I agree wholeheartedly with Rabbi Danny Landes. I sent this to several Israeli friends for their opinion and all of them, each a significant figure in Israel’s Progressive Reform movement, in the Israeli military command structure and at the top level of Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael (JNF) confided to me that they agree as well with Rabbi Gordis’ views below published in Haaretz (July 4).
Right-wing Jewish extremists, called “Jewish Price Gang”, have become terrorists and may represent the greatest threat to the state of Israel, even more so than Palestinian terrorists. They began with spraying “Price Tag” graffiti on Arab homes, Jewish human rights organizations and Israeli Christian churches to intimidate, and they have now kidnapped a 16 year-old innocent Palestinian Arab boy, Muhammed Abu Khdeir, from outside his family home and taken him to a Jerusalem forest where they set him on fire to burn alive until death. These Jewish terrorists must be punished in the same way that Palestinian terrorists are punished with arrest, imprisonment for life and the bulldozing of their family homes. Rabbi Landes justifies this not only on the basis of simple justice and fairness, but on Jewish principles.
His Haaretz piece is here – http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.603044
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