In a startling development, Israeli police are investigating a successful effort by Israeli settler extremists to bribe IDF soldiers not to evict their members occupying the Palestinian House of Dispute in Hebron illegally (according to a Supreme Court ruling):
Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan has instructed police to launch an investigation regarding a ceremony that was held to praise soldiers who refused an order to evict settlers from the Hebron market. During the ceremony these soldiers received payment as reward for their refusal.
The order was given following a police investigation that raised suspicion that soldiers were incited to refuse commands, an act which under Israeli law is a crime in itself.
Nitzan also ordered an investigation into an ad published on the Internet by a group called the Headquarters to Save the People and the Land of Israel [ed., also known as S.O.S. Israel], which is suspected to be the organization responsible for orchestrating the ceremony for the soldiers. The ad states that any soldier that resists orders to evict the residents of the Hebron house will receive monetary reward of several thousand NIS.
This is effect turns the soldiers into reverse mercenaries for hire, bribed so as not to obey legally authorized military orders.
S.O.S. Israel’s website contains this statement denouncing the Supreme Court’s ruling directing settlers to leave the Palestinian home which was appropriated through an act of fraud:
…Any soldier that will resist expulsion orders and will be jailed, will receive monetary compensation of several thousand NIS.
…”The court has proven once again that it collaborates with the enemy, in order to uproot Jews from their land. We call upon all Eretz Yisroel loyalists to come en masse and foil our enemies’ (from within and without) plans…
“We plead with IDF soldiers who swore on a Tanach at the Kosel [Kotel or “Wall”] …to be loyal to the Jewish Nation and the homeland; do not join forces with the enemy, rather resist orders and help the Chevron residents not to be robbed of their property”.
Rabbi Volpo [Wolpe], SOS-Israel…will compensate the soldiers’ families if they resist orders and are jailed. “We wish to remind the security forces of that wonderful event where we presented parents of jailed soldiers with the sum of 1,000 NIS for every night spent in jail for refusing to evict Jews.
Even more startlingly, Wolpe has called for the execution of prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni:
Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe…liken[ed] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other ministers to collaborators with the Nazis, saying that by law they should be executed.
…Wolpe called Olmert a traitor, accusing him and others of aiding the “Nazi” terrorists.
law they should be executed…During the meeting…Wolpe called Olmert a traitor, accusing him and others of aiding the the modern-day “Nazis” in the Palestinian Authority by giving them weapons and releasing terrorist killers from prison. According to Israeli law, the rabbi elaborated, Olmert, Vice Premier Chaim Ramon, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and others should be “hanged upon the gallows” for collaborating with and aiding “Nazi” terrorists.“This gathering is intended to make it clear to the public that…we have a government that collaborates with the enemy, the Palestinian enemy that wants to destroy Israel. The government of Israel is supplying them with money and weapons, releasing murderers…. We came to warn and discuss how we can prevent this, G-d forbid, holocaust that the government is bringing on us.”
In this blog, I’ve documented numerous acts and statements by settlers that would be viewed as outright sedition in most other nations. Clearly, radical settlers reject the very notion of the State of Israel and publicly declare their intent to create a settler state to replace it. And they are willing to use violence to implement their plans. Only in Israel is such treason treated so gingerly.
The Headquarters to Save the People-S.O.S. Israel is yet another extremist settler group, this one led by Rabbi Dov Wolpe. The latter has lately attained notoriety for this statement published in Haaretz:
“The state of Israel has become the enemy of the people and the land of Israel,” settler rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe said Tuesday during an emergency meeting on the state’s plan to evacuate a house in Hebron whose ownership has been at the center of a bitter dispute for over a year.
Wolpe is a Chabad rabbi affiliated with the messianic strand of the movement which affirms that the late Rabbi Schneerson was the messiah. The Failed Messiah blog calls Wolpe the most popular Chabad rabbi in Israel.
Many readers who oppose my views praise Israeli democracy in glowing terms. In doing so, they refuse to acknowledge both the frailty and the incompleteness of Israeli democracy. Stories like the one above indicate that democracy is a very thin reed in Israel. There are those who would break the reed with a faint breath if they thought they could get away with it. And their overall goal is to destroy Israel as a western democratic state and replace it with a theocratic state.
