The Fence, The Pigua in Gush Etzion Today and the Establishment

Unfortunately, we all (most of us) knew this killing would start up
again in our area. We all hoped otherwise, but they were false hopes.
I still hope and pray that this is the end, but I have no false hopes.

Unfortunately today, settlers blood is not as red as those belonging
to Israeli citizens within the Green Line.

Which brings us to the fence - as the army has already told our
leaders, the purpose of the fence is ONLY to stop terrorists from
entering Israel (so as to not kill those Israeli citizens with really
red blood). The fact that it places our homes and cars in the
gunsights of the enemy is not important, because the fence is not
supposed to think of how best to defend us.

We also all know that the fence is not a security fence, it is a
Bagatz (High Court of Justice) fence, a route that will hopefully
stand up to the criteria of the Bagatz.

Which brings us to our reality - Israel is no longer a democracy. The
Knesset, the voice of the people, does not make the final decisions
in this country, the High Court of Justice does.

stice Barak's judicial activism means that everything is up to
Judicial judgement, the Knesset does not have a final voice in
deciding policy, the High Court of Justice does.

The laws, the ministers, the Knesset Members all have to make their
decisions based on what the High Court of Justice would approve.

It really does not seem like a bad idea, except for the fact that the
High Court of Justice is made up of a select few individuals who
appoint themselves!!

They mostly all have the same outlook on issues, even if there is the
token religioius Jews, the token Arab etc. All in all, most High
Court decisions regarding religious issues, or Land of Israel issues
are known even before they are discussed.

So, the fence issue....

What can we do to fight the Gush Etzion fence that even cuts out
Jewish owned land in order to consider the needs of the Arabs over
those of the Jews (forget about our security).

I have heard that the Moetza heads want to go to the Bagatz.

BIG MISTAKE, they are the ones who don't care about us to begin with.
Why would they change the route to "their" fence? maybe they'd make a
minor change here or there to at least come out looking like they
care about us. But change it to actually make us safe - does anybody
really think that will happen?

NO, we must protest against the Bagatz fence and protest the
illegitimacy of the Bagatz, the establishment of the establishment,
who are the real policy makers in Israel today.

We must return the country to the people and out of the hands of
Bagatz who are turning Israel into a country of all its citizens back
to the '49 borders.

We must make our voices heard and we must make our actions seen so
that everyone will know that we won't comly with the Bagatz or the
Bagatz fence because they have lost legitimacy in our eyes.

Opening a tik in the Bagatz against the fence just continues to show
that we are poodles to the establishment that are responsible for
ruining this country.

Only when the establishment sees that we no longer view them as
legititmate will we have a chance of returning the country to the
people. So long as we honor their decisions, and respect their
legitmacy, we will continue to be second class citizens in this
country, because the establishment cares more about liberal, Western
values and the lives of our enemies, than Jewish values and our own
lives.

Practical steps to follow...
Avi

Has anyone heard the Shofar?

Hearing the shofar during the Yamim Noraim is supposed to be a sort of wake up call. Have you heard the shofar this year? I mean have you really heard it?

Today Yechezkel Chazani from Netzer Hazani, GK, passed away suddenly in his car while his wife jumped out to buy some food to prepare for the seudah hamafseket. Yechezkel was 52 years old and a father of 6. His oldest is married and was also just expelled from his home in Kfar Yam, GK, and his youngest is 9. All 6 are now fatherless.

After speaking with people from Netzer Hazani and Gush Katif today I heard the same message over and over again - "Sharon killed Yechezkel".

Yechezkel was a healthy man, no known health or psychological issues. He and his family were not on the "special list" for social workers to look after. He was one of the pillars of the Netzer Hazani community and a hard working man who went from being a proud bread earner to unemployed. He and his wife just decided to rent a home in Hispin, as part of their efforts to take control of their lives.

Noone will know the real reasons why Yechezkel passed away. But becoming homeless, jobless and helpless without being abe to trust any official insitution to help, probably didn't assist in keeping Yechezkel healthy.

I think the people of Gush Katif are being too generous when they blame his death on Sharon. The truth is that the Israeli establishment killed Yechezkel, not Sharon. The court system, the judges, the heads of police, the press, the heads of the army etc.

The establishment of Isreal allowed Yechezkel and 8,000 other "salt of the earth" Israeli Jews come to this reality - not only did they allow these people to be expelled from their homes, but they took part in a process that leaves all these expellees with no "solution" of housing or employment one month after being expelled from their homes.

And what about us? Where do we fit in all of this?

8,000 Jews - grandparents, parents, children, teachers, doctors, farmers etc. - are homeless for a month, becoming more and more depressed and helpless as each day passes, and we go on with our regular lives as if nothing has happened. Is that really good?

Many of us are doing chesed to help these families, but few of us are doing anything to make the guilty establishment feel guilty for what its done. Few of us are doing anything to make sure that this picture doesn't repeat itself.

Have you really heard the shofar this year?

To anyone who has has really heard the shofar and realizes that something must be done to change all this - please contact me. There is plenty to do, even after you come home from your daily work.

Through messages we hear day in and day out we are made to feel as if we are powerless, and that everything is inevitable. Well, that is exactly against what the Yamim Noraim come to teach us!

The power of teshuva is the message that G-d tells us we have the power to make changes and make a difference in this world. We are not powerless, and everything is not inevitable.

The shofar will be blown Motzei Yom Kippur. Will you really hear it this year?

Gmar Chatima Tova,
Avi Abelow
"Expelled from Netzer Hazani by the Israeli Establishment"

We will Not Forget, We Will Not Forgive: Do a Mitzvah and Remember

Please pass this message on to friends, relatives, lists and websites.

Tizku L'mitzvot,
Avi
"Expelled from Netzer Hazani by Fellow Jews"

There is so much to say, so many facts to bare, so much disinformation to clarify and so much to explain about the situation of former Gush Katif residents expelled from their homes.

It is too late for me to go into all the details. All I can tell you at this hour is that these people are trying their best to have positive attitudes with the intent of rebuilding their lives. This, even though at this very moment many are still homeless and penniless. The information I will tell you in future emails is just too sad to even imagine. Most of these people are currently penniless and in a few days time they will even be forced to pay for their hotel costs, since the government is stopping the payments.

Here is just a single fact regarding their situation that most people are not aware of.

The farmers of Gush Katif are only receiving 60% of the worth of
their hothouses in order to rebuild them. They still have other personal and community expenses to fulfull as well in trying to re-establish themselves. This money does not even include the daily living expenses that they currently must spend today (clothes, tuition for children's educations, food etc.) - Money that they do not have, and money that will in the end come out of their compensation, that therefore won't be able to go towards rebuilding their homes or communities! Each GK community has represenatives talking to people everyday trying to raise whatever money they can just so that their families can have money for food, clothes etc. They don't have money to pay for their children's tution bills - from early childhood programs to Universities. The government did not help them with any of this and they are on their own.

I have made a short 4 minute online video (in English) documenting the day of the expulsion. Please watch it, it is a must see. I'm now in the process of finishing up a full 35-40 minute video documenting that day, a little before and a little after. It will also be a must see.


The sights and sounds in this long video are ones that we should not forget, and I hope to keep the memory alive through the distribution of this video.



To all those who give a donation towards the families of Netzer Hazani, they will receive the 40 minute video as a gift.



For all information regarding donations and the video please visit the following websites:




For information on US tax deductible donations:

https://www.oneisraelfund.org/donations.php?d=13



For information on Israeli tax deductible donations:
https://www.litrom.com/?Artst_ID=490

As soon as the movie is finished it will be shipped to those who donated towards the families of Netzer Hazani.


Every donation is blessed.

Avi
"Expelled from Netzer Hazani by Fellow Jews"

Link to the 4 minute trailer:

http://www.archive.org/download/Tragedy0JewsExpellingFellowJews/Clip_English_Done.wmv

Please pass this on to all lists and friends.
Tizku L'mitzvot!

Reality without needing any explanation...



A picture is worth a thousand words...

Regardless if you agree or disagree with the expulsion of Gush Katif this picture says it all.

Avi

Procesing the New Reality in Israel

To be totally honest, I'm still in the process of processing everything in order to redefine where I stand and what I believe, so I can't give you a definitive answer yet.

But I can tell you some things for sure.

I will continue to celebrate Yom haatzmaut - because the Jewish people returning to rule in the land of Isreal was a miracle.

I will continue to celebrate Yom Yerushalyim because that too was a miracle.

I will continue to say the prayer for the medinah, although with much pain because of what this state is doing to its own fellow Jews, because this is our homeland.

Our problem today is not with the state, it is with the people who run and influence the state - a big difference, but one that is complicated and makes the process of deciding how to decide on my/our future actions/beliefs very complex.

I will continue to say the prayer for soldiers, although I support the move to change the wording so that it no longer includes "blessing all their actions", because some of those actions are now being taken against fellow Jews. (the official officers courses in the army will now formally include lessons from the expulsion - a firm indication that the army is already planning for more expulsions in the future!).

As of this moment I have decided not to continue to serve in miluim, because the army has been abused by its army leadership and turned into a tool against the Jewish people. And I will have no part of it until those leaders are thrown out and the army will no longer be used against fellow Jews.

This decision was not an easy one for me, especially since there is so much the army does do to continue to protect us, but I can no longer serve in an army that has been turned into a tool against fellow Jews and whose soldiers have been turned into robots who just follow orders (yes they have feelings, but in the end they followed orders that they knew were wrong).

I do not say this only because the army was involved in the expulsion, I say this because I know how the army prepared the soldiers for the expulsion - by teaching the soldiers that us YESHA residents are a danger to Israel, and that we were planning on shooting them (there was much much more stuff they taught that is despicable)....this, when it is well known in the army that some of the most decorated and motivated soldiers come from our community! I have heard much about how the army leadership prepared the soldiers for the expulsion, and i will have no part in serving under that leadership.

I used to speak to audiences in America about how when I served in the Israeli army I knew that I was standing up and defending Jews around the world, not just Israelis. In todays situation, I no longer believe that, because Jews expelling Jews and destroying Jewish communities will assist in the growth of anti-semitic acts around the world.

I will return to serve in miluim when the Israeli army returns to being an army that defends Jews around the world by first defending Jews in Israel.

That is as far as I have processed the "new" reality in Israel. There is still much more to process. This is not a simple issue and it is not simple in defining what I will or will not do. There are inherent inconsistencies that I will have to work out intellectualy and emotionally.

The bottom line is that our problem is with the people who run and influence this state, not with the state.

And we will get rid of those people, maybe not next year, or even in 5 years, but we will get rid of them, because we have faith in our path and in the destiny of Am Yisrael/Eretz Yisrael, they just have the greed for power and a disdain for all that the Jewish people stand for.

But regardless, this is the place to be, because this is where we are writing Jewish history and developing the nation of Israel into an or la'goim. We have lots of work to do, so we need all the good Jews we could get to help us achieve our goals. The sooner you come and join us the sooner we can get rid of the current movers and shakers in Israel.

Oh, I also believe that the Israeli flag should become blue, white and orange, and I'm not kidding.

