Former Israeli Chief Rabbi Calls on Jews to Kill Arafat

With Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, expected to visit the West Bank and Gaza Strip this month, a former Israeli chief rabbi on Wednesday issued a religious ruling calling upon Jews to kill him.

Rabbi Shlomo Goren said he had made a formal rabbinic ruling that declared: “There is no doubt that Yasser Arafat deserves death according to Israeli and international law. . . .

“It is, therefore, a commandment to kill Arafat, and there is no need to wait to bring him to trial,” Goren continued in interpreting Jewish religious law. “Every (Jew) is commanded to kill Arafat.”

While many here simply ignored it, other religious figures and Israeli government officials denounced the rabbi’s ruling.

Pressed by an Israeli radio interviewer on whether his ruling did not amount to an incitement to murder, Goren replied: “To kill Arafat is not a sin or a crime, but will bring a blessing to the person who does it and to his family.”

Goren, who served as chief rabbi of Israel for a decade and before that as chief military rabbi, said Arafat “deserves killing” under Jewish law “because he is defined as a persecutor who declares war day and night against the state of Israel. His sentence as a persecutor is that anyone in Israel is obligated to kill him.”

Arafat’s planned trip to the West Bank town of Jericho and probably to the Gaza Strip increased the urgency of the matter, Goren said, making plain his hope that Israelis will be inspired by his ruling to attempt Arafat’s assassination during the visit--or that this prospect will deter Arafat from coming.

In April, Goren said he would “declare a great holiday” if a Jew rose up to “wipe out” Arafat, but that statement did not carry the weight of a rabbinic ruling, as did his declaration on Wednesday.

Calls for Arafat’s assassination have multiplied significantly in Israeli right-wing circles recently.

And radio talk-show hosts calmly entertained discussions this week of whether Israel should allow Arafat to travel to the Palestinian self-rule areas--Gaza and Jericho--or whether the government should organize his killing when he visits.

In Morocco, Arafat said Wednesday that the exact date of his departure for Jericho had not been decided, although the pace of the PLO takeover in Gaza and Jericho has accelerated.

“We are on the eve of the final return together to our fatherland,” he said.

Goren’s declaration was supported by Israel’s ultra-right, rejected by the left--and ignored by most people.

“Rabbi Goren’s old age embarrasses him and us,” said Uri Dromi, director of the Government Press Office. “No sensible person thinks we should kill Arafat--he has become our partner in the search for peace.”

But Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, head of the Jewish seminary in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, outside Hebron, supported Goren’s basic reasoning.

“Imagine what shouts of joy there would have been if Adolf Hitler had been killed! There is no difference between the two,” he said.

Emily L. Hauser of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.