An Israeli rabbinical judge who drove an armored D9 bulldozer for the IDF in Gaza has been ruled to have violated ethical guidelines for expressing “extremist views,” including calling to “flatten the Gaza Strip” and boasting about the fact that many Palestinian bodies were left to be eaten by stray dogs and cats.
Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv made the comments during an appearance on Israel’s Channel 14 last year, where he estimated that he destroyed about 50 Palestinian homes and other buildings per week during his time in Gaza. At the time, the Hind Rajab Foundation, which seeks to prosecute IDF soldiers overseas, filed a complaint against Zarbiv with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and called for his arrest.
“You don’t understand what it’s like to knock down a seven-story building, six stories, five stories, one after another. Every house is on the edge,” Zarbiv told Channel 14. “Each week they’re taking 20 meters, 30 meters, 50 meters a week. There is no threat from the flanks, there is no threat from behind, because there are no flanks and no behind, just advancing forward, and everything is destroyed,” Zarbiv added.
When asked what he has to “give to the people” of Israel, Zarbiv said, “Israel, let me tell you, we have crushed them. There are tens of thousands of dead. The dogs and the cats ate them because no one collected them.”
He continued, “Tens of thousands of families – they have not a piece of paper, no childhood photo, no IDs, they have nothing. No home, there is nothing. They come, they have no idea where their house is. It’s something unbelievable.”
Zarbiv also shared footage of himself demolishing a building in Gaza where the person recording said, “Rabbi Zarbiv is ‘Zarbiving’ a house live from Gaza. Don’t blink.”
According to Haaretz, Israeli State Ombudsman Asher Kula ruled that Zarbiv violated a code of ethics on the basis of expressing his worldview on matters of public controversy. “With all due respect to the rabbinic judge’s prolonged military service, as well as his significant contribution during the war, the soldier’s uniform does not shed him of the robe of a rabbinic judge, nor of the ethical duties that continue to apply to him even during his military service,” Kula said.
