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Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra in younger days (Knessset photo)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 29, 2005 |
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Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra claimed that MK Effi Eitam, a politician affiliated with the settler movement, approached him recently and suggested that police collect all weapons in the possession of settlers to be expelled under the "disengagement plan."
"This is a problematic procedure, but is definitely very important," Ezra told reporters following a ceremony at the Prisons Service Headquarters in Ramla. "Our forces will go in unarmed, and I thought the settlers would need their weapons to protect themselves against Palestinians." He apparently was trying to be ironic.
Ezra claimed the politician told him he was afraid the settlers would use their weapons to fire on Palestinians and it will be interpreted as an attack on the evacuating forces. He did not explain how such a confusion was likely to arise. Another concern, Ezra said, is that the settlers will use their weapons to commit suicide. Ezra did not mentioned whether the "politician" had raised this concern or whether this was his own idea.
But Ezra told the Associated Press a different story, saying he picked up a warning that extremists among the settlers might open fire on soldiers who come to evacuate them. He said a Gaza resident opposed to the pullout told him it would be a good idea "if we can find a way to collect the weapons from the settlers in Gush Katif (Gaza) because somebody can shoot, and there could be casualties." Interviewed by Associated Press Television News, Ezra said he opposed the idea of confiscating weapons, but did not explain why he gave the anonymous "settler sympathizer" such prominent justification.
Ezra, who is scheduled to meet with settler leaders on Thursday, initially did not identify the politician who supposedly made the recommendation. But later, under pressure, his office revealed Eitam's identity.
Ezra said he had not yet reached a final decision as to whether to confiscate the weapons, and admitted that the move would require the cooperation of the heads of the different settlements to be abandoned.
The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, expressed outrage at the request. "We view Ezra's declaration that he will abandon settlers living in dangerous areas gravely," the Council said in a statement. "If the minister releases such an order, we call on the residents not to cooperate with political decisions that endanger them and their families."
Asked if he expects extreme violence during the evacuation, and if he was concerned by threats to bring 100,000 activists to Gaza to resist the expulsion forces, Ezra said "we need to step up our presence in Gush Katif, but at the end of the day, the people there are law-abiding and good citizens" who should be defenseless and intimidated by the armed forces expelling them.
Only a few thousand settlers showed up at an anti-pullout demonstration Monday, but their leaders spoke openly about preparing mass demonstrations "of hundreds of thousands" who will "stop the disengagement with their bodies."
"Yesha is moving its struggle to the people and the field, and intends to ... to prevent the expulsion of Jews," according to a Yesha Council statement released after Monday's anti-referendum vote in the Knesset. "We hope the determined public struggle will ultimately decide the struggle for our homes."
Pinchas Wallerstein, a settler leader, said he and others would try to refrain from violence, but that the situation might spin out of control. "We don't intend to compromise in the battle," he told Israel Army Radio.
The Yesha Settlers' Council charged that Sharon "brutally prevented the possibility of allowing the people to decide" about a referendum, warning of a "violent confrontation and civil war."
Legislator Arieh Eldad, of the ultranationalist National Union faction, said he was certain the confrontation would turn deadly, and that he held Sharon responsible. "He (Sharon) sentenced a lot of people to death, because he wants a national trauma. The victims will be the settlers," Eldad said.
On Sunday, the Israeli navy practiced evacuating settlers by sea, media reporters and settlers said. Arieh Yitzhaki, a resident of the Kfar Yam settlement on Gaza's Mediterranean coast, told Army Radio that navy commandos in rubber boats packed with equipment were spotted near the settlement.
Yitzhaki said settlers are now "building the Jewish army." He said withdrawal opponents plan to block the roads from the center of the country to Gaza, to prevent troops from reaching the coastal strip.
Other plans include pitching tents around the settlement to house protesters coming from outside the strip, to rent portable toilets and to stockpile supplies, Israeli media said. Israel TV reported that leaders were threatening to tear down border fences to enter the territory despite an army ban.
The AP contributed to this report.
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