State attorney says "Od Yosef Hai Shechem Yeshiva" is source of incitement and violence against Palestinians and the rule of law.
By YONAH JEREMY BOBHaredi ultra-orthodox yeshiva students 311(photo credit: REUTERS/Baz Ratner)
The State Attorney’s Office submitted on Wednesday its formal opposition to the request that the Od Yosef Hai Shechem Yeshiva filed before the High Court of Justice to reinstate its state subsidies, and called the yeshiva a source of incitement and violence against Palestinians and the rule of law.An Education Ministry committee had decided to terminate subsidies to the yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement based on an accumulated record of its unlawful activities compiled by state security agencies. The yeshiva responded by petitioning the High Court to reinstate the subsidies.In its support for the ministry’s decision, the state attorney’s written opposition disclosed substantial details about the alleged offenses, stating that students and rabbis of the institution were guilty of both incitement to violence and actual attacks against Palestinians.In its opposition, the office noted that students and rabbis of the institution have also acted violently against Israeli security forces, have called for a refusal to enlist in the IDF or obey orders and have urged the violation of Israeli law “when necessary” to further the yeshiva’s “extremist agenda.”The state claimed that many of the offenses occurred during regular class hours, and were therefore in violation of both ethical and educational standards.Furthermore, the State Attorney’s Office said that some rabbis of the yeshiva had authored widely publicized essays and quasi-legal works arguing that it was permitted to kill noncombatants, even if they were innocent non-Jews and their children.While the document that the office submitted expanded upon some of the claims leveled against the yeshiva, a significant portion of the evidence presented remains classified.The state attorney said that, in light of the yeshiva’s activities and actions contradicting the basic values of the country, it was not an institution educationally fit to receive governmental financial support. The office took its argument a step further, saying that failure to cut off the yeshiva’s public funding would be wholly unreasonable.
