Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

issued religious rulings against the
withdrawal, insisting that IDF soldiers
must refuse orders regarding the with-
drawl. Other rabbis have fiercely
rejected such rulings.
Beyond political assassinations, cata-
strophic scenarios range from the
indiscriminate killing of Jewish civil-
ians to guerrilla-style warfare against
military and police units charged with
implementing the withdrawal.
Details of one plan that could have
resulted in scores of victims were
revealed May 18 in an indictment
brought against two brothers, resi-
dents of the West Bank settlements
Yitzhar and Homesh. According to
charges brought in Tel Aviv District
Court, the pair loaded two gasoline-
doused vehicles with mattresses, tires
and other flammable items and
planned to set them ablaze at one of
the most congested areas of Tel Aviv's
Ayalon freeway during the morning
rush hour. "The suspects practically
and intentionally endangered the secu-
rity and the lives of all drivers and citi-
zens in the vicinity of the vehicles,"
the charge sheet proclaimed. "All this
was driven by the suspects' opposition
to the disengagement plan."
Soldiers will not be precluded from
defending themselves if settlers open fire
during the withdrawal, said the IDF's

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K A AZ

new chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz,
who called on settlement movement
leaders to rein in extremists and prevent
events from spiraling out of control.
So, too, have dozens of rabbis who
have banded together to criticize col-
leagues whose interpretations of Jewish
religious law appear to sanction vio-
lence and insubordination in the army.
"We have a special responsibility to
preserve pikuach nefesh [the sanctity of
life]," Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, the head
of the Religious. Kibbutz Movement,
told JTA. Leaders of the Yesha settler
council have backed resistance to the
withdrawal but stress that such resist-
ance should be nonviolent.
Gilad and 80 other rabbis — many
of them passionately opposed to the
withdrawal plan — insist that civilians
must not take the law into their own
hands, nor should soldiers refuse
orders from their commanders.
In addition to the possibility of Jews
attacking other Jews, security officials
also are afraid of a Jewish extremist
attack on the Temple Mount mosques
in Jerusalem or other Islamic sites.
Their vigilance led to the arrest in
April of four suspects in two separate
attack plots.

Flashback, Sinai

Those who hope for a peaceful out-
come this summer often look back to
the 1982 evacuation of Israeli settle-
ments in the Sinai — part of Israel's
peace agreement with Egypt — when
worst-case scenarios didn't materialize.
"We were ready for the phenomenon
of snipers," recalled Oded Tyrah, a
retired IDF brigadier general who
managed the withdrawal operation in
Sinai's Yamit settlement. "We had a
unit of Golani anti-terror forces ready
to go, but we didn't deploy them."
This time around, security sources
say, they face a more emotional and
committed group of resisters who have
a much more spiritual, financial and
cultural attachment to the place
they've called home — some for more
than 20 years.

Simha Weiss, 47, who has lived for
16 years in Shalev, a tiny settlement in
southern Gaza, insists most longtime
residents of the cluster of Jewish com-
munities known as Gush Katif would
never think of provoking violence
against Israeli forces who come to
evacuate them.
"These soldiers are like my own
children," she said. "I think I speak
for most when I say we will never lift
a hand against them, nor will they
against us."
Nevertheless, the mother of six said
she fears events could lead to blood-
shed.
"I'm afraid there will be very tough
violence. It will be Jew against Jew,"
Weiss said.
Worst-case scenarios involve violent,
messianic activists who dig themselves
into explosive-rigged strongholds,
threaten attacks on approaching forces
and use children or adults as human
shields.
Extremists and security forces con-
tinue to play cat-and-mouse games in
Gush Katif, but the Shin Bet official
said colleagues were girding for even
greater challenges in the West Bank
settlement Sa-Nur.
Since Passover, 30 families and
another 25 young men have moved to
Sa-Nur to "assist us in our fight against
the government's expulsion plan," the
community spokeswoman Miriam
Adler said. Asked if she considers the
IDF the enemy, she replied, "The IDF
is our opponent, not our enemy. By
Ariel Sharon sending the army in here
against us as if we are terrorists, he is
turning the army into our opponent."
The IDF's Tyrah said, "Everyone is
posturing for media attention. It's one
promo after another, and it's doing
nobody any good. After the evacuation,
we'll have to live with these people and
fight alongside them against the real
enemy. So it's imperative that our gov-
ernment and our security establishment
accomplish this mission with utmost
determination and professionalism, but
also with compassion." El

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