HaKol HaYehudi reports that during a shiur in Hebron, HaRav Yaakov Yosef told participants that “we should take a lesson from the Syrians as how to wipe out and crush one’s enemy”, explaining that we must not address Hamas with a light hand, but learn from Damascus how one puts down one’s enemy.
Rav Yaakov Yosef, the eldest son of Maran HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef Shlita explained that we are in the midst of a military offensive and it is incumbent on the government and military commanders to understand what our mission is and what actions must be taken towards defending Eretz Yisrael and its inhabitants.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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12 Responses
I hope this article is wrong about what the Rav said. We shouldn’t be learning anything from such immoral people. The Syrians are indiscriminately murdering innocents alongside militants. At least we try to minimize collateral damage.
Compare this to what his father said:
“Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi and spiritual advisor of the Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has told the Jewish world to add Psalm 83 to the Sabbath prayers, to be said after opening the Holy Ark in the morning prayers, for the safety of Israel’s soldiers and civilians. The rabbi said that the Avinu Malkenu prayer, said during the Ten Days of Repentance and on fast-days, should be said at the end of the morning prayers every day until the end of Operation Pillar of Defense.”
Sometimes the apple indeed falls far from the tree….
There is wide support for Hamas in Gaza. That makes them all culpable.
They are all combatants. Whether they pick up weapons or sympathize, or support Hamas. Anyone that does not understand that really does not understand the entire conflict and why there is no possibility to make peace.
Our sages say, those who merciful to cruel will be cruel to merciful. Thus, Rav Yaakov Yosef Slita is 100% right.
Theirs’ so called civilians are 100% behind their militants, provide their militants with cover and all the necessary support. As such, they are 100% legitimate targets themselves. In Gaza there is no “innocent”. They all have status of enemy combatants and should be liquidated.
Unfortunately, instead of carpet bombing them, our military bombs them with fliers, warming them ahead of upcoming air strikes and letting the enemy to escape. Israel spends millions on “smart” ammunition in order to minimize collateral damage of that ammunition. Tremendous investments and efforts are put into intelligence , and all for the sake of avoiding casualties amongst so called civilians. This all allows the enemy to continue shooting rockets at our really innocent civilians, which should be the concern of our army, instead of being so concerned about the enemy. You cannot win a war fighting in white gloves.
Now, the government is contemplating of sending ground troops into Gaza. If the troops would be sent, they would send them to go from house to house, without preliminary bombing those houses with artillery and planes. Which means, the solders would be sent into mortal danger in a situation when simple bombardment could have destroyed any opposition before the arrival of ground troops.
All those comments that we should not sink to the level of Syrians and fight a moral war are immoral comments because those people who comment that way want to pay with the lives of innocent Jewish soldiers and civilians for their cozy feeling of being “moral”. As far as we should be concerned, all the disgusting lives of those animals put together not worth the live of a single Jew, and that should be the main concern of the Jewish army and not the concern about the enemy. Let the Hamas and Fata and all that garbage worry about their so called civilians.
In the last Gaza war our Jewish boys ware sent from hose to hose just with personal weapons in order not to inflict collateral damage. Only by the miracle of HaShem there were no casualties, but we cannot rely on miracles, especially when HaShem sent all the means to enable us to liquidate the enemy in old good natural way.
If I am reading these posts correctly, a muslim who attacks, say, a Jewish day school in France, then he too is justified since all Jews everywhere are culpable, even if they don’t pick-up a weapon, they can be considered combatants because they support/sympathize with the medinah.
This has been the justification of these terrorist murderers for years. And now we learn from them and use their words? We are now imitating these sick animals??
Sad.
To TorasMosheEmess
Please do not compare victims of Terrorists in a day school in France to those beasts who are called civilians of Gaza. The victims in France or for that matter any victim of terror in Israel were peaceful Jews who were never planning any attack on Arabs or on anybody. The beasts who named themselves Palestinians, wrongfully called civilian population, dream and plan and execute murder of Jews since the pogroms of 1929 or even earlier than that. You cannot protect Jewish civilians by surgical strikes on a few terrorists. Even if you kill out a few of their leaders, a thousand new once would replace them, again because they are all Jew haters and would give up their lives just to kill a few Jews. Also, hunting just the Kasam rockets is impossible – there are too many of them. Even if you would manage to destroy a few hundreds, it costs them nothing to replace those rockets. All it takes to make a Kasam is a palming pipe and a few pounds of fertilizer, both of which are supplied to Palestinians by Israel. Besides, rockets are not trying to kill Jews, it is the people who shoot them.
The only way by natural means to win a war against them is to break their spirit, and the only way to do it is by inflicting on them as many casualties as possible, and not as little casualties as possible. By not doing this, the blood of innocent Jew under rocket bombardment is shed. The last Lebanon and Gaza war prove that the surgical strikes are useless and the Jews in the South and in the North of Israel live under constant fear of rocket attacks, and the south to this day suffered from more then 10000 rockets.
You are writing: “And now we learn from them and use their words? We are now imitating these sick animals??”
We are not imitating them. The Pasuk in Parsha Ki Teytze” says “When you go out to war against your enemies …”, our sages teach us, why does Pasuk say “against your enemies” ? Don’t You already know that if You go out to war You go out against your enemies? This to teach you that when you go out to war, you should treat them as your enemies.
