Rabbi Eliahu Zini is outspoken proponent of the “Greater Eretz Yisrael” and vehemently opposed the Oslo Agreement and the destruction of Gush Katif. He heads the Ohr V’Yishua Hesder Yeshiva in Haifa and for almost 40 years served as the rabbi of The Technion.
Born in Algeria, he is a descendant of Rabbi Yosef Yoshto, a student of the Rif (11th century). Rabbi Zini began a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Paris and completed it at The Technion, where he served as a senior lecturer in mathematics while also the campus rabbi. He also holds a second degree black belt in karate.
The Jewish Press recently asked him what he thought about the recent indictments against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Jewish Press: Were these indictments justified?
Rabbi Zini: The prime minister’s blood has been spilled without mercy for over two years by the media. His guilt was determined at the beginning of the investigations against him. He has already been hung from the highest gallows the world has known – via the Internet and international media, and in academies around the globe, the Knesset, and all liberal social and political forums.
Netanyahu hasn’t been convicted but he’s been charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
He’s already been marched out before a firing squad in the eyes of the media and the supposedly “liberal” public in Israel. This premature verdict of guilty was orchestrated by the Attorney General’s Office, a group known for its polluted opinions and leftist leanings.
Fortunately, a majority of Israel’s citizens realize that Jewish leftists, in Israel and abroad, have decided that anything smelling of proud Jewish nationalism must be hated and uprooted at its core. See how they vehemently oppose Trump’s noble recognition that Judea and Samaria legally belong to Israel.
This is why they will do anything they can to get rid of Bibi. He is the strongest political warrior we have at the moment – a defender of the heartland of the Bible and the cities of our forefathers, which the left would gladly give away to sworn enemies in order to prove that the word of Hashem is not eternal.
Liberalism is at the root of their opposition to Netanyahu?
The fight is between secularism and Torah. With all of his shortcomings, which we don’t deny, Netanyahu has shown relative loyalty in his covenant with the religious parties while the leftists are intent on erasing the Jewish nature of the state of Israel.
It is not surprising that their key player in their putsch, the attorney general, is a Religious Zionist of sorts, as if he is steering the ship, not them. Since the establishment of the medinah, the Religious Zionist community has been like a slave nailed to the doorpost of the leftist elite, all for the meager reward of a pottage of lentils whilst serving the country with supreme self-sacrifice in all fields, most notably the army.
And now a kippah-adorned fellow is helping the students of the original socialist Mapai and Mapam parties weave their nefarious plot, accusing Bibi of actions that are children’s play compared to the evil machinations perpetrated by the leftist usurpers of the state on our road to independence.
Not all rabbis have expressed the kind of staunch support for Netanyahu that you are expressing.
This disgrace is even worse than the sins of the left. These liberal rabbis who see themselves as Lilliputians in the eyes of the giants of the leftist elite, and who always endeavor to find favor, seek to poison the minds of true Torah believers into abandoning their support for the prime minister.
Raising a false banner of morality and national responsibility, they blemish Netanyahu’s name before a guilty verdict has been handed down, a deplorable act that is beneath criticism in clear defiance of the tenants of Torah law.
There is no greater wickedness than a rabbi declaring a person guilty before his trial, and the evil is multiplied a thousand-fold when the person in question is the country’s leader. If these so-called rabbis possessed a respect for the Torah, they would learn the Gemara of Kiddushin and discover that the world of Torah was destroyed by Yannai all because people with misplaced righteousness accused him without foundation.
Should a prime minister be judged differently than a normal citizen?
In terms of the judgment of a court, no. But in this case, a court trial has not yet begun. Netanyahu is still the prime minister, and like in any enlightened democracy, he remains innocent until guilt is proven. It is forbidden to disgrace any Jew, and someone who does so is considered to have shed that person’s blood. How much more so when the person is the prime minister, who possesses, as leader of the Jewish people, an aspect of kingship.