This Week
ERIC SILVER
Moderate Voices
Israel Correspondent
Ehud Olmert, the Likud mayor of
Jerusalem, also distanced himself from
the call to arms.
During last year's national elections,
Olmert appeared in Labor television
spots announcing that Jerusalem was
safe in Barak's hands. Now he is not so
sure, and is campaigning against the
handing over of Abu Dis and other
suburban Arab villages, which he fears
will prove the thin end of a Palestinian
wedge.
But as a man who still sees himself
as a potential prime minister, he
insists on constitutional norms of
opposition.
More surprisingly, perhaps, Rabbi
Benny Elon, a far-right legislator who
has spearheaded Jewish settlement in
Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, also
warned against violent resistance. "In
the past," he said, "it was the left
which spoke of disobeying orders. I
am against it." Presumably, he was
referring to Israel's 1982 invasion of
Lebanon and to reservists who refused
to serve in the occupied territories
during the Palestinian Intifada revolt.
The call to arms has split the
National Religious Party, the settlers'
champion. Zevulun Orley, a Knesset
member and former party secretary-
general, condemned Haetzni and his
supporters as "a criminal or psychiatric
case." A younger-generation NRP
leader, Haim Pelek, responded by
accusing Orley of "conducting the
orchestra of the left."
Eventually, however, the party
announced that it was standing as
one man" behind Orley. "The struggle
for the Land of Israel," it said, "will
continue to be conducted democrati-
cally and will not degenerate, God for-
bid, into violence."
Nonetheless, the sense of alarm on
the settler right will make it difficult
for NRP leader Yitzhak Levy to go
back on his threat to bolt Barak's
coalition if the prime minister hands
over Abu Dis — currently under
Palestinian civil control, but subject to
Israeli security supervision — to full
Palestinian control.
Natan Sharansky's Russian immi-
grants' prty, Yisrael Ba'aliya, is threat-
ening to follow suit, while the
Sephardi Shas is, as always, playing
hard to get, and the Ashkenazi,
Orthodox United Torah Judaism is
stiffening its opposition.
Barak's biggest nightmare must be
that he will reach a deal with Yasser
Arafat, but lose his majority in the
Knesset.
T
Jerusalem
he best sign that Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators are
advancing toward a deal is
that the Jewish settlers are
girding for resistance. Even if no one
is talking for now about a "final sta-
tus" agreement that would end the
conflict for all time, the settlers are
alarmed at the precedents they spot on
the horizon.
The talks, which resumed this week
in Eilat, are getting down to basics,
with Israel's Oded Eran signaling that
Ehud Barak is ready to recognize a
Palestinian state, even before all the
issues are resolved, and with the prime
minister himself preparing to evacuate
three West Bank villages within stone-
throwing distance of Jerusalem.
Settler leaders declared an emer-
gency. Young radicals set up unautho-
rized outposts near Hebron in the
south and Elon Moreh in the north,
which the army quickly dismantled.
Others went further. Elyakim Haetzni,
a fiery veteran of Hebron's Kiryat Arba
suburb, called on troops to disobey
any orders they might receive to evac-
uate settlements.
"Any soldier or policeman doing
motivated young men study part-time
such a thing," he told Israel Radio, "is
and serve in combat units the rest of
dearly carrying out an illegal order.
the time.
He must not carry it out. If he does,
The cry was taken up in more stri-
he is committing an offense."
Haetzni, a lawyer by profession and dent tones by Nadia Matar, standard-
bearer of the Women in Green pro-
former far-right Knesset member, is
settlement group.
one of the few secular nationalists
"The uprooting of settlements is
among the settler ideologues. But his
like
committing a murder," she said.
call to mutiny was endorsed by Rabbi
"It
is
a disgraceful, criminal decision,
Haim Druckman, a National
which
must be adamantly opposed,
Religious Party legislator and
even if unanimous-
co-founder of the Gush
Israeli military police
ly made by all 120
Emunim settlement cam-
forcibly remove a Jewish
Knesset members.
paign.
settler from an illegally
"If a Jewish sol-
"If it is a question of sol-
set-up shipping container
dier
comes to my
diers disobeying an order to
in the West Bank town of
home
to evacuate
evict settlements, then I
Hebron on Sunday.
me,"
she
added, "I
agree," he said. "The rule
will
certainly
not
cannot change. Settlements in
regard
him
as
my
brother.
Any
mem-
the Land of Israel cannot be evicted.
ber of the security forces who comes
The army's task is to fight against the
to evict Jews from the Land of Israel is
enemy, not to evict settlers. Nobody
an enemy and must be treated as
has to do that. The nation is divided,
such."
and the army, is divided."
Although Matar did not spell it
out, what you do with enemies is fight
Stringent Cries
them, and what you do with murder-
Druckman's voice is particularly signif- ers is stop them by all available means.
icant because he is an influential edu-
Israelis, and not only on the left,
cator in the National Religious Party
remember where that thinking once
camp. He has a devoted following in
led. Political assassination is no longer
the B'nei Akiva youth movement and
a figure of speech.
in the "hesder" yeshivot, where highly
Getting Riled
West Bank settlers mobilize
to resist a deal with the Palestinians.
.
5/5
2000
The echoes are ominous. Before
Yigal Amir gunned down Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995,
respected rabbis ruled that evacuating
settlements was against Halacha
(Jewish law).
Then, national leaders were called
"traitors"; now they are branded "ene-
mies." The capital is already plastered
with posters warning: "Barak will
divide Jerusalem."
Druckman took care to oppose the
use of violence, "physical or verbal."
Haetzni was less circumspect. "The
opposition," he said, "must not be
greater than the violence used against
it, but it is permissible in this connec-
tion."
The rhetoric of rebellion was repu-
diated by Likud patriots — as well as
by some in the religious Zionist camp.
Ariel Sharon, the Likud leader, con-
demned Haetzni's statement.
"IDF soldiers will carry out all the
orders given them by their officers,"
said Sharon, one of Israel's most
revered warriors. "I oppose the evacua-
tion of settlements because it harms
security. At the same time, it must be
clear that the army is an organization
that carries out orders, and that is how
it will behave now."
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