Evacuators beware, says rabbi
Photo: AP
‘Evacuators to suffer terminal disease’
Rabbi issues anti-pullout edict, threatens soldiers and police officers who take part in evacuation with terminal disease or lethal car accident
TEL AVIV – Rabbi threatens security forces with divine punishment: Anyone who assists the “expulsion” of Jews from Gaza and the northern West Bank will suffer a terminal illness or a lethal car accident, according to a religious edict issued Sunday evening by Rabbi Moshe Tzuriel.
The rabbi addresses the edict to his “brothers” in the IDF and police and says he turns to them out of love.
“It is forbidden to hand over the money of the nation of Israel to the nations of the world and anyone doing that has no place in paradise. From those words already you can see the sin is terrible…”
Tzuriel than interprets various Jewish writings to mean that anyone who assists in removing settlers from their homes and land “will suffer a terminal illness or a lethal car accident several years later…Everyone will know where this (punishment) came from. Indeed, the hands of man do not punish, but God does punish.”
Illegal perks?
The rabbi also chooses to lash out at other rabbis who have permitted troops to take part in the upcoming evacuation.
“I ask of you, beloved brothers, not to be deceived by the words of several rabbis and yeshiva heads who ‘permit’ this uprooting,” he writes. “This may be result of illegal perks from authorities or due to fear or pressures from their superiors.”
“Therefore, I call on you (whether religious or secular) to tell your commander ‘I just cannot do it’ and undertake every effort not to be there on the day of evacuation. It’s also simple for every sick person or one who does not feel well to get an exemption from the operation,” the rabbi continues. “Yet even if the person is fired, or is imprisoned, he will be reward in paradise for being loyal to his Jewishness.”
