Jail Him Right Now

I am not talking about a member of the Trump administration, I'm not talking about any sort of an elected official, I'm not even talking about an American.

I am talking about Chabad Rabbi Gedalya Axelrod, who is calling for the assassination of Israeli politicians who attempt to form a coalition with the Israeli Arab parties.

This is not hyperbole.  This is precisely the sort of rhetoric that led directly to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

This is a crime under Israeli law, and it should be treated as the terrorist threat that it is.

The Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement on Thursday sought to distance itself from one of its prominent rabbis in Israel after he issued a halakhic ruling invoking a religious doctrine that permits using lethal force against Jewish party leaders who cooperate with Arab parties.

Responding to the letter, a group of former heads of Israel's security services and military – including former chiefs of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service – urged the police to investigate Rabbi Gedalya Axelrod for incitement to murder.

A former head of the rabbinical court in Haifa, Axelrod issued a letter earlier this week stipulating that Jewish party leaders who support forming a government backed by Arab parties are subject to din rodef – literally, "the law of the pursuer." Under Jewish religious law, a rodef is someone who poses a threat to another person's life and may be stopped by any means necessary. 

The rodef label was infamously used to justify the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 31 years ago. In the lead-up to his murder, extremist rabbis suggested it could apply to Rabin because his pursuit of the Oslo Accords, which involved returning territories conquered by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War to create a Palestinian state, endangered Jewish lives.

In invoking the din rodef, Axelrod is not just saying that violence can be used to prevent a political outcome that he disagrees with, he is arguing that the use of lethal violence is mandated.

Lock him up.