Ehud Barak cites Talmud in attack on Israeli Right

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/265621

But in his criticism of Netanyahu and the Israeli Right, Barak also made notable references to Jewish religious texts, the Jewish Press reported, citing the Talmud to justify his attack on Netanyahu and his allies on the Right.

During the interview with Reshet Bet, Barak cited the so-called “Three Oaths” – a passage in the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Ketubot, 110b) which states that following the beginning of the exile, Israel was adjured “not to storm the wall” by forcing its way back into the Land of Israel and “not to rebel against the nations of the world”.

A third oath, directed at the non-Jewish nations of the world, obliged them “not to oppress Israel excessively”.

This passage was furnished by Orthodox opponents of the modern Zionist movement in support of their position that a Jewish state should not be established in the Land of Israel prior to the coming of the Messiah.

Barak, however, cited the Three Oaths in his more narrow criticism of the Israeli Right, while warning that Netanyahu and his allies were “straying” from the vision of Israel as a “Zionist, democratic, enlightened, liberal state.”

"Israeli control over from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the Jordan River will definitely either end Israel as a democracy, or as a Jewish state. That's the essence of what we are seeing. We support a Jewish, Zionist, democratic, enlightened, liberal state."

The path of "Herzl, Ben-Gurion, and Rabin and Peres and everyone else - Netanyahu has strayed from that. The extreme right has pushed Israel towards the directions which the Talmud has already warned against, with two catastrophes that happened in history as a result of this kind of politics, with false messianism which tries to hasten the End [of Days] and give God a schedule for bringing the Messiah, which amounts to 'storming the wall', 'provoking the nations of the world' and spreads 'baseless hatred'."

"These three Talmudic prohibitions are violated every single day by people wearing kippot and priding themselves on their title of rabbis, but in fact, they falsify and distort Judaism, Zionism and Israelism.”