Avi
"Expelled from Netzer Hazani by Fellow Jews"

I Cry, Yet I already see the Light at the End of the Tunnel


I cry over the Israeli institutions that did nothing to save Shules in Gush Katif.
I cry over the Israeli government that abused the democratic tools to pass an immoral plan to expel Jews from their homes.
I cry over the Israeli government that has not yet seen fit to declare the explusioin from Gush Katif as a sad occurrence in the history of the Land of Israel.
I cry over the Israeli Supreme Court that cares more about how a seperation fence effects the lifestyle of the Arabs than 8,000 Jews being expelled from their homes.
I cry over the Israeli Supreme Court that allowed civil liberties to be trampled upon in the protest against the Expulsion plan (a 50 page report is coming out soon detailing this).
I cry over the Israeli Supreme Court that allowed the police to place 12 year old girls in prison and allowed 14 year old girls to be placed in solitary confinement for protesting the expulsion plan..
I cry over the Israeli police who beat up Jewish protesters for protesting against the expulsion plan, in the streets and in jail.
I cry over the leadership of the Israeli army whom brainwashed the soldiers into believing that they must obey orders to defend the Israeli democracy.
I cry over the leadership of the Israeli army whom spent months brainwashing the soldiers that the residents of YESHA are extremists who might possibly use firearms to shoot at the soldiers.
I cry over the Israeli media that have blatantly disregarded all the government corruption that has lead to the implementation of the expulsion plan.
I cry over the Israeli media who express happiness that Jews have been expelled from their homes and that Gush Katif is Judenrien.

The list goes on and on against the Israeli institutions...

Yet I'm happy that the true face of our Israeli institutions has now been revealed for all to see.

People are now realizing that the façade of the Jewish state that has existed is just that, a façade, and the time has come to get rid of those who make up the current Israeli institutions in order to make them Jewish institutions. Those who want an Israel without a semblance of Jewish values are now going to get people waking up who want a Jewish State – an Israel which lives and breathes Jewish values.

Israel is in the midst of a culture war. A culture war between those few elite who are involved in creating Israeli government policy, leading the Israeli Supreme Court and deciding the editorial lines of the Israeli media versus the Jewish people.

The Israeli institutions that make up Israel don't want a Jewish state, they want an Israeli state with none of the Jewish values that go along with the Jewish people. They are in direct conflict with us Jews who are interested in making sure that Israel become a Jewish state - in practice and not in rhetoric!

This cultural war is only just beginning, but the Jews will win, because we make up the majority. Most Israelis feel Jewish and want the State of Israel to have a Jewish identity, even if they themselves are not religious. The Jews have faith and belief on their side, the Israelis have corruption and evil on their side. The Jews in the end will win. The sooner it takes more and more Jews to realize this reality the sooner the Jews will win this culture war!

With all that I mourn over Gush Katif, I'm extremely happy that the corrupt and evil elite Israelis are showing their true colors. The Jewish majority will win this culture war and we will one day return to Gush Katif! It is just too bad that Jews had to expelled from their homes in Gush Katif in order to awaken our fellow Jews to this reality.

May the awakening begin!

Jewish Values for a Jewish State!

Israel about to Destroy Synogogues! A Cry to the Heavens!!!
- Jews have been expelled from their homes because they are Jews

- Jews have been expelled from their homes by fellow Israelis

- Jews are living as refugees in Israel

- Millions of dollars worth of equipment have been left behind in Gush Katif, not being allowed to be returned to their rightful owners, because there is "no more time" to get them out

- Jewish communities have been destroyed by an Israeli government

- Shules are about to be destroyed by an Israeli government

- The Israeli Supreme court has let this all happen

- The Israeli media have let this all happen

- The Arabs are waiting to start their killing spree

Israel is acting as if it is no longer a Jewish country.
Israel is acting as if it were run by anti-semites.
Anti-semites around the world will now want to do the same thing in other countries and we will have no reason to stop them - because "if a (supposedly) Jewish country did this, then so can we"

Wake up and smell the coffee - this is a CULTURE war between Israelis and Jews and you still don't get it!!!

Hashem Yerachem!

Eretz Yisrael is the Jewish homeland and we will overcome the current hardships that the corrupt Israeli institutions are causing us.

When will Jews in Israel wake up to this reality and begin to act accordingly?

When will all Jews come home and help us make this country the Jewish country we are supposed to spend our lives building?

When will the Jews in the diaspora wake up and realize that they are on the wrong side of the ocean?

When will Jews in the diaspora wake up and realize that what is going on here is partly because they are not here with us trying to strengthen the Jewish identity of the State?

Eretz Yisrael is the place for all Jews. Now more than ever this message must be realized.

God forgive us for our sins and God forgive us for the hardships that will now befall world Jewry because of what Israel has done to it's own Jewish citizens, and because of the apathy and weakness Jews have in their own beliefs.

When will we wake up? When?

Avi
"Expelled from Netzer Hazani by Fellow Jews"

Must See Movie on Expulsion of Jews from their homes by fellow Jews

www.friendsofnetzer.blogspot.com

Click on the link to the movie and please think about the lives of these people. There is so much to write about my experience in Gush Katif until the expulsion. Soon, I will take out the time to blog it. In the meantime, I'm still very sad and mourning the tragedy that took place to our holy nation.

We will overcome this tragedy and sadness, but we must not forget what has taken place and is still taking place.

Avi
"Expelled from Netzer Hazani by Fellow Jews"

Our Government Has Created Jewish Refugees! Where Are Cries of Injustice???

I know of two yishuvim from Gush Katif who have no where to sleep tonight!!

Netzer Hazani

Netzer Hazani people have been kicked out of the youth hostel in Hispin because of reservations. Some families have moved into the Hispin Yeshiva dormintory, but two buses of them are on the way to Kissufim right now and then on the way to set up a tent city in Tel Aviv because they have no where to sleep tonight!!

Their leadership has tried negotiating with Maaleh Hachamish and with the Olive Tree Hotel in Yerushalayim, but they can't come to an agreement without the government,who would pay - but the government is not cooperating - so they are homeless tonight - and this is until Sep. 1st, because the government is only supposed to pay until Sept. 1st! The government didn't even pay for their stay in Hispin, that was complementary of the Youth Hostel!!!

Paet Sadeh

Paet Sadeh residents signed agreements with Minhelet Selah/government a year and a half ago on an agreement to get housing. Their houses are still not ready so they were put up in a hotel in Yam Hamelach. This morning they were kicked out of the Hotel because of reservations. They have no where to sleep tonight either!!

So what are you doing about the fact that our own government has created homeless refugees?

Are you still paying your taxes? Are you still going to your government paid jobs? Are you still going to miluim? Are you still carrying around your teudat zehut?

Where are the cries and acts of injustice that our OWN Jewish government has created homeless refugees?

Who has connections with the Joint Distribution Comittee to get them to act on behalf of our fellow Jewish refugees in Israel?

Please call me now!!!
052-4519609

Avi
"Expelled by Jews from Netzer Hazani"

The expulsion from Gush Katif was one of the saddest days of my life.

I watched families packing up their houses crying. I watched families using sledge hammers to do as much damage to their homes as possible - some to get out their anger and frustration at the immoral situation and some so as not to leave anything for the Arabs!

I even watched people light their houses on fire!!

Some of the saddest events were watching children - 12/13 year olds - pleading with the soldiers not to expel them from their homes. Screaming at them that they are about to ruin their lives. Running from soldier to soldier aksing them "You don't have the courage to disobey an immoral order?"

Then their was the resident who was a high ranking officer from an elite unit - screaming at the soliders telling them that he taught the ethics courses to officers in the army and he knows that what they are about to do is totally against the ethical code of the army, but yet they follow the unethical orders like robots! What happened to implementing the lesson of knowing when to say NO to unethical orders?! This high ranking oficer then tore kriah on his army uniform right before the soldiers.

The expereince of watching Jews being expelled from their homes by fellow Jews was one of the saddest days of my life.

Avi Abelow
"Expelled from Netzer Hazani by Fellow Jews"

Coming to Gush Katif Clarification

I want to clarify the following message to everybody:

The key is not necessarily getting into Gush Katif or even making it to Kissufim.

Rather the key is packing up with the determination of not returning home until the plan is cancelled. Drive towards Kissufim and get as far as you can and then stop! With hundreds or thousands of others you then create a balagan wherever you are. That balagan is critical, regardless if it is 100 meters away from Kissufim or 4 kilometers away.

The critical mass, wherever you end up, causes a balagan that takes troops away from dealing with the expulsion.

I heard that thousands tried to drive to Kissufim last night, but they all were stopped and turned around. Don't turn around, set up camp where you are stopped and stay there. That creates a balagan. The police force you to move? Then create a balagan and the next place that you can.

Nobody wants to go alone "without" masses being with them - so make phone calls and get organized with friends and drive together as a small mass. THen hook up with other cars on their way as well.

I have also heard that groups leave every few hours from Ofakim and Netivot. Go join them, you won't be alone.

It is all about determination and mesirut nefesh. Just don't turn around to go come!!

It is not easy and not everybody can do it, but the struggle today is not just about Gush Katif, it is about our homes as well, and I do believe that if it was our homes in Gush Etzion that we were about to be expelled from, we would not be going to work today, tomorrow or the next day.

Something to think about.

The message is create the balagan as far as you get. Every balagan in a different place strains the army, which could create a chain effect of making it impossible to do what they have to do to expel us.

Whatever miracle people are waiting for depends on that chain effect, but if "little balagans" are not happening, then no chain effect will happen and no miracle that people are praying for.

Without your determination and mesirut nefesh, instead of Jews continuing to live in Gush Katif you will just read about our heroic last stand in Gush Katif as a part of the history books.

It all depends on us.

I don't know when next I will be near a computer, so until then...

Chazak Vematz and remember:

"DETERMINATION, DETERMINATION, DETERMINATION"!!!

Avi from Netzer Hazani

A Presonal Pea from Gush Katif - COME NOW!!!

You must understand. The people of Gush Katif are very strong. Don't believe what you hear/see in the media. There has been no violence and a majority of families in Gush Katif are still in there homes.

The people of Gusk Katif are encouraged and empowered by all the people who have joined them from the rest of the country and they are encouraged and empowered when they hear that more people are trying to come jointhem!

You must understand, here in Gush Katif we are doing everything we can, everything!!!

But we can't win this struggle alone - the rest depends on all of you.

The soldiers don't want to expel us! They don't!!

Everytime soldiers are brought to the settlements - people run out to talk to them - telling them about the immorality of the plan, the immorality of expeling fellow Jews from their homes, the immorality of giving a prize to those same terrorists who are our real enemies, and asking them what they would tell their children/grandchildren one day regarding their participation in this expulsion.

Do you know the result? The soldiers and officers cry! They cry together with the residents! They all cry like children!!!

THE SOLDIERS DONT WANT TO DO THIS!!

A Letter was sent from 5 Magadim in the army to the Ramatcal saying that they fear half of the soldiers in the expulsion forces will either not participate at the last minute or help the settlers!

Help us help the soldiers!

- Come down to Kissufim
- Try to get in to Gush Katif
- Block the roads so that the buses of soldiers can't get through

Do know the secret on getting into Gush Katif?
Determination, Determination, Determination!!!

