Former Haifa rabbi Axelrod issues fatwa calling for the killing of Jewish politicians who cooperate with Arab parties

Rabbi Axelrod, former head of the Haifa Jewish religious court, published a fatwa arguing that Jewish party leaders who cooperate with Arab parties should be killed. According to a report by Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Axelrod, who belongs to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, based this view on the principle in Jewish law that 'permits the use of lethal force against a person who poses a danger to others.'

Haaretz recalled that the principle in question had previously been used to legitimize the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who pursued the Oslo peace process with the Palestinians. It was also reported that, before the assassination, extremist rabbis had argued that this ruling could be applied to Rabin on the grounds that his support for the Oslo Accords endangered Jewish lives.

Numerous groups and organizations, foremost among them Democrats Party MK Michal Rozin, demanded that the Israeli police and the Shin Bet (Shabak) internal intelligence service open an investigation into the rabbi for incitement to murder. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, for its part, stated that Axelrod's interpretation does not bind it and stayed out of the debate.

In the latest Israeli elections, in the vote for the Knesset's 120 seats, the ruling and opposition blocs failed to cross the 61-seat threshold needed for a coalition. The parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel won 19 seats, reaching a historic level of representation; the possibility of the opposition bloc forming a government with the support of the Arab parties remains on the agenda.