Also, our sages teach us that if somebody comes to kill you, kill him first. Majority of the Arabs in Gaza and for that matter in Eretz Isroel are dreaming of killing Jews, and as such have a status of Rodeif (pursuer). Our sages teach us that it is a Mitzva to kill a Pursuer to save the Pursued. Half of Israel is pursued right now by those Arabs in Gaza.
The last and most important point is that all of them, Gaza, West bank (Judia and Samaria), Israeli Arabs illegally occupying Eretz Isroel, given to un to Jew by G-d all mighty himself. Not only they occupy all those places illegally, they are very actively trying to get us, the Jews out , the lawful owners of this land. As such, there should be no mercy to them.
If allies during world war 2 were doing surgical strikes instead of bombing out of existence German cities together with their population, you TorasMosheEmess probably would not be writing these message right now.
First your comment about WWII is just silly. B”H all of my great-grandparents had come to America by 1902. More on your comparison later
Now, By any definition, the Palestinians are not “illegally ocuupying” EY. The state captured those territories in 1967 and has at no time then or since ever claimed even one inch of that land as sovereign territory (ecepting Yerushalayim). That said, by its own admission, it is the medinah’s occupation of that land that is illegitimate.
You quote our holy sages but only that which assists your point. Where the sages contradict you, you ignore them. You ignore that our sages forwarned us against establishing a “kingdom” in EY on our own and against making war on the gentiles while in golus, both of which we have done. So what our sages teach about making war is irrelevant when that war itself is ossur. You also ignore (or are ignorant of) the fact that our sages teach that Yishmael has been granted rule over the land (until moshiach) in the merit of circumcision… once again disputing your assertion that it is THEY who illegally occupy the land.
Regarding who is a Rodeif, you similarly play fast and loose with history. In 1896 (the date of the first Zionist conference) EY was 95% Arab and the rest were “eidah hachareidis” types (who didn’t want the new comers any more than the Arabs did) who lived in peace with their neighbors. Thee Zionists drove them out of their land… doesn’t that make US the rodfim?
Further, it was the Zionists themselves that introduced terrorism to the land. In fact, the single largest (in terms of death toll) terrorist slaughter in EY was committed by Zionists against Arabs: Deir Yassin. When we the zionists were weak and small, they aggressively attacked Arab villages (as well as other Jews who opposed them) to instil them with fear. The state has also pitted one arab group against the other to keep them fighting amongst themselves, even having a hand in establishing Hamas as an opposition force to the PLO! Talk about irony!! But again, doesn’t that make US the rodfim?
Regarding your comparison to the way other nations conduct their wars, I will answer simply: we are NOT other nations and we must NEVER allow ourselves to conduct ourselves according to their standards, c”v.
A final thought, proving you missed my entire point. Arabs kill Jews, even innocent children with the justification that they will one day grow up and serve in the IDF, thus making them legitimate targets. HaShem spared Yishmael knowing full well that one day his decendants would murder Jews. Why? Because at that point Yishmael was innocent. I say that we as Jews are called upon to emulate HaShem. You say “emulate the nations! Emulate Yishmael!” Lo Aleinu
I am not saying we should follow Rav Yosef’s opinion on this matter, but MosheEmess’s statements show just how far NK has gotten in spreading their shitta, their falsifications of history and corroboration with sonei Yisroel.
I don’t know which Torah the TorasMosheEmess is reading, may be he confused it with Koran, I am not sure. But according to my Torah, the whole Eretz Isroel belongs to Jews before and after 1967, regardless of the percentage of Arabs that were populating it. Any nation other than Jews is illigal in Eretz Isroel, and especially if they are trying to get us, the lowfull owners, out. Maximum, they can live there as elian residents without right to vote or make any desicions in regart in which direction the country should move. That is according to Rambam.
Also, TorasMosheEmess things the Zionism is dirty word. Somehow the Anshey Kneses HaGadoyla did not think so and put it in Smoneh Esrey. I am asking for return to Zion 3 times a day. Anyways, this user TorasMosheEmess should publish his messages on Al Jazira and not on Jewish web sites.
I agree strongly with the Rav. Of course it must be taken within reason, but war is not going to be won unless some serious steps are taken. You can’t be too merciful. That would be cruel.
Aouman
The fact that you must resort to ad hominem attacks merely demonstrates your ignorance of Torah. Vitriol may pass for argumentation in your circle, but not in the Torah olam. However, If you wish to learn, I will be happy to learn with you.
You seem to think that EY belongs unconditionally to the Jewish people. Nothing is further from the truth, as the Torah itself tells us. Further, all of our great Torah sages from the time of the Gemora forward have warned that because we are in golus we are forbidden to reconquer the land until Moschiach. These are sources from OUR mesorah– gemora, rishonim, achronim,Zohar. Specifically, that the land is given to Yishmael to rule over in merit of circumcision is from Zohar haKodesh. Your comment about the koran is insulting and ridiculous. As to your comments about the Shemona Esrei: The prayers in the amidah call for HASHEM to return us to Zion in the days of Moshiach and NOT for a cabal of atheist socialists to convince us to do so when THEY decide it is an opportune moment. The fact that zionism contains the word “zion” doesn’t make it any more kosher than when messianics call their savior “yeshua” instead of j*sus.
Again, if you wish to learn, I would be happy to learn with you. I will not however allow myself to be drawn into
trading insults with you.