The Rabbinical Congress for Peace (RCP), a group of 1,200 rabbis from the United States, Canada and Israel, has sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to each Cabinet minister, urging them to cancel their decision to release terrorists.
The agreement to free more than 100 terrorists was made to satisfy Palestinian Authority demands to resume direct talks on altering the borders of Israel, and the RCP it would be better for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to quit rather than buckle under American pressure.
“Out of all the deplorable and dangerous moves that governments in Israel carried out in the past to start a so called ‘peace process.’ the current move is the most dangerous of them,” the Rabbinical Congress wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
“Today there is absolutely no expert or pundit who thinks that Abu Mazen is serious about peace with Israel, they know he has no control over the Arab street. ‘ In a final resolution, in the new Palestinian state we would not see the presence of a single Israeli,’ he told Egyptian journalists last week. Does he sound like a man seeking peace with Israel?”
The letter added that the Palestinian Authority “knows that the Obama Administration will never punish it if it balks but probably will only offer it more. The negotiations will, as in the past, only make matters worse and in the end the world will blame Israel.
“We unequivocally affirm that according to Jewish Law, if you cannot withstand the political pressure, each one of you is morally obligated to resign immediately. Releasing even one terrorist endangers Jewish lives. A recent research found that 75 percent of the terrorists that have been released in the past revert to attack Jews. This also encourages others to engage in terrorism confident that they will be released.
Thus it is better that the whole government resign than to release even one terrorist.
In a special message sent to Jewish Home party ministers, the rabbis added: “According to Jewish Law it is forbidden for you to remain even one day in a government that releases cruel terrorists and is prepared to negotiate with its enemies and murderers on the borders of Israel.
“You are not doing a favor to the Jewish nation by adding more apartments in Judea and Samaria because by remaining in a government that advances such dangerous policies you are stabbing the settlers in the back. Besides, there is no guarantee that you in fact will get these housing units following the international outcry against it.
“We pray and hope that the government of Israel will come to their senses the last minute and refrain from carrying out such an absurd policy. The Netanyahu government still has time to regret its life threatening decision and safeguard the security of the Jewish people in their land.
The RCP warned nearly 20 years ago repeatedly warned against negotiating surrender of land in Israel to the Palestinian Authority, a ruling that it has said “proved to be without error The Congress cited the 2005 expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and northern Gaza and their forced relocation elsewhere.” To their horror, they found their new homes repeatedly bombarded by missiles dispatched from the very homes that they themselves had built and from the very fields that they had tilled.
“Unfortunately, the predictions of this Ruling proved accurate: every single withdrawal in these years has invited waves of increased terror and bloodshed of thousands of Jews, men, women and children, young and old. And today, those withdrawals jeopardize the security of millions of Jews in Israel.”