Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, today issued the following statement following the alleged chemical attack in Syria.
“I have said in the past and I will say it again: What is happening in Syria is genocide of women and children in its cruelest form, using weapons of mass destruction.
“We have a moral obligation not to keep quiet and to try and stop this massacre.
“As Jews who have experienced genocide, as Jews whose Torah is a light to the nations, it is our moral obligation to try and stop this murder. It is an obligation no less important than the moral obligation to destroy the nuclear reactor in Syria.”
{Matzav.com}
For the chief Rabbi to speak out on a moral issue is appropriate, however much care should be taken lest the words be misunderstood.
The word genocide is used wrongly here. The war in Syria is a civil war in that country, not an attempt to exterminate an entire people as happened in the Holocaust.
I don’t know who translated the statement, but the one in whose name it is given here is not a native English speaker, so that may account for some of the lack of clarity and precision.
The use of chemical weapons/weapons of mass destruction is a terrible thing. But Israel is not the policeman of the Middle East. The international community as whole, which has treaties and agreements about such things, is the one to deal with it.