Global, Israel, Mishegas, Politics, Religion

Right wing settler terror cells reportedly targetting Sharon, Al Aqsa Mosque

Shin Bet Director Avi Dichter told the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committees this week that clandestine right wing settler terror cells and Ayatollah-like right wing Rabbis are are on their old fundamentalist Fatwah trip again, and are reportedly targetting both the Prime Minister and the Al Aqsa mosque.

According to Ha’aretz, Israeli army radio reported that Rabbi Avigdor Neventzal – chief rabbi of Jerusalem’s old city – has said in a speech to High School students (!) that anyone who wants to cede the land of Israel falls under the Halachic category of “din rodef” who can be killed according to Jewish law. Ha’aretz quotes Neventzal as saying:

“It should be known that anyone who wants to give away Israeli land is like a rodef, and certainly land should not be given to idol worshipers”

The Jerusalem Post reports that MK Yuli Tamir (Labor) gave a radio interview, in which she criticized Neventzal for inciting to violence against Israeli leaders. “The next murder is on the way,” Tamir said according to the Cleveland Jewish News. Moments after her interview she received a call on her cell-phone from an unidentified individual who threatened to kill her.

Readers may recall that Yigal Amir, who murdered PM Yitzhak Rabin at a peace rally in 1995, testified at his trial that Halacha mandated the assassination.

“I know Jewish law and ‘Din Rodef’ means that if you’ve tried everything else and nothing works, then you have to kill him.”

The Toronto Star quotes Yossi Klein Halevi, an associate fellow at the Shalem Centre, a Jerusalem think tank as saying:

“I have no doubt the threat is very real. Anyone who has sat with the farther fringes of the settler movement knows this is not contrived”

[Editor’s Note] John’s perspective somewhat neglects to recognize that, it is not because religious people are evil, nor even right wingers, that this is such a troubling issue, but rather because these sorts of actions seem to be very inconsistent with the values of peace and justice which seem to be much more fundamental to Judaism. It is a question of theological interpretation more than of politics and madness, and I hope one which we can approach more rationally and delicately than we as a people seem to be doing at the moment.

17 thoughts on “Right wing settler terror cells reportedly targetting Sharon, Al Aqsa Mosque

  1. Maybe you didn’t get the memo about the end of the “rodef” speech where he said that this law is not applicable today.
    Go listen to some imam speeches.

  2. This site has gone way downhill. It used to be about Jewish culture. Now it’s all about bashing religious Jews and bashing Israel and the US.
    Each new blogger here is more lefty than the last.

  3. valvel wrote: “ Maybe you didn’t get the memo about the end of the “rodef” speech where he said that this law is not applicable today.
    Yeah I guess Yigal Amir must have missed that memo too eh
    “On Wednesday, Labor Party faction leader Dalia Itzik called on the attorney-general to launch an investigation against Neventzal for incitement to violence after he told Israel Radio that anyone intending to give over parts of Israeli land falls under the halachic category of din rodef – someone who endangers life and thus can be killed if necessary in order to stop him.
    That term has not been used in public discourse since the trial of Yigal Amir, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin.
    Neventzal originally gave this opinion at a rabbinical conference Tuesday at the Givat Haro’eh outpost, which was then quoted the next day in Haaretz. Neventzal told The Jerusalem Post later that none of the rabbis there, among them the chief rabbis of Kiryat Arba and Beit El, had objected to his ruling.
    JPost
    velvel continued: “This site has gone way downhill. It used to be about Jewish culture. Now it’s all about bashing religious Jews and bashing Israel and the US. “
    What bashing of religious Jews ? Please point that the specific sentence
    What bashing of Israel and the US ? Please point out the specific sentence
    And if this story is not about Jewish culture, then whose culture is it about ?
    The story does remind me of these other Ayatollah-like stories however:
    JERUSALEM — Tensions are mounting between Israel’s two leading Orthodox parties after Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef suggested it is acceptable to kill members of the rival National Religious Party who criticize army exemptions for yeshiva students.
    While Yosef has a long history of making incendiary remarks, last week’s speech brought to the fore the growing acrimony between his Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party and the Modern Orthodox followers of the National Religious Party — and underscored the broader tensions over the place of ultra-Orthodox Jews within Israeli society.
    “Anyone who has evil thoughts about the yeshiva students and calls them parasites is a scoundrel, a heretic, and killing him is permitted,” Yosef said last Tuesday night at his Yeheve Da’at Yeshiva in Jersalem’s Har Nof neighborhood. “Even if an NRP man puts two sets of tefillin on his head, one of Rashi and one of Rabeinu Tam, he still has wicked thoughts. What does he say? That the students in the yeshivot and the kollels are parasites and make no contribution to the state? Even if they wear two tefillin — who needs their prayers? They have strange views, views of heresy.”
    [,,,]
    http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.09.12/news17.ovidia.html
    JERUSALEM, Oct 21 (AFP) – A right-wing Knesset member Tuesday accused high-profile Israeli leftists who drafted an unofficial peace plan with the Palestinians of “treason” and demanded they be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.
    “Those who initiated the Geneva agreement have perpetrated a crime of treason necessitating a death sentence or life imprisonement,” Shaul Yahalom, who heads the radical National Religious Party (NRP), wrote in a letter to Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, according to a copy obtained by AFP.
    […]

