In parshat Ki-Tetse, we read a very strange commandment:

"If one is found slain in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not

Today's Israeli government cannot come out of the Knesset and proclaim the same as the Biblical elders.

known who has smitten him; then the elders and the judges shall come forth, and they shall measure the cities which surround the slain.... And all the elders of that city, who are near the slain man... shall speak and say: 'Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.'" (Deuteronomy 21:1,2,6,7)

When I first read that segment of the Torah, it made no sense to me. As well known in the times of ancient Israel, the elders of the city were wise men, mostly tzadikim ("righteous people"). Just imagine that someone was killed in a valley somewhere in the Land of Israel, and the elders of the surrounding, bordering cities had to stop what they were doing and proclaim that their hands had not shed his blood. How absurd does that sound? Of course they had not killed him; no one in their right mind would even suspect them. Yet, that commandment had to be applied for every unknown person slain in the country.

Rabbi Meir Kahane (z.t.l., H.y.d.) explains that the elders of the bordering cities were indeed righteous people who studied the Torah and taught ethics to their inhabitants. However, they did everything in their power to make sure that the innocent bystanders would not get hurt, that evil would be punished and that all wickedness would be burned out of their midst.

Unfortunately, today's Israeli government cannot come out of the Knesset and proclaim the same as the Biblical elders. They are indirectly involved in so many Jews being killed by Arab terrorists inside Israel.

The new administration is not different from previous ones, as Binyamin Netanyahu still plans to make goodwill gestures by releasing terrorists from prison. It is interesting to note that most Arab terrorists go back to terrorism after being released. I understand the Arabs, but I don't understand the Jews.

On Friday night, August 14, 2009, a small family was sitting on a bench at the northern Tel Aviv seashore, on the Tel Baruch beach, enjoying the air. They were not sitting in "the occupied territories", but in the heart of Israel. A gang of young Arabs from the village of Jaljulya attacked the father, Leonard Karp, 59. He tried to hold the young Arabs off to enable his wife and daughter to run to safety; some Arab men were chasing and beating them. The remaining Arabs focused on the father. They managed to lynch him; his badly beaten body was later found floating in the water near the Israel Electric Corporation building. It bears mentioning that police responded within five

How many times does the IDF have to apprehend the same terrorists over and over again?

minutes. And the next day, Prime Minster Netanyahu expressed his shock.

The same Arab terrorists who are freed from Israeli prisons take up weapons and attack Israeli soldiers. How many times does the IDF have to apprehend the same terrorists over and over again? This severely demoralizes the IDF.

Every day something happens like Arabs throwing stones at passing vehicles and Arab knife attacks, especially near Hevron's Machpela Cave. Did we survive two thousand years of persecution to be killed in our own home?

The Israeli government cannot walk from Knesset and proclaim that their hands did not shed the blood of Jews. In Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:16, the mercy of fools is described: "He who has mercy on the cruel will one day be cruel to the merciful." The Israeli government wants to pity the Arab terrorists, which will end up in cruelty against its own Jewish citizens.