Right-wing rabbis urge IDF to hit harder at terrorism

The heads of West Bank yeshivas and members of the Yesha Council of Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?s rabbinical council urged the government Tuesday not to avoid harming Palestinians if it means an effective war on terrorism.

In a letter published Tuesday, the settler community leaders called on the government to toughen its policies in the territories even at the cost of civilian Palestinians lives. They also declared that the army should show less regard for the welfare of Palestinian civilians if terrorists are hiding in their midst.

The letter to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was issued by a number of prominent hard-line rabbis, including Haim Druckman, the head of the Bnei Akiva yeshiva network; Eliezer Melamed, the head of Har Bracha yeshiva; and Yuval Sharlo, a head of a yeshiva in Petah Tikva which combines Torah learning with active IDF service.

"There is no war in the world in which it is possible to delineate entirely between the population and the [enemy] army, neither in the U.S. war in Iraq, the Russian war in Chechnya, nor in Israel's wars with its enemies." the rabbis wrote.

The rabbis' statement posed the question, "Should the IDF fight the enemy, if civilians [on the other side] will be killed, or should the IDF refrain from fighting, and thus endanger our civilians?" The rabbis quote the sage Rabbi Akiva in responding that "Our lives come first."

"Christians preaching 'turn the other cheek' will not cause us to panic, and we will not be view favorably those who prefer the lives of our enemies on our own lives."

Settlers prevent evacuation of illegal outpostHundreds of settlers managed to prevent on Monday the evacuation of the outpost of Nofei Prat, near the settlement of Kfar Adumim in the Judean Desert.

The outpost was erected several months ago and several families reside in it in mobile homes. The civil administration planned to evacuate the homes Monday, but hundreds of settlers from the area and security services decided to delay evacuation.

	Rabbi Haim Druckman, one of the signatories on a public call to the IDF to toughen its fighting policies in the territories. (Motti Kimche)