The Chief Rabbi of Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu has accused the family of a kidnapped Israeli soldier of “whining,” weakening Israel and causing the terrorist kidnapping of three Zionist Orthodox teenage boys in the West Bank June 12.
Racist Chief Rabbi Of Safed Says "Whining" Family Of Kidnapped Soldier Gilad Shalit Caused Kidnapping Of 3 West Bank Teen Boys
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
The Zionist Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, has accused the family of a kidnapped Israeli soldier of “whining,” weakening Israel and causing the terrorist kidnapping of three Zionist Orthodox teenage boys in the West Bank June 12, the Jerusalem Post reported based on reports in Walla! News and by Israel Radio.
Eliyahu’s remarks condemning the family of Gilad Shalit reportedly appear in Olam Katan, a weekly Orthodox parsha sheet (pamphlet on the week’s Torah reading) distributed in synagogues across the country.
Shalit was on active duty when he was kidnapped by Hamas on June 25, 2006. Hamas held him captive for more than five years, until he was released as part of a prisoner exchange on October 18, 2011. His family, friends and supporters were vocal advocates for Shalit during his years of captivity.
It is this vocal support for Shalit and the constant pressure for the Israeli government to bring him home that so irks Eliyahu.
“One of the major factors contributing to the erosion of Israeli society was the atmosphere of ‘me as the individual’ and the loss of national identity. The Shalit family and the group that put in motion the campaign around it [for the release of their son] enhanced this erosion. It adopted an attitude of whining and playing on sentiment. They blamed everyone [and] perpetuated the culture of ‘I deserve it.’ It was as if the only important thing to consider is today, not what happens tomorrow. As long as they get their son back, damn the consequences, even if it means that innocent civilians will pay the awful price. And the awful price has come. Three young boys were kidnapped,” Eliyahu wrote, only one week after the three teens were kidnapped while hitchhiking alone in the West Bank late at night, after IDF warnings against hitchhiking had been ignored by settler rabbis and leaders.
“Today [however], a new spirit is blowing,” Eliyahu continued. “It is a spirit of might and heroism, a spirit of responsibility, a spirit of unity. It’s a more responsible, healthier, more moral spirit. This spirit is alive and well in the army and the government, the Knesset, and the entire public. It’s a spirit of remedying the defects of the past.
“This spirit is being fostered by the families of the young people [who were just kidnapped]. With quiet conduct, they have managed to tug on the heartstrings of the Israeli society and to rehabilitate it. There are no accusations of guilt, no whining, no public pressure, no bitterness. What they do have is belief,” Eliyahu wrote.
Eliyahu is a notorious racist and extremist whose views are so extreme, Israel's High Court of Justice considered banning him from running for Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel last year and broadly hinted that if Eliyahu was elected, they would likely disqualify him. In the end, Israel's attorney general told Eliyahu that if he ran and won, and if his election was then challenged in the High Court, the government would not support him or provide legal assistance. This reportedly caused Eliyahu to drop out of the race.
His late father, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu – a former Jewish terrorist and seditionist who, after being pardoned from his conviction in a plot to overthrow the government or compel it to become a theocracy that would institute Orthodox Jewish law as the law of country – rose to the position of Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel after the right wing Likud Party rose to power.