http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206446107844&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull'Hang yeshiva killer's sons from a tree'
By MATTHEW WAGNER
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Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu called on the state of Israel on Wednesday to hang the sons of the terrorist who killed eight yeshiva students at Mercaz Harav.
A student wounded in the shooting attack in Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva is evacuated to Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital. [file]
Photo: AP
"A state that really respects the lives of its citizens would have hung the ten sons of the terrorist on a tree 50 amot [25 meters] tall so that others would see it and be afraid," wrote Eliyahu, referring to the Book of Ester's depiction of the way the Jews of ancient Persia took revenge against Haman and his ten sons by hanging them.
Eliyahu's comments will appear this weekend in a Hebrew-language pamphlet called Eretz Yisrael Shelanu [The Land of Israel Belongs to Us] that is distributed in thousands of synagogues across the nation.
"I am not talking about individuals," stipulated Eliyahu. "I am talking about the state of Israel that needs to make them hurt until they scream 'enough'. Until they lay sprawled on the ground groveling 'help us'...We have to extract a revenge that is so painful it will burn into their souls the message of all our enemies that Jewish blood is more valuable than gold and platinum."
Eliyahu stressed that the aim of the revenge was solely to achieve deterrence. He added that the Torah's prohibitions against revenge referred solely to individuals, not to states.
On the national level "revenge is necessary. Every state that is attacked takes revenge. The US, Russia, Turkey and India, all European state and even Third World countries take revenge. Does the entire world have it wrong and only the Israeli Left have it right? The Israeli Left is tired. It has lost its will to live. We have to remove those tired Leftists from political leadership and send them to the old age home and choose leaders that know true morality."
Rabbi Gilad Kariv, legal advisor for the Reform Movement in Israel said in response that "Jewish history is full of zealots whose zealotry has brought tragedies upon the people while bringing about the moral corruption of the Jewish people.
"Unlike deterrence, revenge should be shunned by Israel as a democratic country of law and order and as the state of the Jewish people. It is hoped that the Jewish people, enjoying a renaissance in its land, will have the sense to expel from its midst dangerous extremists like Rabbi Eliyahu.
"Rabbi Eliyahu's recent comments prove once again that the Attorney General made a big mistake when he decided to rescind an indictment against him for incitement to racism in exchange for a dubious retraction."