on Tuesday issued a potentially inflammatory public call on the government to fight terrorism more tenaciously and to heed no difference between civilian and combatant in battle.
The call by West Bank, Gaza, and right wing rabbis from Israel proper, arrived just a few hours after an IDF strike in Gaza killed 15 people – all of them Hamas members, according to a Hamas spokesman.
The group of rabbis, headed by former MK and Chairman of the popular Bnei Akiva youth movement Haim Drukman (National Religious Party), said the army's policy in Palestinian areas should take into consideration that no army, when fighting amongst civilians, can protect the lives of its soldiers unless it is willing totake the risk of injuring, or even killing, civilians amongst whom terrorists hide.
"In a time of war as in today, we cannot differentiate between [civilian] population to an Army," the letter read. Copies of the letter arrived at the offices of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and OC General Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon. "We cannot continue to use what is known as 'Christian morality, which prefers the life of our enemies over our own," the letter continued.
Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar backs the right-wing rabbis, Channel 1 TV reported. "We are forced to fight them for as long as they refuse to accept the path of peace," Amar said. "We fight, but our hand must always be ready to offer peace. It is not just a mitzvah, but a duty, to save one's life," Amar said.
Part of the letter hinges on the teachings of Rabbi Akiva a 2nd century AD scholar, who preached that while one should respect above all one's neighbor, there are choices to be made, specifically "our lives first."
Other rabbis who signed the letter include the Chairman of the Judea, Samaria and Gaza Rabbi's council, Dov Lior, and rabbi's Amnon Shugerman and Yuval Sherlo who both head hesder yeshivas which combine Torah learning and shortened army service.
The letter follows a slew of similar epistle by various Rabbinical councils who support the Greater Israel ideology, calling for the employment of harsher tactics against the Palestinians and for IDF soldiers to refuse their orders
should they be summoned to dismantle an outpost or settlement.
Yesha Rabbis' Council secretary Yishai Ba'abad said the rabbis' letter to the heads of state is based on a previous psak halacha (Jewish decree) that the lives of Israeli soldiers comes first and should be protected, even on the
expense of "so-called civilians".
"According to Christian law, one must turn the other cheek; but according to Jewish law, we must first and foremost protect ourselves. If 10 civilians are killed so that we can save the life of one IDF soldier - so be it."
After the issuance of a 1995 "Din Rodef," an obscure rabbinical commandment to kill those who besmirch god or endanger his people, a Herzliya man named Yigal Amir assassinated then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for signing the Oslo Agreements with the PLO.
Response to the inflammatory letter
While little response came from right-wing Knesset Members, the left assailed the letter. Veteran MK Yossi Sarid (Yahad) said that "there is no difference between these rabbis and the Ayatollahs," YNET reported. Sarid expressed disappointment that the rabbis were using their influence to be the guardians of life rather than supporters of death.
In response to the letter MK Roman Bronfman (Yahad) urged Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz to "immediately open investigation" against the signed rabbis.
"The letter incites to harm innocent civilians. In a civilized country these things mustn't be said," Bronfman said, adding that it is even more problematic that some of those rabbis who signed the letter are state employees.
The IDF has been harshly criticized both by Israeli human-rights groups and the international community for not being careful enough when operating in Palestinian areas, a policy which they say had cost the lives of thousands of Palestinians and wounded many others in the past four years of conflict.
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