The arrest this week of the Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba, Dov Lior, on suspicion of incitement has provoked outrage from the religious right and a rare statement by the Attorney General that "no one is above the law".
Rabbi Lior, one of the spiritual leaders of the settlers, had already been questioned by police five months ago. Investigators wanted to ask him about a rabbinical approval - or haskama - he wrote in 2009 for the book Torath Ha'Melech (Laws of the King) that dealt with the issue of killing non-Jewish civilians at time of war.
The Attorney General's office decided a year ago that the book contained incitement to violence and police have also questioned its co-authors, rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yossef Elitzur. The police also called in for questioning a number of senior rabbis who had written letters of approval for the book.
Rabbi Lior refused to go to the police, claiming that they had no right to question a rabbi over a religious matter. And when police issued an arrest warrant for him, he publicly castigated Deputy State Attorney, Shai Nitzan, who had given the order for the probe. Rabbi Lior told his followers "there is no way that a little clerk in some government office will tell rabbis what to say".