Drive with the expectation of not returning home! Pack with the expectation that you are not retunring home!! I promise you that you will end up entering Gush Katif! maybe not immeidately, maybe not after one day or two days, but you will enter. Being at Kissufim is also a big nuisance to the army.

Do anything, but don't stay at home, don't go to work!!

Everyday people here ask - "so are thousands coming to kissufim yet?" and the past two days the answer has been NO!!

Do you how demoralizing it for all of us here, who know we are doing all that we can to stop the immoral expulsoin plan, to know that our fellow citizens who are also needed down here are not coming??? That they are going on with their normal lives, just a little sadder???!!!

For all of us who are here, our consciences will be clear - we know we did all in our power to stop this immoral expulsion plan?

What about your conscience? What will you tell your children and grandchildren?

We know that everyone is doing something, but everyone must gain the confidence to do even more and come down here and not return home until this plan is canceled.

As we tell the press everyday - we know the army will end up doing what it has to do, our job here in Gush Katif is not to do everything to stop the plan from happening, we don't have the`power to do that.

Our job here in Gush Katif is to make it as hard as possible for them to do what they have to do and to delay their plans!! Every minute that we delay their plans is another minute for all the protests and balagans you are doing outside to create the dynamic to stop the plan.

BUT, if you are not protesting or creating a balagan outside, then our struggle in Gush Katif won't make a difference!!!

We believe that Am Yisrael still has the power to stop this plan, but you must come down here in the thousands to create the necessary balagan for us all to succeed!! You must join us!

By the way, in one on one conversations with top officers here in Gush Katif - they ALL admit that we will be back "occupying" Gaza in the near future. They are only following orders, even though they know the plan is extremely dangerous.

Avi from Netzer Hazani

Gush Katif Press Release from netzer Hazani

The people that are living here are very moral people. The Israel Defense Forces is a very moral army, they educate their forces to the highest levels of morality. We are really one with the soldiers of the IDF. The thing that stands between us is this terrible immoral expulsion plan. We have an obligation to do everything we can to prevent the IDF from handing out the expulsion notices. This plan is immoral and unethical because you can't throw out 9,000 people from their homes without any valid reason. The last thime this happened was in Soviet RUSSIA. You can not allow terror to run wild and on top of that give it a prize!

Today the army twice appeared at the gates of our town and each time we told the army officers the above message. They looked at the fathers, mothers and children dancing in front of the locked gates of our town and began to understand why this plan is so immoral. As a result, the buses of soldiers turned around both times without entering the town and without handing out the expulsion notices.

Gush Katif Under Siege - Live Report

Hello all,

I finally succeeded! I sneaked into Gush Katif on Tuesday afternoon and I have settled in the moshav of Netzer Chazani and helping out the community here plan and organize for the upcoming events. I'm here with over 400 other families (with children of all ages) and singles who have joined Netzer Chazani from other parts of Israel. The atmesphere is wonderful. Teenagers from the outside are running childrens activities every morning for all the children (from the moshav and from the outside), people are working in the hothouses and everyone is doing something to help prepare for next week.

There is so much to say, to explain to you what is going on here, but I don' t have time now. You will have to wait.

Just so you know, we (outsiders) have more than doubled the population of the yishuv and they are all mostly staying here to the end, regardless of all the threats by the government that they will lose 25% of their compensation if they don't leave by the 17th. In general the population of the Gush has more than doubled all from "illegals" like me who have sneaked in to GK. Everyone has their own unique unbelievable story about how they snuck in. Buy the book that will be put you with all the stories. i'm sure one will be written!


We are about to go through one of the most traumatic weeks for the Jewish people, how ironic that it coincides with (Tisha Ba'av)! There is much preparation that we are doing, but our government is stopping at nothing to expel us. It will be the first time that a Jewish government turns off electricity and water to Jewish settlements - just like the Romans did to us.

Please read the message below written by a person who was one of the origonal founding members of Netzer Chazani, here since the days all that was here were sand dunes.

Please help as much as you can. Thank you.

Until the next update from Gush Katif!
Avi

DEAR FRIENDS,

Did you know that Gush Katif is being placed under siege? Starting now, the army is stopping food from entering Gush Katif. There is already a shortage of baby-food, diapers, food & basic staples. The army isn't letting things enter and the supermarket shelves are emptying. We have been warned that any minute the supply of Gas and Water may stop.There will be opportunities during the next three days to bring in supplies. We need your help NOW.

We have been promised by our brethren that in our time of need they will stand by us. The Jews in Israel are fulfilling "Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Lazeh" in the highest sense by uniting behind the residence of Gush Katif. Many have left their homes and places of work to help in Gush Katif. Join. Please be a part of the unification of our people in Gush Katif. Any donation is appreciated. (ALthough we need food for Thousands of people, even $5 can buy a lot of bread) Just click on the link https://www.group.co.il/donation/katifund/CreditInput.asp?lang=2

Your caring gives us strength.

Anita Tucker
atucker@isdn.net.il

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Anita Tucker is from Brooklyn and her Husband is from Cleveland. They have been living in Gush Katif for 29 Years. She has Children and Grandchildren that were born there, and prays every day to see Great-grandchildren born there. She is a farmer who grows insect-free produce and her children who live in Gush Katif are farmers as well.

My Struggle against the Jewish White Paper of 2005!

Gush Katif has been totally sealed off to all Jews ecept if they live in Gush Katif - and even they have horrible stories of how they are being treated by the authorities today.

IN my eyes, what is going on today is the Jewish White Paper of 2005.

As in teh days of the British White Paper where heroic Jews tried day and night to sneak into Israel illegaly, so too today thousands of Jews, day and night are trying to sneak into Gush Katif illegaly!

Friends and relatives think I'm crazy trying to sneak into Gush Katif, for a couple of reasons:
1. I have a life with responsabilities (job, wife and children)
2. Me being in Gush Katif won't change anything

First I will answer those claims and then I will tell you the highlights about my recent trials when trying to sneak into Gush Katif last week ( I didn't succeed yet!)

First of all, in my opinion, life is worthless i you do not live according to your values and beliefs. A job and responsabilities to family are only worth something to me if the life that I lead is one that I lead by example
- as an example for myself to not only preach values of Am Yisrael and Eretz YIsrael, but live them!
- as an example for my wife and children that the values that I preach I live by as well
- as an example to my co-workers, that the values they know I stand for, I actually practice and defend!

By me not leaving my job to join the active struggle against the expulsion plan, I would be showing to all of the above (including myslef) that living ideals is different than preaching them. That is not what Judasim is about and that is not what I'm about - so I have joined the active struggle. One day when my children and grandchildren ask "What did you do to stop the expulsion plan?" I can be proud when I answer them with a detailed description of what I did.

Today is no normal event. This is historic. I can't live my regular life (waking up in the morning, going to work, returning home, goind to sleep etc.) when ten thousands of Jews are about to be expeled from their homes. Forget about the fact that there is no good reason to expel them and that the government is corrupt, the justice system is political and unjust etc. Put those "little facts" on the side.

I can't go on with my daily life as ten thousand Jews are about to be expeled from their homes.

The question is not - why am I doing what I'm doing?
The question is - How can you go on with your daily life?

As for point number two - that my presence in Gush Katif won't change anything - I have this to say:
1. First and foremost the people in Gush Katif are going through a traumatic experience that should never befall any of us. The most important thing we could do for them is give them chizuk and let them know they are not alone. I can't tell you how happy the Gush Katif people are when they hear that people are trying to get through the siege and the roadblocks wanting to join them. It gives them so much chizuk. One of the most important things we can do on the "inside" is continue to give them chizuk and try to help them as much as possible, in every possible way.

2. Some of the highest ranking officers of the army have themselves admitted that if tens of thousands of people stand against them in Gush Katif when they come in to expel them - the army will not be able to perform its duty to expel and would have to return to the government to reconsider its decision. The army is designed to fight armies, with weapons and manpower, it is not designed to stand against tens of thousands of civilians to uproot them!

Today, the day Netanyahu resigned, it has been recorded that soldiers throughout Israel were applauding. Why? Because they think this is the beginning of the cancellation of the decree and they don't want to do it!!!

Thousands of soldiers don't want to follow their orders to expel fellow Jews!

Imaging if tens of thousands of Jews were in Gush Katif on the day when these soldiers came in to expel them? The would stand still and they wouldn't be able to expel.

My next posting will list my James Bond type story in trying to sneak into Gush Katif to fight the Jewish White Paper of 2005

Avi

Why the Israeli soldiers should refuse all orders connected to the Expulsion Plan and preparation for that plan:

1. It does not take a smart person to obey an order it takes a smart person to disobey an order!

2. The people remembered on the special avenue for righteous gentiles at Yad Vashem are remembered because they refused orders

3. What will they tell their children and grandchildren when they asked what they did to stop the expulsion of Jews from Gaza and the Northern Shomron

Written by a proud Jew who served in the Israeli army and serves, year after year, in the reserves. Today is a day of shame for the Israeli army. I look forward to the day when all the soldiers who refused all expulsion related orders are reinstated tp their ranks and positions. Please G-D that day will come soon.

Avi

A Response to Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein's Call to Obey Orders and Carry Out the Eviction Plan

by: Moshe Feiglin
Tamuz 5765 (July 05)

Rabbi Lichtenstein, one of the heads of the Har Etzion Yeshiva in Alon Shevut, recently published an article entitled Reflections regarding D-Day, in which he explains his opposition to refusal to obey orders by soldiers in the planned eviction of Jewish settlers from Gush Katif and Northern Shomron.

It is somewhat problematic for an unlearned person such as myself to challenge the views of a prominent rabbi such as Rabbi Lichtenstein. It is therefore necessary for me to first say that I don't believe that the rabbi himself maintains that his article is really Halachic, and not merely publicistic.

Perhaps this is the place to emphasize that in general those rabbis who write articles against the disengagement plan and in support of refusal to obey orders, base their arguments on scores of clear unambiguous sources and Halachic rulings. In contrast, those holding diametrically opposed views do not base these arguments on Halachic sources or express them in the customary Halachic matter.

I shall therefore permit myself to argue that Rabbi Lichtenstein's article falls into the second category, and I don't think that he would dispute this.

The key issue in the article is the use of the expressions "considered judgment" and "the saving of life". I shall therefore address this issue, even though I don't believe that there is any connection between the subject of the disengagement plan and the saving of life. This was not the real reason behind this vile plan, nor does the faithful public oppose it for security considerations.

This important rabbi wishes to give the impression that the issue of saving life dominates his thinking. However, we have to recall that Rabbi Lichtenstein and many others of his ilk placed all their weight behind what was known as the Oslo process.

Ten years ago the process began of handing over parts of Eretz Israel to the terrorist gangs. Most of the believing public understood then that this process was not only contrary to the Creator's wishes but would also lead to great bloodshed.

Rabbi Lichtenstein and a small group of rabbis gave their support to that process that has caused the deaths of about three thousand Jews, up to now. In the decade that has passed since that terrible bloody process (that was supported by Rabbi Lichtenstein and other rabbis holding similar opinions), more Jewish civilians have been murdered in Israel in terrorist attacks than in the entire period from the establishment of the State until the Oslo process.

