A media reading of recent Jewish fatwas on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

By Senussi Bsaikri

Media and human rights sources have expressed their outrage at the teshuvah (Jewish legal opinion, literally a “response”) of the Israeli Sanhedrin (Rabbis’ council) to kill Palestinian prisoners and kidnap elected members of the Palestinian legislature. The Sanhedrin was prompted to issue this opinion by news of the recent negotiations for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who is being held prisoner by Hamas in Gaza. The teshuvah’s extreme recommendation would come into force, apparently, if Sergeant Shalit, who is a French citizen and was promoted in absentia, is not returned safe and well to his family.

However, such teshuvot (plural of teshuvah) have often gone hand in hand with the Israeli authorities’ frankly racist and oppressive policies against the Palestinians throughout the years of the occupation. The religious opinions actually flourish at times of serious unrest; it is noticeable that when fighting intensifies, teshuvot have been issued repeatedly giving Jews the religious authority to attack Palestinian civilians in response to operations carried out against Israelis. It is obvious that Israel’s Rabbis have long provided the religious cover required by the political and military leaders for “the security for Israeli citizens.”

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, from the city of Safed in the Galilee, wants Israeli occupation forces to implement “official severe revenge” against the Palestinians and beat them repeatedly (aljazeera). The rabbi has also called for the reconstitution of the infamous “Unit 101”, a military force once led by Ariel Sharon, which was responsible for massacres of Palestinian civilians and blowing up their houses in the villages of Qibya and Nahleen in the early fifties.

In his teshuvah published in the religious journal “The land of Israel is ours”, Rabbi Eliyahu stressed that Israeli forces should beat Palestinians not only for the sake of revenge, but also to act as a strong deterrent and teach “the Arabs” that “Jewish blood is more precious than gold”.

Moreover, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported in its 9th November 2009 edition that a book has been published in the occupied West Bank in which the author justifies the killing of “Gentiles.” According to the book, written by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, head of a religious school in the Yitzhar colony-settlement, it is permissible for Jews to harm non-Jews and their children and that “those who are claiming the possession of the land and those who are undermining our right in it should face death”.

Many rabbis agree on the “revenge” justification; they consider it to be the right understanding of their holy book. Rabbi Eliyahu emphasizes that his teshuvah is derived from religious references and that “revenge” is not a “rude” word in the Torah. Eliyahu believes that revenge is only forbidden if directed against other Jews but is totally permissible in conflicts with gentiles.

In the past, Eliyahu urged the Israeli government to hang from a very tall tree the sons of the perpetrators of a bomb blast in Jerusalem. He also put the lack of a suitable reaction by the government down to a complete ignorance about religiously justified revenge; the army lost its deterrent power as a result, he believed. aljazeera

In 2004 Rabbi Eliyahu issued an opinion encouraging Jews to deny Palestinians the right to rent properties in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This supplemented a previous teshuvah of Rabbi Haim Guenyibsagi, a very well-known scholar, which prohibited the employment of Palestinians by Jews.

Earlier this year Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a senior member of the national religious movement in Israel, sent a letter to ex-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli politicians justifying the aggression against Gaza last January. In his letter the rabbi also justified killing civilians because they did not do anything to stop the Qassam rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel; he believed that the harm inflicted on innocent Palestinian citizens which occurred during Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza was legitimate. Other teshuvot call for the killing of men, women and children, and even animals. alarabiya

Such opinions issued by Jewish scholars are often met with silence from the Israeli authorities, although some observers claim that they are accepted by many political and military leaders. Palestinian human rights activists have expressed deep concern about the impact on Palestinian prisoners of the kinds of opinions noted above. To them, they appear to give the green light to the occupation forces to heap even more humiliation on the occupied people and give a religious justification for more violence against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and Israeli prisons.

As a footnote, it is worth mentioning here that Sergeant Shalit has recently been seen on film apparently in good health. Muslim scholars and Palestinian human rights organisations have urged his captors to treat him well, as prescribed by Islamic law.

Up until now, despite efforts by many media commentators around the world to paint the Israel-Palestine situation as a religious dispute, it is generally acknowledged that this is a political struggle for national rights based on international law and conventions. The surge in teshuvot issued by Israeli rabbis suggests that they are trying to turn this into a conflict based on faith, which is a worrying trend as it is all too easy to accuse critics of such policies of “anti-Semitism.” If this trend continues, it does not bode well for the future of Palestinian rights under long-standing international law.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.