Holy Terror: Extremist Clerics Justify Killing Non-Combatants

Yes, they're at it again, those bearded fanatics with their violent religious extremism, justifying the mass murder of innocent people by citing supposedly holy scripture. Is there no atrocity or abomination that cannot be countenanced by these Muslim -- What? Hang on a second.

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam [rocket] attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter...cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision. According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

Oh, so it's not Muslims advocating the murder of innocent people with God's blessing. So that's OK, then. In fact, we learn from the good rabbi's son -- who is also a cleric -- that the number of innocent people who can be murdered with God's blessing is virtually unlimited:

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And 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."

Or hey, why not six million? After all, the sky's the limit when you start down that "collective responsibility" road. ***