ERUSALEM, Jan. 3 - Jewish settlers launched a new round of protests today and warned that large numbers of Israeli soldiers could refuse to carry out orders remove settlers from the Gaza Strip later this year. Posted on 01/03/2005 12:55:09 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
ERUSALEM, Jan. 3 - Jewish settlers launched a new round of protests today and warned that large numbers of Israeli soldiers could refuse to carry out orders remove settlers from the Gaza Strip later this year.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who wants to carry out the Gaza withdrawal this summer, said the government would prosecute soldiers who disobeyed orders.
"I don't think that a soldier can refuse an order," Mr. Sharon told a group of young Jewish adults visiting from overseas. "I see no justification for refusal, not by soldiers, nor by political leaders, nor by rabbis."
"The law will be upheld," he added.
Mr. Sharon is trying to revamp his coalition government so that he will have a solid majority in Parliament as he proceeds with his plan to evacuate all 8,000 settlers from Gaza.
However, the settlers are stepping up their protest efforts and have been raising the prospect that Israeli soldiers will refuse to participate in a withdrawal. The Israeli security forces are taking the warning seriously, and senior military officials met with settler leaders on Sunday to discuss the issue.
"I have to be honest with the heads of the army about where the implementation of this draconian law will lead," a settler leader, Pinchas Wallerstein, told army radio today.
He suggested that there could be "dozens, or hundreds, or thousands" of soldiers refusing orders.
Israel's deputy defense minister, Zeev Boim, urged settler leaders to act responsibly and not to encourage insubordination in the military.
"If this is the picture, then it will be a very difficult scene, so difficult it is possible we won't be able to implement" the withdrawal, Mr. Boim told Israel radio.
Hundreds of settlers, most of them students, began protesting on a cold and rainy day in Jerusalem outside Israel's Parliament, the Knesset. The demonstrators brought sleeping bags and set up tents with the intentions of eating, sleeping and protesting outside the Knesset for the next three weeks, they said.
In the West Bank, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, several dozen settlers threw stones and scuffled with Israeli security force members as they removed two mobile homes from an unauthorized settlement outpost.
The security forces eventually detained 15 settlers for questioning at the outpost, near the formal settlement of Yitzhar. One of those taken into custody was an off-duty soldier who showed up at the protest wearing his army uniform, the military said.
Under the Mideast peace plan, which has been almost completely dormant for well over a year, Israel is required to remove all unauthorized outposts, most of which consist of a few mobile homes on barren hilltops.
Peace Now, an Israeli monitoring group, says there are 50 or more such outposts that should be removed under the peace plan, while the Israeli government has put the number at fewer than 30.
On the Palestinian side, Mahmoud Abbas, the favorite in the Palestinian presidential election this Sunday, said that he would not launch a crackdown against Palestinian militants, even though he has criticized their attacks against Israel as counterproductive.
"Palestinians taking up arms against each other will not happen," Mr. Abbas said while campaigning in Gaza.
For the second day in a row, Mr. Abbas said Palestinian factions should stop firing rockets at Israel, saying they were ineffective and often prompted Israeli military raids.
"Someone asked me today about my opinion on the rocket attacks. I replied that I condemn them, regardless of who is responsible," Mr. Abbas said in Gaza City, Agence France-Presse reported. "Experience has shown that they usually fall in the desert or on our houses, killing our children."
Several factions, including Hamas, issued a joint statement demanding that Mr. Abbas "make an official apology to our people and their resistance factions," adding, "Rockets of resistance will continue to be a nightmare haunting Zionist settlements until the last occupier leaves our land."
In northern Gaza, a Hamas member was killed when a rocket he was preparing to fire exploded prematurely, AFP reported, citing Palestinian medical workers.
-Eric
Your lack of understanding is unbelievable and the evidence for it is the example you mentioned.
A better example would be, if the US government was about to ethnically cleanse 0.2 percent of the US population based on their religion (say Christianity for example), then I firmly believe it would be the duty of citizens to call on their fellow citizen soldiers to disobey this criminally illegal order.
If committed against the Jews of any other country in the West, this would be internationally recognized as a War Crime.
I hope the citizens of Israel come to there senses and I sincerely hope the soldiers disobey any orders to committ war crimes against their brothers. It is the duty of every individual soldier to refuse a criminally illegal order. Saying later on that you were 'only following orders' is not a legitimate excuse for throwing 10,000 Jews, inlcuding women, children, babies, and 3rd generation inhabitants (many of whom rebuilt homes in land lost to the Arabs in 1948) to the gutter.
Oh, I am sorry E Rocc. My analogy of something equivilant to this action in the US wasn't accurate enough.
It would be more accurate to say that the equivilant in America to this action would be, after ethnically cleansing 0.2 percent of the US population based on religion, the homes and land of the ethnically cleansed US citizens would then be handed over to Al Quida terrorists, who would occupy the homes in accordence with how many US citizens they murdered.
Those terrorists that murdered the most Americans would get the best, most expensive homes, and would proceed to actually move in and live in the very homes belonging to the countrymen, families, and members of the towns and cities of the very people they murdered.
Since this is what the Palestinian terrorist organizations are planning, I believe it is a more accurate analogy then your pathetic reference to US soldiers being called to disobey orders in Iraq.
Food for thought.
Part of being a Soldiers is not following orders that are immoral. Imagine if soldiers in Saddam's army decided to take a stand and not follow immoral orders to kill women and children. Unfortunately people tend to be sheep and just do what their told.
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