Haaretz - Israel News - Dangerous Judaism
(A Sensitive Subject raised by an Israeli which I believe, under all the current circumstances, merits discussion)
Dangerous Judaism
By Sefi Rachelevsky
Many people were shocked by the statement made two weeks ago by the rabbi of the Old City, Avigdor Nebenzahl - that "anyone who hands over parts of the Land of Israel to gentiles will be punished according to din rodef." This halakhic ruling, which justifies preemptive murder to defend a Jew whose life is in danger, is the same one that Yigal Amir relied on to justify the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in order to halt the political process with the Palestinians.
Rabbi Nebenzahl tried to calm things down by saying that din rodef is not applicable in practice in our time. However, that hardly holds water. In the eyes of someone who thinks that we are living in a period of messianic redemption, the constraints of the Diaspora, which take civil law into account, no longer apply. That is why many consider din rodef to very applicable and believe that is is possible, indeed necessary, to translate Rabbi Nebenzahl's ruling from the theoretical plane into the practical one.
Moreover, the execution of din rodef is mostly in the province of the individual rather than that of rabbinic rulings. The rulings provide the principle, but the individual is the one who conducts the execution in din rodef, not the court. Din rodef deals with a man chasing after another man and trying to kill him. Anyone who is capable thus has an obligation to intervene, without waiting for a specific ruling that goes beyond the declaration of principle. The pursuer must be stopped with a minimal amount of harm. As the halakha puts it: If the pursuer can be stopped by cutting off his hand, good. But if there is no choice and the only way to stop him is to kill him, then kill him. That is why it was so important for Rabin's assassin to explain that he had considered whether it would be enough to "merely" paralyze Rabin, but reached the conclusion that it would not be enough for the purpose.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/450585.html