Former Chief Rabbi: It's Ok to Bomb Gaza

My standards are low, because I just got finished praising Moshe Yaalon for his better-late-than-never realization of the wrong-headedness of the religious belief that genocidal attacks can be stopped by granting the aggressors a state.

Below Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu presents a very different opinion, firmly grounded in mainstream Jewish sources. I do not support such a position, but it is important because it is based on the following Jewish tenants:

1) Self-defence is morally justifiable.
2) Evil should be opposed and the perpetrators punished.
3) Populations that support evildoers are considered collectively guilty for that support and should be punished for it.
4) "He who is merciful to the cruel will one day be cruel to the merciful." [In Israel the coddling of terrorist has resulted in thousands of innocent Israeli casualties.]

One could argue that Rabbi Eliyahu's proposal may backfire because of American and European sanctions, but that is a tactical question only, not one of morality.

Please note the following as well:

- His recommendations are defensive only, as opposed to the barbarous aggression against innocents initiated by our enemies.

- A stronger response to terror in the past would have saved more lives on both sides than it would cost, and the same is true for the present and the future. Continuing to let the Global Jihad grow rapidly makes nuclear war logically inevitable.

- There is no source in classical Judaism that supports the liberal doctrine of getting killed for the sake of moral bragging rights.

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

A simpler proof that they have indicated support for terror is that they voted for Hamas.

The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.

Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life.

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses."