Safed's Chief Rabbi Calls For Revenge Against Arab Shooters That Killed 8 Merkaz Harav Yeshiva Students

Safed, Jerusalem (AHN) - Safed's chief rabbi sent out a letter to the state demanding vengeance for eight killed students of the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva when a shooter came in and opened fire.

"A state that really respects the lives of its citizens would have hanged the 10 sons of the terrorists on a tree 50 amot [25 meters] tall, so that others would see it and be afraid," wrote the rabbi.

Furious, he continued: "[The state] has to pain them to the point where they scream 'Enough,' to the point where they fall flat on their face and scream 'help.' Not for the sake of satisfying the need for revenge but for the purposes of deterrence."

Haaretz.com reported that according to the rabbi, two weeks that have passed since the attack, and there had been no actions taken by the state in response to the incident. Acknowledging immediate action as a part of Israel's policy, the rabbi wrote that "the IDF's capacity for deterrence is gone."

The rabbi went on to condemn those who disagreed with his statements, with him saying that "with their way of doing things, there won't be a state here in another 30 years."

According to Haaretz.com, the Safed rabbi had in the past spoken harsh statements against Arabs.

"In 2004, Eliyahu gave a radio interview in which he called on homeowners neither to rent out their homes nor sell their homes to Arabs," said a spokesperson for the Musawa Center for Arab Rights.

"Unlike deterrence, revenge should be shunned by Israel as a democratic country of law and order and as the state of the Jewish people," Rabbi Gilad Kariv, legal adviser for the Reform Movement in Israel, told the Jerusalem Post.

He continued to say he hoped the Jewish "will have the sense to expel from its midest dangerous extremists like Rabbi Eliahu." Musawa plans to punish the rabbi "at the fullest severity of the law."