    http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031021172928.v0hpyj0w.html

  4. If the Shaback is looking for the for the one who they claim is the next Yigal Amir —
    Can someone get these people the phone number of Avishai Raviv, and quick?

  5. Babylonian wrote:
    “And if this story is not about Jewish culture, then whose culture is it about ?”
    I resent the idea that a story about psycho fanatics on any side of the political and religious spectrum is a decent portrayal of my culture.

  6. ariela wrote:
    “I resent the idea that a story about psycho fanatics on any side of the political and religious spectrum is a decent portrayal of my culture.”
    Well I don’t know if it’s decent or indecent but I do think that this story is a reflection of the reality we’re faced with by having all these ultra-nationalist/haredi factions in the Likud coalition and in positions of authority.
    Many of them are former Kach people and some worse. Kahane’s plan was to get rid of secular government and govern by Halachic law. It’s like the flip-side of Hamas, who are other violent psychoes with long beards, but that want Shari’a law instead of Halacha.
    And in effect these unbalanced people are holding world Jewry hostage because any time any real progress is going to be made in The Middle East Conflict a.k.a. Land for Peace they go ape-shit – like with Rabin.
    Babylonian wrote:
    “And if this story is not about Jewish culture, then whose culture is it about ?”

  7. Mr Brown,
    You were probably waiting a long time to get that post out with all the juicy bits and pieces to demonize the right/settlers all at one time. Good for you! You even accurately took Rav Neventzal’s words out of context. You must be so proud of that too! I won’t even bother to comment mre about it, I have better things to do – like recover from standing in the ‘Israeli human chain’ for over two hours.
    Oh, I’ll just remind you of some non-disputable facts concerning the Rabin murder; Amir was not a settler and in fact from the bohemian Herziliah, and his best ‘friend’ was Avishai Raviv, a known agent provocateur who pushed Amir to do it (with witnesses).

  8. Mob,
    really, what’s up with the blog? I’ve only been here three months and it, like, has turned into the forum on the Gush Shalom site. Can it just go back to you Asaf and a rare periodic guest post?

  9. Re: Editor’s Note
    I never claimed religious people are evil, nor right wingers
    it’s fundamentalists of all stripes I have a problem with. You can be as religious as you want. But when you start proclaiming Fatwahs or “determining” on God’s behalf that someone is Din Rodef, then I have a problem with that

  10. And I see you’ve done a lot of reporting on religious Muslim fanatics, too. Well, he seems to be beginning to, actually — hints of diversity in his one-note tune?
    Specifically, he announces that I never claimed religious people are evil, nor right wingers, but in the next breath declares that it’s fundamentalists of all stripes I have a problem with. You can be as religious as you want. But when you start proclaiming Fatwahsthen I have a problem with that. Fatawah, of course, are simply Islamic legal rulings; here Brown Babylonian smears an entire religion with the taint of a terrorist movement which has hijacked an admittedly worrisome portion of it.

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