I shall now address Rabbi Lichtenstein's arguments, that may be divided into two: the need for pragmatic judgment (in order to avoid danger to life) and the need for Halachic judgment.

Regarding the issue of pragmatic judgment, the rabbi presents three problems:
1) The fear that refusal to obey orders may also spread to the other side (the Left), weaken the army, and consequently lead to a risk to life.
2) The harm that will be caused to mutual relations normally achieved by jointly bearing the burden of military service.
3) Distancing the national religious public from State values in which they believed in the past.

It can clearly be seen that issues 2 and 3 have nothing to do with danger to life. Obviously they are of importance, but the role of the IDF is to protect the lives of Jews. It was not established as a society for improving mutual relations nor as a means of strengthening the inner beliefs of the religious Zionist public.

For many years the Left has adopted the technique of refusal to obey orders and it is widespread amongst them. Movements of this kind have sprung up amongst the Left and have been awarded legitimacy by the Israeli establishment, the judicial system, and the media. This has frequently involved refusal to obey orders in the face of the enemy.

A clear red line has been established regarding the IDF's activities. In today's Israel it is illegal to talk about the transfer of Arabs, because Amos Oz declared that in such circumstances he would blow up bridges, and Moshe Negbi said that he would break up the army and the State.

In other words, there's no need to fear that refusal to obey orders would spread to Leftist circles, because it's already there.

A totally different issue is involved: Will the Left's capability of setting up ideological lines which, if crossed, would lead to absolute refusal, be balanced by the capability of the belief-based public to establish its own red lines? If not, then it would seem advisable for us to give up in advance all the achievements of Zionism and settlement, and in fact to abandon the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.

The rabbi's logic does not necessarily lead only to the destruction of Gush Etzion where his yeshiva is located, but to the destruction of Israel as a Jewish State, because this is what the struggle is actually about.

We're not talking about Gush Katif, but about the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.

When the side that desires a state of all its citizens uses the weapon of refusal to achieve this aim, by destroying the settlements and evicting their residents, by sending female soldiers to combat units, and by acts of mass desecration of Shabbat, while the other, belief-based side, always accepts the situation, because Rabbi Lichtenstein's arguments will always be valid -- then in such circumstances it is a foregone conclusion that the extreme Left will achieve all its aspirations and the Jewish State of Israel will cease to exist.

Since Israel will be incapable of surviving as a state of all its citizens for any significant period of time (opinion polls have indicated that most people don't give it more than thirty years), and since our Arab neighbors don't seem to want us as citizens with equal rights, obviously the rabbi's logic will inevitably lead to the Final Solution for the Jews of Eretz Israel.

Those who think this is far-fetched should recall the cooperation during the Second World War between Hitler and the founding father of the "Palestinian" movement, the Jerusalem Mufti. Husseini planned to construct gas chambers in the Dotan Valley in Samaria for Rabbi Lichtenstein and his family. Because of the Oslo process and the humanist Palestinian education following it, Husseini's Final Solution is taught to first grade children in Kalkilya.

Consequently, soldiers who don't refuse to obey the eviction order will be responsible for a terrible blood bath, and endanger the very existence of the State of Israel, and the lives of millions of Jews.

The second argument presented by Rabbi Lichtenstein is the need for Halachic judgment.

In this argument, that is apparently a Halachic one, the rabbi explains that since the government claims that the disengagement plan will save the lives of many people, and since it is impossible to know whether or not the government is right, then we must accept the plan motivated by feelings of responsibility and love for the nation and the country.

Since the Halachic considerations of the rabbi are based on the purity of the intentions of Sharon and his son, and since everyone on both the Left and the Right is now aware that this purity does not exist, then the Halachic consideration based on the judgment of the decision makers is invalid. Rabbi Lichtenstein may not wish to hear this, but the disengagement plan was adopted for personal, cynical motives. Consequently the issue of considered judgment is irrelevant. Not only is there no logical explanation for the disengagement plan, but there is also no direct and real starting point for it.

The rabbi's declaration about "our responsibility and aspirations to support with all our strength the Jewish nation" obligates every officer and soldier to proudly refuse to take part in, or aid, the perpetrators of this crime.

People are finally awaking from their slumber and realizing that Manhigut Yehudit is the way that the State of Israel will go.

The time has come for us believing Jews to stop being court Jews led by non-believing jewish leaders, who are mostly looking out for themselves and power (not the best interests of the Jewish poeple) and to start to take responsability for our own future as a people and a nation and start leading!

As written below in a Haaretz article, it seems that this message is sinking in.

Avi

Little by little the

At Kfar Maimon the State of the Faithful was founded

28/7/05
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/605606.html

By Kalman Neuman

Where is the Zionist religious public heading after the disengagement? There are those who are hoping that it will abandon the vision of the greater Land of Israel, return to the "historical partnership" with secular Zionism and hitch itself to social missions. Others are expecting a turning inwards and the emergence of a new model of "ultra-Orthodoxy in a crochet skullcap."

However, the conflict at Kfar Maimon indicates another direction.

Thirty years ago the attempt to settle at Sebastia in the West Bank became the cornerstone of a mass movement. The young people who came to Sebastia demanded to be real partners in fateful decisions. To a large extent they have succeeded in this. At Kfar Maimon this demand shifted into a higher gear. Here the State of the Faithful was founded, a state that will be led by leaders who are religious.




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The public that gathered last week at Kfar Maimon - almost entirely from religious Zionism (apart from representatives of the messianic stream of Chabad) - does not see the future of the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria (West Bank) as a strictly political issue. It sees the disengagement plan as an expression of a value vacuum, mental tiredness and a loss of the dedication that characterized the generation of the state's founders. In their eyes, the struggle for Gush Katif is just the tip of the iceberg of the struggle for hegemony in the state. Many sat for hours in the broiling sun and listened to Torah lessons given by rabbis. There was no need to discuss the reasons for the opposition to the disengagement, and there was no reason to explain to the public why Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not worthy of their trust. The rabbis described the disengagement not only as a political mistake and not only as a transgression of traditional Jewish law, but rather as a real desecration of the Holy Name, something for which there is no atonement.

Crisis in identity

To them the source of the collapse is clear: There are those who stress the prime minister's personal responsibility, but all of them see in the plan an expression of a crisis in Jewish identity, with respect to the Jewish people and the Land of Israel and the adoption of Western mass culture. As opposed to these, they describe the masses who gathered at Kfar Maimon as an idealist public that is sure of itself and prepared to take the reins from those who have grown tired. There is no need to convince the convinced. But the explanation touches the root: The struggle for Gush Katif is only the tip of the iceberg of the struggle for the State of Israel. The steering wheel of government must be passed into the hands of the religious public - it and only it is worthy of holding it.

On Wednesday morning many scores of them listened to a lesson by Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, the head of the hesder yeshiva (combined Torah study and military service program) in Ramat Gan and one of the most charismatic figures in the eyes of the national religious youth, who explained the parallel between the individual and the nation. According to Hasidic thought, he said, the individual is made up of the anima (the physiological aspect, which is common to all animals), the spirit (the abilities that are common to all human beings) and the soul (the spiritual quality that exists only in Jews). The anima comes to the individual at birth, whereas the spirit enters him only when he reaches the age of mitzvoth (the age of commandment observance, 13 for males). The difficulty of reconciling these forces is the reason for tshe self-destructive tendencies in adolescence. The same development exists in the collective, explained Shapira. The national organism has an "anima" - it is the state. The state has to see to the material needs of the nation. The state was born in 1948, but the second stage of its development occurred in the Six-Day War. The connection to the Divine presence opened the heart to the "spirit," which is supposed to enter into the existing political structures, which are equivalent to the anima. And here is the rub: He is not disappointed with Sharon, as he has no faith in any secular leader. "I do not believe in a leader who does not come from the beit midrash (religious study house). There cannot be a man of the anima who leads the Jewish people in the era of the spirit. The spirit can come only from the beit midrash." The difficulties that the Jewish people have faced are stages of maturation, of the birth of the spirit from within the anima, which also entail the danger of confusion and self-destructive tendencies. The disengagement plan is an example of this.

The unwillingness to recognize a secular leadership and the demand for a "believing" leadership were expressed in the past in groups like Moshe Feiglin's Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish leadership). Now, with the disappointment with Sharon and the secular right as a whole, this line is gathering momentum, and similar things were heard at Kfar Maimon from rabbis like Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the rabbi of Safed.

As one of the settlement rabbis said to me, "It could be that we will lose this battle (for Gush Katif), but we will certainly win the whole fight." The big fight is for hegemony in the state, and religious Zionism is intending to take the place of secular Zionism, which has become tired and has collapsed.

The struggle for hegemony is expressed in various ways, and reservations are also heard. Rabbi Yehuda Zoldan of Neveh Dekalim in the Gaza Strip talks about the struggle over values and the spirit against "empty and miserable humanism," but warns that "we must continue to live together as a society and as a nation for many more years in this land."

Even clearer is the voice of Rabbi Elisha Vishlitzky, one of the most important educators of the Merkaz Harav school. In an emotional speech at Kfar Maimon, he called for distancing from any pride and any bullying. "The way of redemption demands nerves of iron and endless patience," he said and with a heavy hint stated that "the State of Israel is not a vessel that one throws away in favor of the kingdom of the House of David. The (process of) redemption must be accorded courtesy." In Vishlitzky's words there is an echo of the words of his teacher, Rabbi Zvi Tau, the head of the Har Hamor yeshiva in Jerusalem, In a document that was distributed anonymously over the Internet, but which without a doubt expresses his opinion, the students were warned of a situation "in which a weighty minority succeeds in imposing its opinion by force on the regime and the authorities. This crumbles the entire state." They are also urged to be wary of arrogance and pride: "It is true that there is a great deal of power in the national religious public ... but we are still very far from leading the this tremendous journey of the State of Israel."

Religious Zionism's direction

If this is the ultimate aim, how is religious Zionism supposed to perceive its appropriate place at the head of the camp? In conversations with many people the reply comes up again and again: "face to face." The organization of visits by inhabitants of Yesha (the settlers' acronym for the territories of the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria in the West Bank, which also means "salvation" in Hebrew) and yeshiva boys to "the masses" of Israel spurred the imagination. The idea of going from house to house to influence broad strata of the population begin during the period of the referendum among registered members of the Likud; following its success a network of face-to-face visits - or "engagement" - was established. According to Rabbi Yigal Kamintzky, visits have already been made to 350,000 households. The idea of the unmediated encounter can lead to a breakthrough of the siege on those who feel that there voice is not heard, and as Rabbi Shlomo Aviner puts it: "The engagement movement is traveling on a road that bypasses the media, bypasses politics and bypasses demonstrations." Rabbi Tau says that "it is necessary to meet with our brother Jews, to enable them to leave the television for a moment and encounter a different spirit, a pure spirit, and one with clear, true and eternal beliefs. A bit of light will dispel much of the darkness and everything will begin to flow in a different direction."

