While Benjamin Netanyahu treats non-violent international activists in the Freedom Flotilla as though they pose a dire threat to Israel, a much larger and truly violent threat is growing inside Israel and the occupied territories. Its members are fanatical xenophobic Jews.

Following the brief arrest of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef who was questioned over incitement to racism and violence because of his endorsement of the “The King’s Torah” — a book which advocates killing non-Jews, including children and babies — his supporters demonstrated in Jerusalem where Knesset member Yaakov Katz and others addressed the crowd:

MK Katz told the demonstrators that settlers are a threat to the state attorney, because they are strong and multiplying. He said that the day will come when the settlers will run the state, write the legislation, investigate and see who put rabbis on trial, and that they will take revenge.

According to Rabbi Melamed, “it is impossible to stop scholars from coming forward and speaking the teachings of the Torah.” He also spoke about the dream that one day the media and High Court of Justice will have observant Jews working for them, who will discuss the law of the Torah. “This is a development that will be impossible to stop,” he said.

Kiryat Arab Chief Rabbi Dov Lior was also detained earlier this week following his endorsement of the book on suspicion of incitement to violence and racism, after he refused to be questioned on the matter.

Following Yosef’s arrest, police stationed security forces throughout Jerusalem fearing disorderly conduct by protesters. Several demonstrators had burned tires on the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway, and three youths were detained after they had tried to block the path of the Jerusalem light rail near Yosef’s home.

About 18 months ago, Yosef issued a written endorsement of the book Torat Hamelech (“The King’s Torah”). The book considers various situations in which killing non-Jews is permitted.

Last year, Haaretz reported:

The marble-patterned, hardcover book embossed with gold Hebrew letters looks like any other religious commentary you’d find in an Orthodox Judaica bookstore – but reads like a rabbinic instruction manual outlining acceptable scenarios for killing non-Jewish babies, children and adults.

The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’ applies only “to a Jew who kills a Jew,” write Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and attacks on them “curb their evil inclination,” while babies and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed since “it is clear that they will grow to harm us.”

“The King’s Torah (Torat Hamelech), Part One: Laws of Life and Death between Israel and the Nations,” a 230-page compendium of Halacha, or Jewish religious law, published by the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in Yitzhar, garnered a front-page exposé in the Israeli tabloid Ma’ariv, which called it the stuff of “Jewish terror.”