Charges Unlikely for Advocates of Killings
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is tending toward not prosecuting the author or endorsers of the controversial book “Torat Hamelech,” Haaretz has learned.
The book, written in 2009 by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, was endorsed by two other rabbis, Yitzhak Ginzburg and Dov Lior. The authors describe it as a discussion of Jewish law on the conditions under which it is permissible to kill a non-Jew in times of war and peace.
The book’s publication led to the launch of a criminal investigation against the four rabbis for incitement to racism and violence.
According to one statement in the book, “when we come upon a non-Jew who is not keeping the seven [Noahide] laws, and we kill him out of concern for the keeping of the seven laws, it is not prohibited.”
Weinstein is expected to explain that he is basing his decision on limiting the use of criminal law as a tool to deal with offenses involving freedom of expression, particularly in light of the fact that the statements were made as part of a religious tract, as general statements, and the book mentions neither the word “Arab” nor the word “Palestinian.”
For more, go to Haaretz.com
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