Despite the "Chabadization" of religious Zionism, which is reflected in this mode of action, it is not focusing on an attempt to "bring people closer to Judaism" individually but rather is trying to bring about a political, cultural and even religious change in Israeli society as a whole, through extensive work in the field.

Rabbi Kamintzky explains: At the root of the "disengagement sickness" lies the desire to disengage ... from the entire past of the Jewish people, from its history, from its values, from its beliefs, from the belief in the G-d of Israel, from the destiny of the people and so on. Going from door to door in thousands of homes ... has taught us that the Jewish people is longing , thirsting and yearning for the true values, for the words of the living G-d."

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon, after whom Kfar Maimon is named, was the first minister of religious affairs in Israel. When he made the Shehekhiyanu blessing (thanking God for delivering us to this day) on the occasion of the declaration of the State of Israel by David Ben-Gurion, he established a pattern of religious recognition of a political act by a secular leader. Something of this model has been broken now. The damage to the settlement in Yesha is causing damage to the sense of partnership in the state. The scalpel that is cutting into the territories of the land cannot but puncture the aorta of the collective consciousness.

At Kfar Maimon the State of the Faithful was founded, which aspires to build itself up on the ruins and the crises of the existing State of Israel but it does not yet know how.

Kalman Neuman is a doctor of history and a graduate of the Mandel Institute for leadership.

Thought provoking scenes from the Mass March from Netivot and Kfar Maimon:

The Headline - Am Yisrael is beginning to awake from its slumber and its beautiful!!!

- Tens of thousands marching in the streets, miles long. Old and young, with strollers and bikes. Carrying bags of clothes and food.

- Every 100 meters seeing soldiers standing on both sides of the street, just standing there.

- In pitch black darkness, while walking between Netivot and Kfar Maimon, seeing in the distance lots of white lights.

- As getting closer to the lights seeing silouttes of thousands of soldiers lined up next to each other into the fields (on the sides of the road)

- Seeing lines of soldiers all lined up, arm in arm, line after line standing there to block us marching onwards

- Standing there, tens of thousands of marchers, face to face with fellow Israeli soldiers not letting us continue to march

- The feeling of utter depression that as fellow Jews are being killed by rockets in Gaza and Sderot, with our army and government doing absolutely nothing to protect them, having an army of soldiers prevent us, fellow Jews, from marching!

- Playing cat and mouse trying to get passed the soldiers to continue marching to Kfar Maimon.

- Standing face to face to soldiers, fellow Jews, who wouldn't talk to you or even take the water you offered to them, knowing that they are thirsty, waiting for their officers to bring them water

- A feeling of excitement when seeing hunders of marchers break through the soldiers and start running through the watermelon fields onwards to Kfar Maimon!!

- Breaking through the soldiers and getting run after by a Border Police Officer who threw me to the ground into a pit.

- Having the officer yell at me to get up and move away or else he would break my head open

- Asking the officer to help me get up

- Having the officer tell me 'Achi, you are my brother, I don't want to hurt you (which is illegal!) but if you don't move I will break your head open - (at the same time as hearing him call me "his brother", he has no problem breaking my head open for wanting to walk past him!)

- Sleeping in a sleeping bag in a 150 Dunam field outside of Kfar Maimon together with tens of thousands of fellow Jews, young and old.

- Being woken up in the morning at 5:45 to calls of "everyone wake up now, we are being surrounded by soldiers to evacuate us!"

- Standing up out of my sleeping bag and seeing thousands of soldiers surrounding the tent encampment

- Davening in a minyan and then being told to march quickly into Kfar Maimon before the soldiers evacuate come to evacuate us

- Running through lines of soldiers standing around surrounding the tent encampment (not yet stopping people from getting by them) in my tallis and tefillin

- Looking behind me and seeing the soldiers hook arm in arm to stop the thousands in the encampment from getting out and walking into Kfar Maimon

- Finding a shady place to sit down and wait for instructions in Kfar Maimon

- Settling down with my stuff outside a house in Kfar Maimon and asking to use a bathroom of the house owners.


- Officers pacing barbed wire in all the holes in the fences around Kfar Maimon

- Sleeping at nights with helicopters and mazlating (pilotless airplanes) flying overhead all night long

- All roads leading to Kfar Maimon blocked by army and police not allowing people to come

- Thousands of people get to Kfar Maimon by driving through the fields or walking from place where stopped by army/police

- Even roads through fields were blocked by army/police
- Seeing encampments of soldiers surrounding the whole of Kfar Maimon - looked like a scene of a warzone)

- Walking around the fence singing "ohavim et tzahal" and "chayal, shoter, ohavim otcha"

- Soldiers not allowed to speak or smile at us protestors locked up in Kfar Maimon

- Seeing people all day long talking serious talks with soldiers/policemen

- Seeing tens of thousands of people living for 3 days in a village of 180 families!

- Torah classes and children's activities taking place all day long for the thousands of people locked up in Kfar Maimon

- Seeing soldiers and citizens talking to each other through the fence (even though soldiers under orders not to talk to us). Many times it was friends, relatives and even brothers!

- Marching, 50,000 people strong to the gates of Kfar Maimon to continue march to Gush Katif

- 50,000 people being stopped in their tracks and sitting in place for an hour because 20,000 policemen and soldiers standing on other side of gate not letting us through

As Adir Zik used to say "Am Yisrael will prevail"

Am Yisrael is waking up and Am Yisreal will prevail. The powers of justice and faith will prevail over the powers of power, corruption and injustice!

Avi

Nobody is listening

Haaretz 24/07/2005

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtDisengagement.jhtml?itemNo=603990&contrassID=23&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=4

By Ari Shavit and Yair Sheleg

Is Israel being torn apart? Does the protest campaign of the disengagement opponents signal a deep internal rift? Has the process of dividing the land become a challenge to Israeli sovereignty?

Rabbi Yaakov Meidan is not one of the extremist rabbis of Yesha (acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza). On the contrary, over the years he has been engaged in attempts at dialogue with the secular public. He and Prof. Ruth Gavison of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Law drew up a pact concerning religion-state affairs. Together with Major General (res.) Uzi Dayan, he formulated the "Brothers Dialogue" covenant to prevent refusal by soldiers to obey certain orders. Over the past few months, he also tried to draw up another covenant to cool down the struggle and define its rules.

But now, after the attempt at dialogue has failed, Rabbi Meidan is on fire. He is trying to control himself, but has difficulty doing so. He is mood-swinging between the desire to preserve the linchpin of the state framework and his feeling that a severe wrong has been done. Between the desire to express vigorous opposition to the uprooting and the desire not to refuse an order. Between disengagement and settlement. Between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel.




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Recently, he set forth his position on the disengagement question in terms drawn from the story of "King Solomon's judgment" - except that in his commentary, which is based on the writings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the real mother has to avoid simultaneously the rending of the child and giving him up altogether.

Meidan settled in Gush Etzion - a bloc of settlements south of Bethlehem - 36 years ago and is a graduate of the first class of the large Har Etzion hesder yeshiva (combining religious studies and military service) in the settlement of Alon Shvut. He will become the yeshiva head at Hanukkah. Fifty-five years old and the father of seven children, Rabbi Meidan is tall, light of foot, energetic and sharp. Even though he is not as well well-known as Rabbis Moshe Levinger, Yoel Bin-Nun and Menachem Fruman, his influence today is far greater than theirs. He is a member of the inner team of settler leaders trying to reach agreements with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on limiting and restraining the anti-disengagement struggle. He is the rabbinical authority who is the source of legitimization for those in the territories who are trying not to burn all the bridges and not enter into a total confrontation with the state and the army. Nevertheless, even Meidan finds himself being pushed into a corner. Hoping and despairing. Believing and distraught. On the brink of the abyss.

Rabbi Meidan, how difficult is this moment?

It is beyond terrible. Beyond terrible. Understand: we are being judged as the ruined city, of which it is said that it shall not be rebuilt. We are being judged as a camp of lepers.

How severe is the crisis?

"The crisis is of dual significance. One is to take Jews who finally arrived here after 2,000 years of exile so that they would never again be driven from their homes and to drive them from their homes forcefully. After 2,000 years of exile, in which we dreamed of having a state from which we would not be driven out, that dream has been shattered. Suddenly it turns out that Jews can be expelled. Suddenly it turns out that homes of Jews can be laid waste. That Jewish graves can be uprooted. After 50 years in which we thought that none of this was possible, this act returns us in large measure to the tragic Jewish situation of pre-Zionist times.

"But there is also a second crisis. Decades ago, our public, the religious-Zionist public, made a strategic decision to live together with secular Zionism; together with the public that is not religiously observant. We decided to forge an alliance. An alliance based on love for this land. On the desire for the revival of the state. Now that alliance has been broken. Those who went with us hand in hand to every place, including into the fire, have plunged a knife in our back."

Who plunged a knife in your back?

"I would prefer not to name names. That is the lesson I drew from what happened 10 years ago, before Rabin's assassination. But I say that there were those who were out to get religious Zionism in order to plunge a knife into its back. There were those who decided to thrust religious Zionism 30 years back, to restore it to its natural size, to its previous place."

What you are saying is very grave. You are saying that disengagement is not only the evacuation of territory and of settlements; that it is also an attempt by the secular public in Israel to assault the national-religious public.

"I am very sensitive to the word 'evacuation.' We are not dust. We are not hametz of Passover eve. We are not some dirt on the table that is evacuated. We have roots. We struck deep roots both in the dunes of Gush Katif [the Gaza Strip settlement bloc] and also in the hard rocks of Gush Etzion and other places. So this is not an evacuation. We are not being wiped off the table; we are being uprooted. And uprooted with great difficulty.

"To address your substantive point: my complaints are not against the secular public as a whole. In our meetings with the broad public, there is a good, warm feeling, which encourages support. Had it not been for that support, I would have found it difficult to survive these last months. The problem is with the secular elites. In the attitude of those elites I have the feeling of a knife in the back."

Do you truly believe the secular elite has risen up against you in order to destroy you?

"Yes."

So from your point of view the disengagement is not a strategic move - justified or not - but a deliberate attempt to break the religious Zionist movement?

"I must be accurate: for part of the secular elites breaking religious Zionism is the goal. For others, breaking us is not the goal, but a price they are willing to pay. And to pay easily. When someone rises up against you, it is a pain of a particular kind. When someone does not care at all whether you are broken and does not care where you will wallow after being broken, that is pain of a different kind."

For years you conducted a dialogue with the democratic-secular elite. That dialogue was important to you. You invested quite a bit in it. Do you feel today that the dialogue was a lie?

"There were a great many falsities in our alliance with the secular elites. In retrospect, it turns out that a great many of those who sat with us and dialogued with us were pretending. When the test came, they did not meet it. They turned their back on us."

Do you feel you have been betrayed?

"My dialogue with Prof. Ruth Gavison was good and remains good. Even when we did not reach agreement, she met the test. But when I sat in the Israel Democracy Institute with her reference group - senior jurists and senior academics and left-wing leaders - I had the feeling that I was meeting with people who are living in a glass tower. People who are looking at an entire public being uprooted from its life project and from everything it believes in and being thrown to who-knows where - without having the slightest understanding of what is facing them. When I sat across from them, I had the feeling they were looking at me the way you watch a movie and examining everything according to the minutiae of the law. As though the orders and the law have become God. Without justice, without morality, without anything. Only the order and the law.

"I felt that I was facing a sealed glittering wall. That I was being looked at through thick glass. Our public was observed like a laboratory animal. People raise their hand against me and tell me, If you want to shout, fine, but not between 2 and 4, during the siesta. That is something I could not accept. I could not accept it."

Did you draw operative conclusions?

"Yes. In order to forge an alliance with the secular elites, we neglected our more natural alliance with the Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] public. Today I think that was a mistake. In the future we will behave differently. In the past, with all the disagreements, I thought there was also something we could learn from the secular elite. After I saw the secular elite stick a knife in my back and turn away from its own values - democracy and human rights - I have no more to learn from them. After all, from the standpoint of democracy, what happened here is a disgrace; and what happened here from the viewpoint of the judicial system's protection of human rights is a shame. The courts, the press, the research institutes - no one heard us. No one heard our outcry. But it is not just us. The democratic elite did not remain loyal to the values in the name of which it spoke all these years. Therefore there are no positive values I can get from them. I have a serious problem with them."

If so, your next dialogue will not be with the Democracy Institute but with the leader of Haredi Judaism, Rabbi Elyashiv.

"Correct. Only then, when religious Zionism and the Haredi public stand together, will our place be different, will we be treated differently."

What is the purpose of your large protest campaign this week?

"Our feeling is that our outcry is not being heard. [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon does not hear it, the courts do not hear it, north Tel Aviv does not hear it. Our feeling is that we are crying out and they are shutting their ears. Therefore, in this campaign we want to let forth an outcry that will not allow them to shut their ears any longer. It is a march of outcry. It is meant to breach the wall of your insensitivity."

But you are not marching against the Knesset. You are not marching against Sharon's ranch. You are marching against the IDF. You are endangering the IDF.

"The IDF is precious to us. It is not a hostage in our struggle. But whoever decided on the uprooting and whoever decided not to hold a referendum on the uprooting stole democracy. And when he stole democracy, he should have been aware that this would have a price. That price will trickle down into the army. After all, they are sending IDF equipment to destroy Jewish homes. They are sending the army rabbinate to uproot Jewish graves. They are sending the army to turn 50 synagogues into heaps of ruins. Obviously this is going to have a price."

Do you consider these acts to be transgressions, to be forbidden acts?

"Let us not say it is a transgression. Let us say it is a great commandment. But did anyone think about what effect deeds like these have on a Jewish soul? Look what happens to us when someone scrawls one slogan on one synagogue in Germany. And here they are going to destroy dozens of synagogues. They are going to do what the goyim did not dare do to us for 50 years anywhere. Understand the meaning of this. Understand the feeling of hurban [destruction]."

But there was a sovereign decision here, a decision by the government and the Knesset, a majority decision.

"Do you know what the meaning is of an IDF bulldozer driven by a soldier who was conscripted to defend the Jewish people smashing and breaking the walls of a synagogue and reducing it to rubble? And trampling with the treads the place where the Holy Ark stood, where Torah scrolls were placed. If I were that soldier, my soul would be so torn that I do not know how I would be able to withstand it. I do not know what I would do."

What would you do?

"That is a very difficult question. Very difficult. It is a question that touches also on dragging people from the home in which they have lived for 30 years. Dragging children, dragging mothers. Let me ask you: If your mothers were there, would you drag them out?"

What you are actually telling us is that if you were a soldier and you were ordered to demolish a synagogue structure, you would not carry out the order. You would not do it.

"I find it very difficult to see how I would be capable of doing it."

And when a student of yours asks you how he should behave during the disengagement?

"I hope the IDF will have the wisdom now to have soldiers who feel this is their milk and their blood do it. I am against refusing orders. I think it is important for our soldiers to be there. Especially so they can calm down the situation. But whoever sends soldiers to drag people from their homes is assuming a very heavy responsibility. He is committing an act without both reason and heart. I want to see [Chief of Staff] Dan Halutz drag his mother from her house. Is he capable of that? Let him not demand that others do what he is not capable of doing."

Effectively, you are preaching `gray disobedience.' On the face of it you are against refusal to obey, but in practice you are encouraging every religious soldier to go to his commanding officer and say: I can't do it.

"The IDF has enough soldiers who will do the dragging and the demolition without their hearts being wounded. It will be hard for them, too, but for our soldiers it is difficult to impossible."

The importance of what you are saying is that there will be a lone soldier who will say "I can't" and then another lone soldier who will say "I can't," until there will be an entire public of lone soldiers who do not carry out the army's orders and do not implement the decisions of an elected government.

"There will be a great many lone soldiers who might even total a large percentage of the army. But they will not be a public. And they will not refuse. They will ask to be assigned to a different task."

There is refusal already now. Rabbis are inciting soldiers and the spiritual leadership of the religious Zionist movement is bringing the IDF to a situation of crisis.

"One way or the other, the IDF is in a difficult situation. And it will find itself in a very difficult situation. But the responsibility lies with the prime minister and the defense minister, who are the father and mother of the IDF. They know what the IDF is made of. They know who its soldiers are. They created the crisis.

"Our goal is not to break the IDF. But we cannot prevent the difficulty for the IDF; that is impossible. We want to bring the IDF to a situation in which things will be difficult, but not to a situation in which it will not be able to cope."

Rabbi Meidan, you are pressuring the IDF to make it cry for help. You are trying to make the army tell the political echelon that it cannot carry out the mission. Your approach is a danger to life and limb.

"We will stay 2,000 cubits from any act of violence."

The problem is not only violence. The problem is disobedience that will break up the army.

"The IDF is being broken from two directions. The breaking begins when one sends soldiers to execute missions they are incapable of executing. In contrast, we are taking steps that the IDF can deal with.

"But allow me to ask you a left-wing question: What is your alternative? That's what people on the left like to ask, isn't it? `What is the alternative?' To tell the soldiers to break their hearts and do something totally contrary to everything they have been educated to believe?"

The alternative is to tell your students that they are soldiers of Israeli sovereignty and must carry out every legal decision made by that sovereign state.

"Our soldiers are certainly soldiers of Israeli sovereignty. But that is not a reason to shatter the values in which they were raised. To drag the people of Gush Katif from their homes is to trample our values without a justified reason."

Rabbi Meidan, because of your ideology, I, Ari Shavit, served in a detention facility for Palestinians. I did what ran contrary to my deepest beliefs in order to be loyal to the one Israeli sovereignty and to the alliance between us. Now, when your turn has come to fulfill your part in the sovereign alliance, you are not doing it.

"When you served as a warder it was no harder for you than for anyone else, it was required for the security of us all. On the other hand, here there is a specific matter of many people, perhaps a quarter of the army, who are being asked to do something contrary to their belief. I do not think it is right to break their belief."

For years people on the left manned checkpoints because of the settlers, served as warders because of them, guarded your settlements. That seared their hearts no less than the disengagement is searing your hearts.

"There is no resemblance. The checkpoints guarded Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The detention facilities did not protect the occupation, but security. It is true that left-wing people guarded the settlements, but there is no comparison between the difficulty they had and the difficulty of removing good people from their homes and demolishing them."

You show consideration for the feelings of your public, but have no pity at all for the feelings of others.

"Uzi Dayan told me explicitly that if he received an order to remove Arabs from their homes, he would refuse to obey it. And he was a candidate for chief of staff. Everyone on the left and in the center says that if he were told to expel Arabs from their homes, he would refuse. We are not even talking about refusal. We are only asking you not to force us to trample our values."

Your comments paint a harsh picture - two opposing Israeli stories are engaged in a frontal clash. Like two cars speeding toward each other, with neither of them willing to move to the shoulder.

"There will be a confrontation. There will be a serious jolt. But I believe that it will be a chassis accident, not a total loss. After a chassis accident, a car can still keep going. It sputters, it is damaged, but it still runs."

You are taking a tremendous responsibility on yourself: it is a very thin line.

"The line is thin because we were left only a thin line. We are doing what we are doing with a heavy heart. And we are taking care and making every effort not to cross the line that would mean the ruin of the IDF. But we have no choice. The alternative is not to protest the destruction of the major tenets of Zionism. That is impossible from our point of view. It would mean a donkey's burial for Zionism."

Where is the maturity the Zionist left showed for years? Where is the greatness that [Menachem] Begin showed in the "Altalena" episode? [In June 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the IDF to open fire on a gunship named "Altalena" which was off the Tel Aviv shore. The ship was carrying arms for the Irgun, a pre-state underground organization.] You are ready to risk everything.

"We are against violence. Heaven forbid that anyone should raise a hand against a soldier. Heaven forbid that anyone should verbally abuse a soldier. Under no circumstances will there be any form of violence. But like Rabbi Kook, I too think that even in the case of Solomon's Judgment, the real mother does not agree to her child being cut in half, but also does not yield. A son whose mother gave him up will not forgive her. And in this case, too, the son will not forgive us if we forgo everything for the sake of peace and tranquillity. And the son is not just Gush Katif. This son is the Land of Israel. This is the whole ideology of Zionism and settlement. And that ideology will not forgive us if we forgo it. Nor will we forgive ourselves if we give up so quickly. Therefore we will not bring things to a crisis point which has no remedy, but neither will we yield."

You are absolutely walking on the brink. You are endangering Israeli statehood. The rabbis of religious Zionism - Rabbi Eliahu and Rabbi Shapira - are encouraging refusal on the part of soldiers.

"With all my smallness, with all the fact that I am ignorant and small compared to them, I am ready to say the complete opposite of what those rabbis said. I think a religiously observant soldier should not refuse to obey an order. I say so explicitly: I do not accept refusal to obey an order. It is totally unacceptable to me. But when I am asked whether I would be capable of doing these terrible things I say that I do not know whether I would be capable. And I think when I say that I am not crossing the red line. Because if I do nothing, that will also have a price. If we are too afraid and leave Gush Katif without opposition, that will mean the destruction of Zionism. That is something we are forbidden to do. It is forbidden. Our loyalty to the land and to settlement obligates us to carry out a large protest."

Your campaign this week places Israeli democracy in jeopardy.

"On the contrary: it is a campaign in favor of democracy, a campaign against the destruction of democracy."

But you are not protesting; you are trying to scuttle a legal political decision by force.

"We are trying to execute a democratic preemption. To force the Knesset and the government to think again. After all, this is a move that contradicts Zionism. It involves the razing of an entire bloc of settlements. A decision like this could have been made in a referendum. Responsibility rests with whoever decided not to let the decision be made by a referendum. It is he who brought the dispute into the IDF, who created the rift in the nation. And he did it for malicious reasons, out of malicious intent."

Is the government of Israel a malicious government?

"No. I did not say that. But there was malice here."

What do you mean?

"Regrettably, Sharon is acting out of a feeling that the prevention of violence is not his highest priority. In a cold analysis, one can arrive at the conclusion that from his point of view, if there is bloodshed, it will ensure the success of the uprooting and also ensure the success of the acts of uprooting to come."

What you are saying is extremely grave.

