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News :: Israel / Palestine |
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Haaretz: Indicting A Racist Rabbi |
Current rating: 0 |
by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
02 Jun 2003
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A blatantly racist rabbi comes up against an Israeli against inciting racism. |
A-G decides to indict Rabbi Ginzburg for incitement against Arabs
By Gideon Alon, Haaretz Correspondent
Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein decided Monday
to indict rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg for incitement to
racism.
Rubinstein's decision came after a police investigation that was launched following a complaint filed against the rabbi by attorney David Shonberg from Jerusalem, who said that Ginzburg’s book Tipul Shoresh ("Root Treatment") contains inciteful comments, such as comparing the the Arabs to a cancer.
Rubinstein decided to hold a hearing for
Ginzburg's attorney Naftaly Varzburger pefore
submitting the indictment to a court.
Army Radio quoted Ginzburg’s lawyer as
saying that the timing of the decision was
puzzling, because the book was distributed two
years ago, and that Ginzburg was being persecuted
for expressing religious and philosophical
beliefs.
Rubinstein has previously rejected several demands
to indict Ginzburg. In 2001 the State Prosecutor
closed a sedition case against the rabbi,
launched following a petition submitted by
attorneys Shonberg and Moshe Frankfurter.
In their petition, they said that Ginzburg made
inciteful comments to the Jerusalem weekly
newspaper Kol Hazman and the daily newspaper
Ma'ariv. In both, he reiterated his support for
Baruch Goldstein's 1994 massacre of Palestinians
at prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs in
Hebron.
In Ginzburg's book, he claims that the land of
Israel belongs only to the Children of Israel and
that no goy (non-Jew) has the right to live in
the area unless he is a convert or a righteous
Gentile.
The book contains calls for the Arabs to be
expelled from Israel and for the land to be
"cleansed" of foreigners. Ginzburg , one of the
heads of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva (which was
located in Nablus before it was evacuated due to
the Intifada and subsequently destroyed by the
Palestinians), also calls on readers not to
employ or trade with Arabs.
A similar police investigation against Ginzburg
was launched following the 1998 publication of
his book Baruch Hagever ("Baruch the Man"), which
praised Baruch Goldstein's deeds in Hebron, but
in the end, the state prosecutor decided not to
indict Ginzburg . However, Ginzburg received a
stern warning from the police that should he
reiterate such statements in the future, criminal
proceedings would be launched against him.
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