JERUSALEM: An Israeli court has ordered the release of a settler rabbi detained after he outlined in a book cases in which he said it is permissible to kill non-Jews, including babies, an ultra-nationalist legal watchdog group said on Friday.
Yosef Elitzur, a resident of the hardliner Yitzhar settlement in the northern West Bank, was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of incitement to violence.
A court in Rishon LeZion, near Tel Aviv, ordered him released the same day saying police had failed to call him in first for questioning, according to the Honenu group.
The book, "The King’s Torah," written by Elitzur and another rabbi, claims that babies and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed since "it is clear that they will grow to harm us," the Haaretz newspaper said.
It further said non-Jews are "uncompassionate by nature" and that attacks on them "curb their evil inclination."
"Anywhere where the influence of goys (non-Jews) constitutes a threat for the life of Israel it is permissible to kill them," the rabbis wrote.
The book, published earlier this year, has drawn sharp criticism from numerous rabbis who say it contradicts the teachings of Judaism.