"I will put it cautiously. I know preventing violence is the chief consideration of the Yesha Council. Preventing violence is very high among the IDF's considerations. I am afraid that in the prime minister's milieu, the prevention of violence does not have the highest priority. I heard the assessment of a senior intelligence person who maintains that Sharon has an interest in the eruption of violence, because it will reduce the pressures for additional withdrawals. And I add: also because violence will send an internal signal that only Sharon is capable of coping with the settlers. That is why I agreed to this interview: because what is now incumbent on all of us - on the IDF, on the elites of the left and on us - is to prevent violence. To prevent bloodshed."

But it is your struggle that is liable to bring bloodshed. It is liable to endanger the very existence of Zionism.

"Our struggle is a last attempt to save Zionism. To save Zionism. Without Zionism we have no existence here. And Zionism is the belief that Jews come to their homeland and redeem it so that no one will move them. That is Zionism. I am not familiar with any other Zionism. And the act of uprooting strikes down Zionism.

"I do not want to think about the possibility of the annulment of Zionism. That possibility is beyond my line of thought. But to send the IDF to raze Gush Katif is to deliver a very severe blow to Zionism, a very severe blow. And what we are doing now is trying to prevent that. Until the last minute to try and prevent it."

In fact, the real danger is that the disengagement is turning into a religious war.

"`Religious war' is an incorrect term. But this summer will be a very dramatic period in the contest for the internal identity of the Jewish people and the State of Israel."

And where will you and we be at the end of this summer?

"You will certainly interview all kinds of people about the determination with which they carried out the act. I may be in prison."

Do you really think it will come to that?

"I do not flinch from that possibility. I am taking it into account. I will not be violent. I will carry out deeds I consider legitimate. But if the law wants to punish me for them, I will go to prison without batting an eyelash."

In other words, one casualty of this campaign is already the supremacy of the law.

"I have never recognized the supremacy of the law. Justice and morality are far more important to me than the supremacy of the law. When the law stands opposite justice and morality, I stand on the other side."n

I personally am having a very hard time going on with my daily life
with all that our evil government is doing and planning with regards
to our fellow Jews in Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron.

What is going on around us - police brutality, injustices by the
justice system, demonization of ourselves, "settlers and rightists",
in the press - is having and will have much impact on how our lives
are going to be in another month or two and onwards.

Even sworn leftists, who are happy with the explusion plan, know that
the levels of corruption and deciept that Sharon has led this
government to will have deep reprocussions on Israel the day after
the expulsion plan is/isn't carried out. To all of our detriment.

I have no trust in the Israeli government, no trust in the Israeli
justice system and no trust in the Israeli press. And I'm not alone!

Yes I have a family to support, and I have a job to attend to,
but...now is not the time to sit at home and read the newspapers on
what is going on or watch it on the news. Now is the time to be
involved in making the news to influence our future and our
children's future.

I plan to go down to Gush Katif. That is where today we can stop the
plan. The larger the numbers of people the more chance we have to
stop the plan.

When I'm going and how, I do not know yet - still to be decided,
obviously as soon as possible. How I will get out of work - I have no
idea. But somethings in life have to done regardless of the personal
hardships it will cause.

Avi

There is so much to write about. So many thoughts, so many fears, so many sights that I have seen with my own eyes!!

I marched from Netivot to Kefar Maimon and spent 3 full days there. I saw it all, and I experienced it all. I must write it down for all to know.

In the meantime, nobody has expressed better what so many in Israel feel than Rav Meidan in an interview he gave to the Haaretz paper.

It is an interview that must be read.

With G-ds help Am Yisrael will prevail!!

Avi

Nobody is listening

By Ari Shavit and Yair Sheleg

Is Israel being torn apart? Does the protest campaign of the disengagement opponents signal a deep internal rift? Has the process of dividing the land become a challenge to Israeli sovereignty?

Rabbi Yaakov Meidan is not one of the extremist rabbis of Yesha (acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza). On the contrary, over the years he has been engaged in attempts at dialogue with the secular public. He and Prof. Ruth Gavison of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Law drew up a pact concerning religion-state affairs. Together with Major General (res.) Uzi Dayan, he formulated the "Brothers Dialogue" covenant to prevent refusal by soldiers to obey certain orders. Over the past few months, he also tried to draw up another covenant to cool down the struggle and define its rules.

But now, after the attempt at dialogue has failed, Rabbi Meidan is on fire. He is trying to control himself, but has difficulty doing so. He is mood-swinging between the desire to preserve the linchpin of the state framework and his feeling that a severe wrong has been done. Between the desire to express vigorous opposition to the uprooting and the desire not to refuse an order. Between disengagement and settlement. Between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel.




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Recently, he set forth his position on the disengagement question in terms drawn from the story of "King Solomon's judgment" - except that in his commentary, which is based on the writings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the real mother has to avoid simultaneously the rending of the child and giving him up altogether.

Meidan settled in Gush Etzion - a bloc of settlements south of Bethlehem - 36 years ago and is a graduate of the first class of the large Har Etzion hesder yeshiva (combining religious studies and military service) in the settlement of Alon Shvut. He will become the yeshiva head at Hanukkah. Fifty-five years old and the father of seven children, Rabbi Meidan is tall, light of foot, energetic and sharp. Even though he is not as well well-known as Rabbis Moshe Levinger, Yoel Bin-Nun and Menachem Fruman, his influence today is far greater than theirs. He is a member of the inner team of settler leaders trying to reach agreements with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on limiting and restraining the anti-disengagement struggle. He is the rabbinical authority who is the source of legitimization for those in the territories who are trying not to burn all the bridges and not enter into a total confrontation with the state and the army. Nevertheless, even Meidan finds himself being pushed into a corner. Hoping and despairing. Believing and distraught. On the brink of the abyss.

Rabbi Meidan, how difficult is this moment?

It is beyond terrible. Beyond terrible. Understand: we are being judged as the ruined city, of which it is said that it shall not be rebuilt. We are being judged as a camp of lepers.

How severe is the crisis?

"The crisis is of dual significance. One is to take Jews who finally arrived here after 2,000 years of exile so that they would never again be driven from their homes and to drive them from their homes forcefully. After 2,000 years of exile, in which we dreamed of having a state from which we would not be driven out, that dream has been shattered. Suddenly it turns out that Jews can be expelled. Suddenly it turns out that homes of Jews can be laid waste. That Jewish graves can be uprooted. After 50 years in which we thought that none of this was possible, this act returns us in large measure to the tragic Jewish situation of pre-Zionist times.

"But there is also a second crisis. Decades ago, our public, the religious-Zionist public, made a strategic decision to live together with secular Zionism; together with the public that is not religiously observant. We decided to forge an alliance. An alliance based on love for this land. On the desire for the revival of the state. Now that alliance has been broken. Those who went with us hand in hand to every place, including into the fire, have plunged a knife in our back."

Who plunged a knife in your back?

"I would prefer not to name names. That is the lesson I drew from what happened 10 years ago, before Rabin's assassination. But I say that there were those who were out to get religious Zionism in order to plunge a knife into its back. There were those who decided to thrust religious Zionism 30 years back, to restore it to its natural size, to its previous place."

What you are saying is very grave. You are saying that disengagement is not only the evacuation of territory and of settlements; that it is also an attempt by the secular public in Israel to assault the national-religious public.

"I am very sensitive to the word 'evacuation.' We are not dust. We are not hametz of Passover eve. We are not some dirt on the table that is evacuated. We have roots. We struck deep roots both in the dunes of Gush Katif [the Gaza Strip settlement bloc] and also in the hard rocks of Gush Etzion and other places. So this is not an evacuation. We are not being wiped off the table; we are being uprooted. And uprooted with great difficulty.

"To address your substantive point: my complaints are not against the secular public as a whole. In our meetings with the broad public, there is a good, warm feeling, which encourages support. Had it not been for that support, I would have found it difficult to survive these last months. The problem is with the secular elites. In the attitude of those elites I have the feeling of a knife in the back."

Do you truly believe the secular elite has risen up against you in order to destroy you?

"Yes."

So from your point of view the disengagement is not a strategic move - justified or not - but a deliberate attempt to break the religious Zionist movement?

"I must be accurate: for part of the secular elites breaking religious Zionism is the goal. For others, breaking us is not the goal, but a price they are willing to pay. And to pay easily. When someone rises up against you, it is a pain of a particular kind. When someone does not care at all whether you are broken and does not care where you will wallow after being broken, that is pain of a different kind."

For years you conducted a dialogue with the democratic-secular elite. That dialogue was important to you. You invested quite a bit in it. Do you feel today that the dialogue was a lie?

"There were a great many falsities in our alliance with the secular elites. In retrospect, it turns out that a great many of those who sat with us and dialogued with us were pretending. When the test came, they did not meet it. They turned their back on us."

Do you feel you have been betrayed?

"My dialogue with Prof. Ruth Gavison was good and remains good. Even when we did not reach agreement, she met the test. But when I sat in the Israel Democracy Institute with her reference group - senior jurists and senior academics and left-wing leaders - I had the feeling that I was meeting with people who are living in a glass tower. People who are looking at an entire public being uprooted from its life project and from everything it believes in and being thrown to who-knows where - without having the slightest understanding of what is facing them. When I sat across from them, I had the feeling they were looking at me the way you watch a movie and examining everything according to the minutiae of the law. As though the orders and the law have become God. Without justice, without morality, without anything. Only the order and the law.

"I felt that I was facing a sealed glittering wall. That I was being looked at through thick glass. Our public was observed like a laboratory animal. People raise their hand against me and tell me, If you want to shout, fine, but not between 2 and 4, during the siesta. That is something I could not accept. I could not accept it."

Did you draw operative conclusions?

"Yes. In order to forge an alliance with the secular elites, we neglected our more natural alliance with the Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] public. Today I think that was a mistake. In the future we will behave differently. In the past, with all the disagreements, I thought there was also something we could learn from the secular elite. After I saw the secular elite stick a knife in my back and turn away from its own values - democracy and human rights - I have no more to learn from them. After all, from the standpoint of democracy, what happened here is a disgrace; and what happened here from the viewpoint of the judicial system's protection of human rights is a shame. The courts, the press, the research institutes - no one heard us. No one heard our outcry. But it is not just us. The democratic elite did not remain loyal to the values in the name of which it spoke all these years. Therefore there are no positive values I can get from them. I have a serious problem with them."

If so, your next dialogue will not be with the Democracy Institute but with the leader of Haredi Judaism, Rabbi Elyashiv.

"Correct. Only then, when religious Zionism and the Haredi public stand together, will our place be different, will we be treated differently."

What is the purpose of your large protest campaign this week?

"Our feeling is that our outcry is not being heard. [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon does not hear it, the courts do not hear it, north Tel Aviv does not hear it. Our feeling is that we are crying out and they are shutting their ears. Therefore, in this campaign we want to let forth an outcry that will not allow them to shut their ears any longer. It is a march of outcry. It is meant to breach the wall of your insensitivity."

But you are not marching against the Knesset. You are not marching against Sharon's ranch. You are marching against the IDF. You are endangering the IDF.

