Earlier this month, Rabbi Dov Lior, a leading Religious Zionist rabbi and the senior rabbinic authority of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, ruled that it is permissible to rob Palestinians of the olives in their West Bank groves.
He was reacting to a ruling issued days earlier by moderate rabbis from the Gush Etzion area. Addressing the spreading phenomenon of robbing Palestinians of their olives, they had declared it forbidden according to Jewish law and a desecration of God’s name.
Lior’s ruling rests on three religious claims. First, that the land has belonged to the Jewish people since biblical times, so the Palestinians living on it are the real robbers.
Second, that the olives may be taken under the halachic principle of “abandonment by the owners,” because Palestinians have given up on harvesting many groves that they can no longer safely reach. And third, that harvesting the olives is itself a mitzvah because it declares our ownership of the land and fulfills the commandment to conquer it.
Events in recent months, and in recent days in particular, show that the audience Lior addressed accepts his authority and shares his premise. They are unmoved by the moderate rabbis, whose ruling they do not regard as binding halacha. They are equally unmoved by Israeli law, which recognizes these as Palestinian territories under the international agreements Israel has signed.
Just this month, violent settlers assaulted a Washington Post photojournalist who was documenting the harvest. And the next day, they did not hesitate to desecrate Shabbat by attacking a delegation of diplomats and their vehicle. The diplomats had come to accompany the harvesters of Taybeh, the only fully Christian village in the West Bank.
Lior’s ruling presents itself as the halachic position.
Even if his analysis is grounded in a possible interpretation of the text, it would be appropriate for us to view it in light of the words of Nachmanides (Ramban) in his commentary on Parashat Kedoshim, where he says that one must behave with holiness and moral integrity even where there is formal permission to do otherwise, and one who does not is a “scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah.”
Other commentators go further: one who ignores the ideals of “You shall be holy” and “You shall do what is right and good” is simply a scoundrel, because the Torah never permits such conduct.
FOR ME, the relevant model for a Jewish and moral decision is found in the Jerusalem Talmud (Bava Kamma 4:3). There, Rabban Gamliel confronts the fact that the Torah forbids robbing a Jew but permits robbing a gentile.
Two Roman emissaries study Torah with him, and at the end they say: “All your Torah is beautiful and praiseworthy, except for these two things you say ... what was robbed from a Jew is forbidden, but from a Gentile it is permitted.”
Robbing a desecration of God's name
The text concludes: “At that moment Rabban Gamliel decreed that robbing a gentile is forbidden, because of the desecration of God’s name.” He understood that such blatant discrimination gave the Torah, the God of Israel, and the Jewish people a bad name. So he did not hesitate to change the law and apply the prohibition on robbery to Jews and Gentiles alike.
But Rabbi Lior has clearly chosen the opposite model. He not only twisted the texts to legitimize robbing Palestinians, but he and his followers shut their eyes to the desecration of God’s name they cause – among Israelis and especially among the nations of the world.
The world is watching the shocking reports from the West Bank. They show the helplessness of the army, the police, and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the tailwind the violent settlers enjoy from ministers in the government, and the weak and baffling protest from the prime minister.
As if the harm, robbery, and violence against Palestinian residents were not enough (without minimizing the violence of Palestinian terrorists, whom the security forces confront with determination), the attack on an American-Jewish photojournalist and on a European diplomatic delegation has amplified the international outcry. It has fed growing hostility toward Israel and the Jewish people.
The lesson, beyond the urgent need to stop these rogue settlers’ violence, is twofold.
First, no one should preach to us that there is a single authoritative Torah view. As the Midrash teaches, “just as our faces differ, so do our opinions.” Second, Lior is not the first, and probably will not be the last, to present vile instructions as Torah, something our Sages themselves defined as a desecration of God’s name.
But an enlightened democracy, including an enlightened Jewish democracy, requires that no rabbi and no interpretation be granted governing authority.
Rabbis are important, and so is open discourse within the bounds of the law. But religious dictates and coercion under government sponsorship belong in backward theocracies, not in our precious Jewish and democratic State of Israel.
The writer is one of Israel’s most prominent advocates for religious freedom. He currently serves as president and CEO of Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality.