Israel court frees supporters of rightist rabbi

An Israeli court on Tuesday released on bail 20 rightist activists a day after they rioted when detectives detained a leading settler rabbi suspected of inciting racist violence, police said. But controversy over the issue raged on, with supporters of Rabbi Dov Lior claiming they were being being persecuted for their beliefs, while critics said freedom of speech had its limits and clerics were not above the law. Lior, the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and the settlements in Hebron was briefly taken for questioning on Monday over his endorsement of a book justifying the killing of non-Jews in some cases. Hundreds of supporters immediately began protesting at a key Jerusalem intersection, outside the Supreme Court and at several other sites where they clashed with police, who arrested 25 of them. Four of them were released soon afterwards, with another 20 released on bail by Jerusalem magistrates on Tuesday, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. "They were bound over not to enter Jerusalem for 21 days and forbidden to take part in disturbances or protest demonstrations," she told AFP. "They also each had to provide bail guarantees in the amount of 3,000 shekels ($955/612 euros)". She said another four were freed directly by police without court conditions and another man remained in custody in connection with a different inquiry. Proceedings against all of them remained open, she added. Lior, one of the main spiritual ideologues of the settlement movement, was arrested on Monday after refusing to obey an earlier demand to come in for questioning, police said. "Israel is a democratic country where everybody is equal before the law," opposition leader Tzipi Livni told public radio on Tuesday. "It is not the business of the rabbis to present themselves as an alternative leadership." Written by Yosef Elitzur and another settler rabbi, the book reportedly says that babies and children of Israel's enemies may be killed since "it is clear that they will grow to harm us." It also said non-Jews were "uncompassionate by nature" and that attacks on them "curb their evil inclination." "Anywhere where the influence of gentiles constitutes a threat to 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 other rabbis who say it contradicts the teachings of Judaism.