Olbermann on O'Reilly's role in Dr. Tiller's murder

Keith Olbermann is often wrong, some times hugely so, but when he is right, boy, he is right.



Bill O'Reilly is as guilty as Operation Rescue - he, and his ilk, have been busy pushing the extremist views of groups like Operation Rescue to the mainstream, creating an environment where the murder of Dr. Tiller could happen. Well, it's time that he learns that words have consequences.

Is this how religion makes people more moral?

If it is, I'll stick to atheistic amorality.

Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

Obviously, he and I operate with two very different sets of morality. In mine, murder is wrong, in his, it's okay. Obviously, he must be right though, since his morality is based upon religion.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.

I could swear that the Bible contained something about "an eye for an eye", not "an city for a person". And "an eye for an eye" is considered a horrible principle among civilized people, since it will only keep the perpetual circle of violence going.

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu [son of Mordechai Eliyahu]. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

Let's not mince words - what Eliyahu is advocating is genocide, pure and simple. Jews, of all people, should oppose this, yet here we have the former chief rabbi of Israel calling for that very thing.
To call for such a thing is illegal according to international law, though it is only prosecuted if it actually leads to genocide. Let's hope that this never have to be prosecuted.