Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Shalit, Israel and rabbinic debate

Shalit, Israel and rabbinic debate
 
By David Ellenson · October 18, 2011
 
NEW YORK (JTA) -- Political sovereignty in the restored Jewish
homeland often means making decisions with life-and-death
implications. That reality was brought home last week with the
agonizing decision to authorize the terribly imbalanced swap to gain
the release of Gilad Shalit.
 
The criticisms and concerns lodged by many supporters of Israel within
and beyond its borders against the Netanyahu government for exchanging
more than 1,000 prisoners for a lone Israeli soldier are legitimate
and understandable. Undoubtedly some of the released prisoners will
attempt again to wreak murder and mayhem against inhabitants of the
Jewish state.
 
At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Jews and people of good
will throughout the world have rejoiced over a decision that will
allow Shalit to return to the safety and love of his family and
nation. Agreeing to the lopsided deal involved great pain for an
Israeli government charged with balancing numerous and competing
concerns in providing for the safety and security of its soldiers and
citizens. The decision involved no easy or obvious choice.
 
However, as so many reflect upon the action taken by Israel, it is
instructive to remember that Israel unfortunately has confronted the
same heartbreaking and excruciating question before. In 1985, the
Jewish state had to decide whether to return 1,150 Palestinian and
Lebanese prisoners for the release of three Israeli soldiers.
 
While the exchange never took place and the fate of the three Israeli
POWs remains unknown, two prominent Israeli rabbis -- Shlomo Goren and
Haim David Halevi – addressed the issue directly at that time. Their
words from that time have resonance and meaning today, as they provide
important perspectives for reflecting upon the policy position adopted
by the current Israeli government in agreeing to this exchange.
 
Rabbi Goren served as Chief Ashkenazic rabbi of Israel and was
formerly chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, while Rabbi Halevi
was the chief Sephardic rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Rabbi Goren, in an
article written on May 31, 1985, stated that Jewish law absolutely
forbade the Israeli government from redeeming “our captive soldiers in
exchange for 1,150 terrorists,” and based his ruling on a Talmudic
passage in Gittin 45a that stated, “Captives should not be redeemed
for more than their value.”
 
Rabbi Goren emphasized his great distress at the personal plight of
these captives – they were surely in “mortal danger.”  However, he
still insisted that the state should not redeem them, as an exchange
for the release of known terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel
and its Jewish population surely would imperil all Israeli citizens
and only fuel Arab attempts to capture more Jews in the future. The
price exacted from Israel through the release of these terrorists was
simply too steep for the state to afford.
 
Rabbi Halevi, responding to Rabbi Goren soon after the article
appeared, said he was sympathetic to the position advanced by his
Ashkenazic colleague but disagreed with the conclusion. In Rabbi
Halevi's view, the conditions that obtained in a modern Jewish state
were vastly different from those that confronted the Jewish community
in pre-modern times when the Talmudic passage was written. The Jewish
people were now sovereign in their land, and the “political-national”
aims that motivated the terrorists “to wreak havoc among the Jewish
people” would continue regardless of whether their prisoners were
released in exchange for Israeli soldiers.
 
Indeed, these terrorists would persist in their efforts until a
political solution to the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict was
achieved.
 
The “impossible choice” before the government, as Rabbi Halevi saw it,
was whether to “strengthen the power of the terrorists through the
release of their comrades or to strengthen the morale of IDF soldiers
should there be future wars.” Faced with the two options, Rabbi Halevi
believed that priority had to be assigned the latter -- the Israeli
government should do all in its power to uphold the morale of the
Israeli soldiers.
 
If a soldier and by extension his family and all residents of the
Jewish state knew that the government would spare no effort or expense
to liberate a captured soldier, and that such release possessed the
highest governmental priority, then the resolve of the citizen-
soldiers of the State of Israel to defend their nation would be
fortified and absolute.
 
In a moral universe where alternatives were limited and where the
military might of the State of Israel could protect its citizenry
despite the preposterous numerical imbalance of the exchange, Rabbi
Halevi felt this choice was still the wisest one that the government
could make in an imperfect world.
 
In responding in this way, Rabbi Halevi enunciated a position that
provides a rationale for understanding why the current Israeli
government made the decision on the issue of prisoner exchange. As its
critics contend, surely it is a policy fraught with danger for the
state. At the same time, it appears to be a policy that continues to
guide Israel legitimately as it continues to provide unlimited support
to its citizen-soldiers as they all too often confront an enemy bent
on the state's destruction.

 Shalit, Israel and rabbinic debate
 
6 anni di fallimento del Mossad non li devono dibattere i rabbini

 6 anni
 
riminchia, nemmeno due minuti dopo che lo ho postato. Non sono non te
ne intendi, ma manco leggi.

 Ashkenazic colleague but disagreed with the conclusion.
 
Dal fondo dell'abisso della mia ignoranza delle questioni talmudiche,
e solo sulla base di considerazioni di umanità e di buon senso, sono
portato a concordare con Rabbi Halevi.
 
Carlo "Jurassic Park"
 

 wrote:

Le considerazioni di umanità e buon senso sono ottimi argomenti talmudici
:-) (btw, concordo anch'io in pieno con Halevi, pur con tutta la simpatia
per Shlomo Goren, il rabbino che suonò lo Shofar nella Gerusalemme riunita
nel 1967)
 
 
-- 
recoil is insignificant when there is a tiger on the head of your elephant