"The IDF is precious to us. It is not a hostage in our struggle. But whoever decided on the uprooting and whoever decided not to hold a referendum on the uprooting stole democracy. And when he stole democracy, he should have been aware that this would have a price. That price will trickle down into the army. After all, they are sending IDF equipment to destroy Jewish homes. They are sending the army rabbinate to uproot Jewish graves. They are sending the army to turn 50 synagogues into heaps of ruins. Obviously this is going to have a price."

Do you consider these acts to be transgressions, to be forbidden acts?

"Let us not say it is a transgression. Let us say it is a great commandment. But did anyone think about what effect deeds like these have on a Jewish soul? Look what happens to us when someone scrawls one slogan on one synagogue in Germany. And here they are going to destroy dozens of synagogues. They are going to do what the goyim did not dare do to us for 50 years anywhere. Understand the meaning of this. Understand the feeling of hurban [destruction]."

But there was a sovereign decision here, a decision by the government and the Knesset, a majority decision.

"Do you know what the meaning is of an IDF bulldozer driven by a soldier who was conscripted to defend the Jewish people smashing and breaking the walls of a synagogue and reducing it to rubble? And trampling with the treads the place where the Holy Ark stood, where Torah scrolls were placed. If I were that soldier, my soul would be so torn that I do not know how I would be able to withstand it. I do not know what I would do."

What would you do?

"That is a very difficult question. Very difficult. It is a question that touches also on dragging people from the home in which they have lived for 30 years. Dragging children, dragging mothers. Let me ask you: If your mothers were there, would you drag them out?"

What you are actually telling us is that if you were a soldier and you were ordered to demolish a synagogue structure, you would not carry out the order. You would not do it.

"I find it very difficult to see how I would be capable of doing it."

And when a student of yours asks you how he should behave during the disengagement?

"I hope the IDF will have the wisdom now to have soldiers who feel this is their milk and their blood do it. I am against refusing orders. I think it is important for our soldiers to be there. Especially so they can calm down the situation. But whoever sends soldiers to drag people from their homes is assuming a very heavy responsibility. He is committing an act without both reason and heart. I want to see [Chief of Staff] Dan Halutz drag his mother from her house. Is he capable of that? Let him not demand that others do what he is not capable of doing."

Effectively, you are preaching `gray disobedience.' On the face of it you are against refusal to obey, but in practice you are encouraging every religious soldier to go to his commanding officer and say: I can't do it.

"The IDF has enough soldiers who will do the dragging and the demolition without their hearts being wounded. It will be hard for them, too, but for our soldiers it is difficult to impossible."

The importance of what you are saying is that there will be a lone soldier who will say "I can't" and then another lone soldier who will say "I can't," until there will be an entire public of lone soldiers who do not carry out the army's orders and do not implement the decisions of an elected government.

"There will be a great many lone soldiers who might even total a large percentage of the army. But they will not be a public. And they will not refuse. They will ask to be assigned to a different task."

There is refusal already now. Rabbis are inciting soldiers and the spiritual leadership of the religious Zionist movement is bringing the IDF to a situation of crisis.

"One way or the other, the IDF is in a difficult situation. And it will find itself in a very difficult situation. But the responsibility lies with the prime minister and the defense minister, who are the father and mother of the IDF. They know what the IDF is made of. They know who its soldiers are. They created the crisis.

"Our goal is not to break the IDF. But we cannot prevent the difficulty for the IDF; that is impossible. We want to bring the IDF to a situation in which things will be difficult, but not to a situation in which it will not be able to cope."

Rabbi Meidan, you are pressuring the IDF to make it cry for help. You are trying to make the army tell the political echelon that it cannot carry out the mission. Your approach is a danger to life and limb.

"We will stay 2,000 cubits from any act of violence."

The problem is not only violence. The problem is disobedience that will break up the army.

"The IDF is being broken from two directions. The breaking begins when one sends soldiers to execute missions they are incapable of executing. In contrast, we are taking steps that the IDF can deal with.

"But allow me to ask you a left-wing question: What is your alternative? That's what people on the left like to ask, isn't it? `What is the alternative?' To tell the soldiers to break their hearts and do something totally contrary to everything they have been educated to believe?"

The alternative is to tell your students that they are soldiers of Israeli sovereignty and must carry out every legal decision made by that sovereign state.

"Our soldiers are certainly soldiers of Israeli sovereignty. But that is not a reason to shatter the values in which they were raised. To drag the people of Gush Katif from their homes is to trample our values without a justified reason."

Rabbi Meidan, because of your ideology, I, Ari Shavit, served in a detention facility for Palestinians. I did what ran contrary to my deepest beliefs in order to be loyal to the one Israeli sovereignty and to the alliance between us. Now, when your turn has come to fulfill your part in the sovereign alliance, you are not doing it.

"When you served as a warder it was no harder for you than for anyone else, it was required for the security of us all. On the other hand, here there is a specific matter of many people, perhaps a quarter of the army, who are being asked to do something contrary to their belief. I do not think it is right to break their belief."

For years people on the left manned checkpoints because of the settlers, served as warders because of them, guarded your settlements. That seared their hearts no less than the disengagement is searing your hearts.

"There is no resemblance. The checkpoints guarded Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The detention facilities did not protect the occupation, but security. It is true that left-wing people guarded the settlements, but there is no comparison between the difficulty they had and the difficulty of removing good people from their homes and demolishing them."

You show consideration for the feelings of your public, but have no pity at all for the feelings of others.

"Uzi Dayan told me explicitly that if he received an order to remove Arabs from their homes, he would refuse to obey it. And he was a candidate for chief of staff. Everyone on the left and in the center says that if he were told to expel Arabs from their homes, he would refuse. We are not even talking about refusal. We are only asking you not to force us to trample our values."

Your comments paint a harsh picture - two opposing Israeli stories are engaged in a frontal clash. Like two cars speeding toward each other, with neither of them willing to move to the shoulder.

"There will be a confrontation. There will be a serious jolt. But I believe that it will be a chassis accident, not a total loss. After a chassis accident, a car can still keep going. It sputters, it is damaged, but it still runs."

You are taking a tremendous responsibility on yourself: it is a very thin line.

"The line is thin because we were left only a thin line. We are doing what we are doing with a heavy heart. And we are taking care and making every effort not to cross the line that would mean the ruin of the IDF. But we have no choice. The alternative is not to protest the destruction of the major tenets of Zionism. That is impossible from our point of view. It would mean a donkey's burial for Zionism."

Where is the maturity the Zionist left showed for years? Where is the greatness that [Menachem] Begin showed in the "Altalena" episode? [In June 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the IDF to open fire on a gunship named "Altalena" which was off the Tel Aviv shore. The ship was carrying arms for the Irgun, a pre-state underground organization.] You are ready to risk everything.

"We are against violence. Heaven forbid that anyone should raise a hand against a soldier. Heaven forbid that anyone should verbally abuse a soldier. Under no circumstances will there be any form of violence. But like Rabbi Kook, I too think that even in the case of Solomon's Judgment, the real mother does not agree to her child being cut in half, but also does not yield. A son whose mother gave him up will not forgive her. And in this case, too, the son will not forgive us if we forgo everything for the sake of peace and tranquillity. And the son is not just Gush Katif. This son is the Land of Israel. This is the whole ideology of Zionism and settlement. And that ideology will not forgive us if we forgo it. Nor will we forgive ourselves if we give up so quickly. Therefore we will not bring things to a crisis point which has no remedy, but neither will we yield."

You are absolutely walking on the brink. You are endangering Israeli statehood. The rabbis of religious Zionism - Rabbi Eliahu and Rabbi Shapira - are encouraging refusal on the part of soldiers.

"With all my smallness, with all the fact that I am ignorant and small compared to them, I am ready to say the complete opposite of what those rabbis said. I think a religiously observant soldier should not refuse to obey an order. I say so explicitly: I do not accept refusal to obey an order. It is totally unacceptable to me. But when I am asked whether I would be capable of doing these terrible things I say that I do not know whether I would be capable. And I think when I say that I am not crossing the red line. Because if I do nothing, that will also have a price. If we are too afraid and leave Gush Katif without opposition, that will mean the destruction of Zionism. That is something we are forbidden to do. It is forbidden. Our loyalty to the land and to settlement obligates us to carry out a large protest."

Your campaign this week places Israeli democracy in jeopardy.

"On the contrary: it is a campaign in favor of democracy, a campaign against the destruction of democracy."

But you are not protesting; you are trying to scuttle a legal political decision by force.

"We are trying to execute a democratic preemption. To force the Knesset and the government to think again. After all, this is a move that contradicts Zionism. It involves the razing of an entire bloc of settlements. A decision like this could have been made in a referendum. Responsibility rests with whoever decided not to let the decision be made by a referendum. It is he who brought the dispute into the IDF, who created the rift in the nation. And he did it for malicious reasons, out of malicious intent."

Is the government of Israel a malicious government?

"No. I did not say that. But there was malice here."

What do you mean?

"Regrettably, Sharon is acting out of a feeling that the prevention of violence is not his highest priority. In a cold analysis, one can arrive at the conclusion that from his point of view, if there is bloodshed, it will ensure the success of the uprooting and also ensure the success of the acts of uprooting to come."

What you are saying is extremely grave.

"I will put it cautiously. I know preventing violence is the chief consideration of the Yesha Council. Preventing violence is very high among the IDF's considerations. I am afraid that in the prime minister's milieu, the prevention of violence does not have the highest priority. I heard the assessment of a senior intelligence person who maintains that Sharon has an interest in the eruption of violence, because it will reduce the pressures for additional withdrawals. And I add: also because violence will send an internal signal that only Sharon is capable of coping with the settlers. That is why I agreed to this interview: because what is now incumbent on all of us - on the IDF, on the elites of the left and on us - is to prevent violence. To prevent bloodshed."

But it is your struggle that is liable to bring bloodshed. It is liable to endanger the very existence of Zionism.

"Our struggle is a last attempt to save Zionism. To save Zionism. Without Zionism we have no existence here. And Zionism is the belief that Jews come to their homeland and redeem it so that no one will move them. That is Zionism. I am not familiar with any other Zionism. And the act of uprooting strikes down Zionism.

"I do not want to think about the possibility of the annulment of Zionism. That possibility is beyond my line of thought. But to send the IDF to raze Gush Katif is to deliver a very severe blow to Zionism, a very severe blow. And what we are doing now is trying to prevent that. Until the last minute to try and prevent it."

In fact, the real danger is that the disengagement is turning into a religious war.

"`Religious war' is an incorrect term. But this summer will be a very dramatic period in the contest for the internal identity of the Jewish people and the State of Israel."

And where will you and we be at the end of this summer?

"You will certainly interview all kinds of people about the determination with which they carried out the act. I may be in prison."

Do you really think it will come to that?

"I do not flinch from that possibility. I am taking it into account. I will not be violent. I will carry out deeds I consider legitimate. But if the law wants to punish me for them, I will go to prison without batting an eyelash."

In other words, one casualty of this campaign is already the supremacy of the law.

"I have never recognized the supremacy of the law. Justice and morality are far more important to me than the supremacy of the law. When the law stands opposite justice and morality, I stand on the other side."