This is not a theoretical problem or an issue confined to a radical fringe. This is a situation in which a radical fringe is playing a major role in throwing a wrench in the national works, thus preventing the state from acting in its overall interests. In any other stable western nation, such an interest group would be dealt with firmly. Not in Israel, because the settlers have a stranglehold over the policy, political, and military apparatus.
There is only one way to face down the insurrectionists and saboteurs. A political leader will have to stare them in the eyes and dismantle their power. Sharon could’ve done it if he’d had it in him. Livni—well, the jury’s out on her. Perhaps doubtful. But until someone does, Israel will be a state in search of stable democratic center and the lunatics will be running, or trying to run, the national asylum.
Richard-so you oppose soldiers who refuse to carry out orders. Several years ago, legendary Israel Air Force pilot Yiftach Spector called on pilots to refuse to carry out missions to bomb targets in Gaza-referring to the missions where they attempt to liquidate terrorist leaders. What do you think of that?
Richard-your denunciation of “treason” and “sedition” shows you have become quite a patriot.
@Bbar_kochba132: Either you or someone else has tried that route before here. It doesn’t work–the attempt to correlate the situations is specious. The settlements and Occupation are illegal under international law. Any soldier is on solid ground in refusing an order to carry out a targeted assassination in Gaza. Not to mention that targeted assassinations (if that’s what his mission was) are also in violation of international law.
As for refusing to evict settlers from Hebron, the soldiers should be court-martialed. And if they took money for their mutinous behavior they should be jailed along with those who bribed them.
First off, I love guys who feel the need to assign themselves handles depicting Jewish heros while in a virtual reality. It brings to the table those flaws and deficincies that are all too often the prevalent characteristics of they’re actual realities. As for me? Well you know. I’m a prick everywhere I go. ;-).
Actually the differences between those who refuse an order on the basis of “Tohar Haneshek”(irregardless of how naieve and pollyanish that maybe)and those who would engage in mass mutiny are myriad and fundamental. Aside from the dicrepancy as to the numbers of contientous objectors vs. mutineers egged on by right wing seditionists (we’re talking a few hundred CO’s vs thousands of mutineers), the most obvious and essential difference would be that CO’s are answering to their principals, thereby showing the sort of morality that could only be a byproduct of analytical thought. An acceptance if you will, of the fact that your eyes aren’t lying to you. Whereas the mutineer is largely a product of outside agitators with an agenda. When they advertise the fact that they’re willing to fork over IS1,000.00 to every soldier who diobeys orders to evict, I would say the cat is out of the bag and they’ve pretty much forfeited the argument.
It is worth mentioning that the Crown Heights leadership of Chabad Lubavitch have distanced themselves from Wolpe because of his messianism but not because of his incitement against Arabs or settlement activities. (In contrast Lev Leviev, who is equally anti-Arab and who sponsors settlement as well as terrorism against Palestinians is a Lubavitcher in good-standing).
In general whether messianist or not, Chabad Lubavitch is playing a very dangerous game as I argue .
In comparison with Neocon-Jabotinskian-Zionist thinking, Wolpe is not obviously extreme except that he bases his politics in some sort of occult mystical nationalism instead of ethnic fundamentalist nationalism.
The link I left out is Chabad Lubavitch’s Dangerous Game.
B”H
Richard you joking, right?
An Israeli pilot who refuses to bomb people who murder Israelis (or have others do it for them) is in your eyes moral while a soldier who refuses to throw out Jews from a house that they legally bought for almost a million dollars cash with the papers, video recording the sale and transfer of money and an audio of the Arab admitting to the sale later on is immoral?
Even the judge who presided over the case that Badatz cited as presedent for their decision is reported to disagree with them saying that they have completely misinterpreted it.
Close your eyes for moment and imagine that this house would have been bought by an Arab in a Jewish neighborhood with documentation and video and audio to prove it if the court would rule this way wouldn’t you and people like you be the 1st to cry out against the injustice and call for soldiers to disobey illegal orders offering awards to those who would do so?
@Ariel: The signature on the deed is forged. Period. The Supreme Court confirmed this judgment. You can bring all the video & hocus pocus you wish to justify your naked oppression of the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank. But Israel’s judicial authorities threw out yr case. It wasn’t even a hard case for them. And it’s not the first time that extremist settlers have resorted to fraud to steal Palestinian land.
