Stephen Lendman

Slow-motion genocide is longstanding official Israeli policy. Shmuel Eliyahu is chief rabbi of Safed, Israel and Chief Rabbinate Council member.

He wants genocide speeded up. More on this below. In July 2013, he sought to become Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein opposed his candidacy, petitioning Israel’s High Court over his extremists views and “destruc(ive) values (to) the State of Israel.” The petition was rejected for technical reasons. Chief rabbis are elected for 10-year terms. Yitzhak Yosel currently serves as Sephardi Chief Rabbi. David Lau is his Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi counterpart, both elected in 2013.

In May 2007, Eliyahi advocated carpet-bombing Gaza following any rockets launched, nearly always in self-defense after repeated Israeli provocations.

At the time, he was quoted, saying “(i)f they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand. If they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop” them.

In March 2008, he proposed “state-sanctioned revenge” against Arabs, “hanging the children of the terrorist who carried out the attack in the Mercaz Harav yeshiva from a tree.”

At the time, a lone gunman shot students at the Jerusalem religious school, an assault ending in his death.

In 2012, Eliyahu was accused of making racist statements, including saying “Arab culture is very cruel. The Arabs behave according to different codes and violent norms that have turned into ideology.”

Examples he invented with no justification whatever included stealing farm equipment from Jews, blackmailing Israeli farmers for protection against thefts, and saying “(t)he minute you make room for Arabs among Jews, it takes five minutes before they start to do whatever they want.”

Generations earlier, long before Israel became a state, Arabs and Jews lived peacefully together for hundreds of years.

Eliyahu has been involved in various other controversial activities. He wants Israel run by religious extremists like himself, including at the prime ministerial level.

His views are way over-the-top and dangerous. His recent Facebook comments include, saying “Israel’s army has to stop arresting Palestinians, but, it must execute them and leave no one alive.”

“Israel(i) police offices who do keep terrorist Palestinians alive should be prosecuted under the law.”

“We must not allow a Palestinian to survive after he was arrested. If you leave him alive, there is a fear that he will be released and kill other people. We must eradicate this evil from within our midst.”

He called Palestinians Israel’s enemy, wanting them “destroyed and crushed…”

His comments are viciously racist and incendiary, exacerbating ongoing Israeli state-sponsored terrorism against against millions of defenseless Palestinians.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

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