Photo by AP/ZOOM

Rabbi Avraham Shapers speaks with other rabbis during a conference in the West
Bank.

the rulings of every rabbi, es-
bers of the Chief Rabbinical
pecially as those judgments
Council, have even questioned
sometimes conflict with one an-
whether the latest injunction is
other.
halachic ruling at all.
A few years ago, for example,
Rabbi Yehudah Amital of
Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, the spir-
Gush Etzion, for one, has de-
itual mentor of much of the
clared it a "political ruling, not
Sephardi religious community,
a religious one."
pronounced that "saving lives
Other religious leaders on
takes precedence over territo-
both sides of the Green Line
ry" (and Chief Rabbi Eliyahu have expressed concern over the
Doron Bakshi has reportedly
divisive effect of the ruling. "It's
asked him to reiterate that rul-
unthinkable that what will
ing). A number of rabbis in the
arise here is an army of reli-
settlements, as well as mem-
gious people who take orders

from Rabbi Neria and an army
of secular people who take or-
ders from [Chief of Staff]
Barak," said Rabbi Aharon
Lichtenstein of the Har Etzion
Yeshivah.
Even the Knesset deputies
from the National Religious
Party, which has a strong fol-
lowing in the territories, ex-
pressed misgivings about the
ruling in issuing the statement
that: "As long as we're not
speaking about a patently ille-
gal order, the NRP is opposed
to the refusal to serve and de-
clares that the IDF must re-
main outside the arena of public
debate."
Yet far from resolving the
controversy, that statement
only raised the question of what
is a "patently illegal order." Tra-
ditionally reserved for such ex-
treme acts as the slaughter of
civilians and the murder of pris-
oners of war, the term has now
been opened to a far broader,
and distinctly political, inter-
pretation. While conceding that
"all soldiers must obey orders,"
for example, former Prime Min-
ister Yitzhak Shamir, immedi-
ately qualified that "there are
exceptions" and drew a parallel
between order soldiers to "evac-
uate Jews from their homeland"

PROFESSIONAL TE

and commanding them "to mur-
der their fathers and mothers."
Mr. Shamir was not the only
opposition leader to enter the
fray — with varying degrees of
verve. Careful not to associate
himself with any illegal action,
Likud Chairman Benyamin
(Bibi) Netanyahu told a televi-
sion interviewer that "No one
disputes that orders must be
obeyed, but there are certain or-
ders that must not be given, and
uprooting Jews from the Land
of Israel is one of them."
Ariel Sharon was less cau-
tious, however, and in a sting-
ing speech at the Kiryat Arba
last week rally called upon
"every Jew to rise up and offer
passive resistance, to bring life
in the country to a halt" —
prompting a "senior source" in
the Foreign Ministry to sneer
that "There's nothing more
ridiculous than Ariel Sharon
trying to squeeze himself into
the costume of Mahatma Gand-
hi."
In the end, however, it was
Prime Minister Rabin who
adopted the strongest language
of all. Blasting away at both the
religious and political opposi-
tion, he characterized the
rabbinical ruling as "irrespon-
sibility and lawlessness unpar-

alleled since the establishment
of the state" and warned the
leaders of the Likud that "the
time has come to halt the
hypocrisy and dishonesty of
their statements," pointedly re-
minding them that "what they
call the 'transfer of Jews' was
first carried out by [the Likud]
during the evacuation of all the
settlements in Sinai."
Over the weekend tempers
cooled, and Mr. Rabin's assur-
ance that no settlers would be
moved has postponed the con-
flict to a later day. Yet clearly
the prime minister has learned
not to underestimate the reli-
gious settlers and other oppo-
nents on the political right.
After a series of demonstra-
tions last autumn, he mocking-
ly called them "propellers" and
taunted that their protests (in-
cluding branding him a "trai-
tor") hadn't touched him at all.
But since the Hebron massacre,
everyone in Israel has begun to
take the mood of the settlers,
and particularly their potential
to spin out of control, far more
seriously.
And with the spice of reli-
gious sanction now added to the
cauldron, the atmosphere in the
territories is more volatile than
ever. 1=1

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