Chaim, your video said that Yigal Amir assassinated Rabin because a government agent incited and convinced him to do so. You didn't mention the laws of a pursuer.
I know that Judaism has the laws of a pursuer. The problem with that argument is that anyone can accuse anybody of being a pursuer. If leftist Jews believed that Rabbi Kahane's rhetoric endangered Jewish lives, would that mean that Rav Kahane is a pursuer, too?
בס''ד
1. For legal reasons, I am limited in what I can say about Yigal Amir. It is illegal to directly praise or advocate assassinations. There are many things which I would love to expose in both our Hebrew and our English videos, but I am forced to restrict myself because I am a law-abiding citizen and JTF is a law-abiding organization.
2. Under the laws of state of Israel (and the United States for that matter), Amir is innocent and has been unjustly incarcerated for more than 23 years. Amir was clearly entrapped by Shabak agent Avishai Raviv. When a government agent persuades a citizen to commit an illegal act which that citizen would not have committed without government persuasion, that is the definition of entrapment. An entrapped defendant is not guilty of the offense. The government is not permitted to manufacture crimes by convincing law-abiding citizens to break the law.
3. Amir did not want to kill Yitzchak Rabin but was constantly pressured by Raviv to do so: "Be a man! If you believe that Rabin is murdering Jews and endangering Israel, then you have an obligation to get rid of him! If you don't do it, then you are guilty of spilling innocent Jewish blood and of threatening Israel's existence." After repeating these arguments numerous times, Raviv finally convinced Amir. The gun which Amir used was also given to him by Raviv.
4. As far as Torah law is concerned, for legal reasons I can only speak in general terms. I cannot address the Amir case specifically for legal reasons. But in general, what you say above is liberal Western "morality" and
not Torah values. Under your rules, if someone had decided to kill Adolf Hitler in 1932, he would be a "murderer". You also argue that a Jew cannot kill someone just because they disagree with him. Oh really? Moses ordered the Levites to kill 3000 Jews during chet haegel (the golden calf sin) just because it was their opinion that we needed an intermediary to reach Hashem during prayer. On Purim, we celebrate how Mordechai and the Jews in the Persian Empire killed over 70,000 supporters of Haman because of their views. On Chanukah, we celebrate the Maccabees who killed thousands of their fellow Jews because they embraced Greek Hellenistic culture (which was quite similar to modern Western culture).
5. There is no contradiction between advocating for Amir's release as I do in the video by asserting the defense of entrapment and also pointing out that Rabin was a mass murderer who imperilled Israel's existence.
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