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Jewish settlers preparing the evacuation of a house in Hebron, planned by the Israeli government to take place in the coming days, August 05, 2007. (Photo: Michal Fattal/Flash90.)
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| By Israel Insider staff August 6, 2007 |
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Two commanders and ten of their soldiers will be tried by the IDF on disciplinary charges for not complying with orders to participate in the evacuation of two Jewish families from the Hebron market. The soldiers will also not be allowed to serve in a combat unit in the future.
The soldiers, mostly religious troops, voiced their refusal after conferring with their rabbis, who told them not to have any hand in the evacuation of the market in the Judean city of Hebron, which is scheduled for Tuesday.
The evacuation itself was not to be implemented by the soldiers, but by the police and Border Police. The soldiers were to take over the positions of the Border Police during the evacuation.
According to the IDF spokesman's office, the army "will act decisively against any signs of soldiers` insubordination. IDF soldiers are not allowed to choose their mission, hard as they may be. Any soldier who refuses to follow orders will be dealt with severely." A source from the spokesman's office said that "the IDF will continue to fulfill the mission given to it by the political echelon."
Shortly after the troops' announcement, several other ultra-Orthodox soldiers from the Nahal Haredi battalion said that they would not take part in the evacuation either, though it is not clear if they would have been called on to participate in the mission.
"This is a phenomenon that endangers the very base the IDF stands on. This is an army of the people and in a democratic nation soldiers must obey orders," said OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni.
Some parents of the soldiers gathered at their bases to show support for their children's refusal to take part in the evacuation. Some held up signs saying, "Son, do not expel."
"[My son] enlisted in the army to fight the enemy - Jews are not the enemy," said one father who had visted the base.
National Union MK Aryeh Eldad also lauded the soldiers, calling them "the executors of an immoral decision tainted with political motives, whose purpose is to exile Jews from their Jewish property."
Rightwing group "Women in Green" also voiced their support for the soldiers, saying "We support the soldiers who refuse to banish Jews in Hebron."
Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer, however, sided with the IDF's stance that the refusal must not be tolerated.
"The army must show zero tolerance to those who refuse to serve in Hebron and not take this matter lightly," he said.
Security forces totaling 3,000 were scheduled to evacuate the settlers from the Hebron marketplace Tuesday.
The Hebron Jewish community's attorney, former justice minister Yaakov Neeman, has been fighting unsuccessfully to prove the settlers' right to live there. According to the settlers, the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division commander told them that they would be able to return to the area when they left a year and a half ago. Neeman has argued that before the 1929 Hebron massacre against the area's Jewish community, Jews operated and owned the city's marketplace. It is illogical, he said, to force Jewish families to leave what was once owned by Jews when the market has not functioned in 13 years and when the government has no plan to open it to Palestinian merchants.
Palestinian merchants were driven out of the wholesale market in 1994. Jews reentered the area in 2001, and two Jewish families returned in 2006 to occupy empty shops there. |
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