JERUSALEM – Several hundred rabbis from all over Israel assembled in Jerusalem Monday afternoon to denounce the U.S.-backed road map which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

At the emergency meeting, sponsored by the Union of Rabbis for the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, the rabbis said the latest “peace” efforts were a “violation of Torah law” and decried the removal of Jewish outposts and settlements.

They rejected the legitimacy of any Israeli government that works toward the establishment of a “State of Palestine” or agrees to give away portions of the Holy Land.

“No one in the world, from drawers of water and hewers of stone to prime ministers, has the right to give up one grain of the land of Israel,” said former Sephardi chief rabbi Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu. “The Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the land of Israel. There is holiness in every single grain.”

Rabbi Sholom Gold, of Har Nof, said, “We speak on behalf of the Jewish people – past, present and future. It is forbidden to give the land away.”

“Nearly 10 years ago, in November 1993, two months after the handshake on the White House lawn, we gathered here for the first time in this hall to express our opposition to the Oslo Accords.”

He said they were told to leave such matters to the politicians and others. “They were all wrong,” he said.

“Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister, ten years have passed and history is being replayed before our very eyes. The road map has brought the rabbis right back here to this same room so that we can raise the cry again. The Palestinian state will be a knife poised at the heart of Israel.

“This is not the security that you promised us. Mr. Prime Minister – we are not occupiers, we are an ancient eternal people who have returned to our ancestral God-given home,” Gold said.

Rabbi Dov Lior, chairman of the Rabbinical Council of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, cautioned against the type of false peace promised by the road map. “There are organizations that refer to themselves as the ‘peace camp,’ as if they are the only ones who want peace,” he said, adding: “We all want peace, but it won’t come by giving up a historical claim to the land.”

We have never been in such danger as we are now,’’ said Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, the rabbi of Elon Moreh.

“I came here after feeling for several months like a soldier coming from the battle. We have never faced a danger as great as the one we face at this moment. The ground is burning under our feet. I call upon the great rear line to arise and come to life, from Metulla to the Negev. The truth must be reawakened.”

Rabbi Chaim Druckman, the head of the Bnei Akiva yeshivas, asked: “Have we been dazzled? Have we been taken over by blindness? The road map is worse than Oslo, and now after more than 1,000 dead and thousands of wounded and disabled, the eyes of the government have ceased to see.”

Rabbi Druckman said that the rabbis are motivated in their fight not by political concerns, but by a deep desire to save lives.

Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, chairman of the Pikuach Nefesh Committee, received an extensive ovation when he declared that after Prime Minister Sharon agreed to a Palestinian state, thereby endangering the life of every Jew in Israel, he no longer has a moral right to remain as prime minister.’’

Beit El Yeshiva head Rabbi Zalman Melamed said that at Yitzhar there was “martyrdom for the sake of the Holy Name. For every outpost that is evacuated, five new ones will arise.”

In a series of concluding remarks, the speakers urged the rabbis and the public to work against the road map, but to refrain from any acts of violence.

Several statements emerged from the meeting:

“The agreement called ‘the road map’ is in complete contradiction to the wisdom of the Torah;

“It is the right and indeed the duty of every rabbi in Israel to rule concretely to all who ask him what the opinion of Jewish Law is on every subject about which he is asked, and the sages of Israel must express their opinions on public issues as well;

“No government has the authority to declare the establishment of an alien state or to abandon parts of the Land of Israel to aliens, and everything that is done to this end is null and void in the name of G- d, the Lord of Israel, who has sworn this and in the name of the entire people of Israel throughout the generations;

“Everyone who has in his power to prevent implementation of the road map agreement and does not prevent it transgress the injunction Thou shalt not stand in thy fellow’s blood;

“The government is prohibited by a clear and absolute Torah prohibition from evacuating an outpost or a settlement. We must act with great dedication to prevent this and to re-erect any place that is evacuated, heaven forbid;

“However, it is necessary to act with great caution and avoid any violence, physical or verbal, both toward our dear brethren, the soldiers and the members of the security forces, and toward our brethren the settlers;

“We call upon the government and the heads of the army not to put soldiers in a position in which they have to make a choice between their loyalty to the values upon which their way of life is built and military orders.” (© Copyright 2001, The Jewish Press Inc. 06/26/03)