So yes, any soldier who refused to evict settlers from this home deserves to be jailed for their mutinous behavior.
That, my friend, would be a legal impossibility. Arabs can’t buy a house in a Jewish neighborhood. They can’t even build on land that they DO own. But IF an Arab could buy a house in a Jewish neighborhood & for some strange reason resorted to forgining the signature on the deed, then yes, the transaction should be invalidated as it was in this case.
Besides being a violation of international law, targeted assassinations very often kill innocent civilians, not just “people who murder Israelis.” That’s why refusing this order is entirely justified.
For validity, the issue, legally, must examine the government’s policies which have encouraged Israeli settlements in territories historically Palestinian. Questions of de jure and de facto must be taken into account. Is there an unwritten agenda to encourage Israeli settlements in the captured lands?
Israeli-American organizations are actually raising funds to permit and encourage the settlements in Hebron and elsewhere — “charitable” funds — so this is an issue with international implications.
Calling for the assassination of government officials is tantamount to high treason in the USA and practically anywhere else. This case ought to be a lesson to those who would stoop to such — dare I say non-Jewish — depths of depravity. Still I would urge the Israeli government — and indeed all governments and peoples everywhere — to be lenient and understanding with those who have been misled into settling illegally anywhere.
There is a huge class-action case here — I am sure lawyers are looking at how to bring it to realization. The case would state that ‘de facto’, Jews for a few generations now have been induced to settle on others’ private property. The case would be tried against the Israeli government and others who seek to perpetuate this immoral and illegal formula for Jewish disgrace and destruction. The existence and well-being of Israel is indeed at stake, but not in the way the most radical settler rabbis would have you believe.
Richard Silverstein is to be commended on a balanced presentation here.
B”H
Calling for the assassination of government officials is tantamount to high treason in the USA and practically anywhere else.
rav Wolpo did no such thing watch what he said in his own words in plain English:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRzxsoAUVR0
@Ariel: Where I come from calling for the nation’s leader to be hung on the gallows is high treason. The only people who do that in the States are white supremacists & the like. I guess that means there are certain similarities bet. the good rabbi & U.S. neo-Nazis.
B”H
What he said that these leaders are guilty of treason and should be judged according to the laws of Israel by the israeli court and hung on the gallows according to the Israeli law (and he added that noone should G-d forbidf take law into his own hands) is no different than various groups calling to impeach Bush or cheney and have them tried and convicted of war crimes or the like.
It is sad that an intelligent person like you is so blinded by his prejuidices that he can’t rationally analyze what the man said moreover R. Wolpe has been saying stuff like this for many years and always gets away with it as he is a smart man and makes sure to stay within the letter of the Israeli law while generating publicity for his ideas by having people like yourself provide him with millions of dollars of free advertising.
Don’t you feel like a sucker for doing so?:-)
R. Wolpe’s antics remind me of the ones of the mentor of the your lord and savior the Messiah Obama
Saul David Alinsky
http://www.uubedford.org/sermons/19950226.htm
Sometimes killing does save lives on both sides! Do you remember a couple of cities bombed named Hiroshima and Nagasaki?!? Many thousands of innocents were killed, but when all is said and done lives WERE saved on BOTH sides because it forced the Japanese to end the war.
Do you remember a little incident called the Nuremburg trials where nazi soldiers proclaimed THEIR innocence because THEY were "just following orders". Was THAT a valid excuse for their atrocities?!? So, if an Israeli soldier refuses to follow orders that go against the Torah, and will harm the Jewish people whom he is SUPPOSED to be defending (or if a Rabbi encourages him to do so!) that is something to be commended!!!
Actually the number of killed in Hiroshima & Nagasaki wasn't "many thousands" it was 500,000 in one city alone. The dropping of the atom bomb was not justified, period just as the murder of Mahmoud al Mabouh was not justified as his death will actually increase the number of dead on both sides–not lower it.
Was it a valid excuse for Doron Almog & Dan Halutz to deliberately levelling a building they knew held Palestinian civilians including children in order to kill a single Palestinian militant?
The Torah doesn't order an IDF soldier to do or not do anything. His right wing nationalist political views lead him to refuse such orders. Nice try.