Israel’s chief military chaplain distributed a booklet to soldiers fighting in Gaza containing a rabbinical edict against showing mercy to enemies, an Israeli human rights group said yesterday.
The group, Yesh Din, which says it is dedicated to defending human rights in territory occupied by Israel, called on minister for defence Ehud Barak to dismiss the chief chaplain, Rabbi Avichai Rontzki, who holds the rank of brigadier general.
A booklet handed out by Rabbi Rontzki during the offensive quotes an ultra-nationalist Israeli rabbi saying that showing mercy towards a “cruel enemy” was “terribly immoral” and advising soldiers they were fighting “murderers”.
Yesh Din said the rabbi’s message could have been interpreted by soldiers as a call to act outside the confines of the international laws of warfare.
An Israeli spokesman had no immediate comment on the booklet, written by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a main figure in the Jewish settler movement in the occupied West Bank. A photo of its title page appeared in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper yesterday. – (Reuters)
