Yeshua Rabbinical Council: No Enemy Innocents

[High Plains]

Here's the link and complete text, headline plus two-paragraph story:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,l-3283720,00.html

Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents

The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that "according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy."

All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians," the statement said. (Efrat Weiss)

[High Plains]

1. Pretty blood-curdling stuff. Do they represent mainstream Jewish

theology, or are they out on the fringes?

[High Plains]

2. And yes, I know there is similar stuff from Muslim theologians.

[ThomCat]

3. I hope they are on the fringe.

There are branches of Judaism that would reject this entirely. But if you go by the more bloodthirsty parts of the Torah and the supporting Mishna I'm sure it's fully supported. God is a vengeful God. Massacres of entire populations, including every child, are not uncommon.

[Canuckistanian]

4. So.... the whole Lebanese population is 'the enemy'?

Funny, that's not what Olmert, Bush and Condi say. They say they're just after Hezbollah.

[question everything]

5. Would you post what Pat Buchanan or Louis Farrakhan said

as representing this country?

This group is as zealot as the Taliban or Pat Robertson and the rest of them. This is the same group - or a similar one - that claimed that Rabin should have been killed and someone took them seriously.

If you will search hard and long enough, you will find links that claim that the earth is flat and that Jews use the blood of non-Jews to bake their Passover matzo.

[High Plains]

6. Thank you for clarifying. It is reassuring they are a fringe group.

[maalak]

7. yesha is a small group of extreme settlers

this kind of rhetoric is bs, unproductive and should be disavowed. it is not representative of Jewish beliefs as a whole.

although by contrast, the views held by Hamas and Hezbollah that there are no innocent Jews, regardless whether it's a period of war or not, is widespread, an example can be found in the religious teachings approved by the PA:

http://pmw.org.il/specrep-37.html