Settler leader calls for action
In a sign of the fierce opposition that could accompany Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a Jewish settler leader has made a public call for his followers to break the law when fighting against the evacuation.
Pinchas Wallerstein, a prominent settler leader and a member of the Settlers’ Council that represents all West Bank and Gaza Strip Jews, said the council would meet to make an official decision on whether they support breaking the law as part of their opposition.
“I want a large part of the public that I believe are willing to go to prison to say so, so the decision-makers will understand where we are going,” Wallerstein told Israel’s Army Radio. “I believe that what I represent is the central line in the Yesha (Settlers’) Council.”
Officials in Israel’s security establishment have warned that hard-line Jewish settlers could violently oppose Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement” plan to evacuate all Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements next year.
The “disengagement legislation,” which passed a first vote in Israel’s parliament in October, states that anyone who physically opposes the evacuation could be sent to prison for up to three years. The law has to pass two more votes to become law.
Wallerstein said he was not supporting using force against soldiers who are called on to evacuate settlers, but rather for civil disobedience. He denied it was a call for “civil rebellion.”
Calling the withdrawal plan an “immoral crime, Wallerstein said: “If someone who opposes this law has to go to prison, I am ready to go to prison.”
But Yariv Oppenheimer, the head of the dovish Peace Now group, said Wallerstein’s statements violate the law, and called on the attorney general to open an investigation.
“The settler leaders were and remain a group of bullies that don’t respect the law,” Oppenheimer told Israel’s Army Radio. “Now is the time for the attorney general to act against them. Sitting quietly will allow the anarchy to continue and will encourage a civil rebellion.”
Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, secretary of the Settlers’ Council, said the group has not decided yet whether it supports Wallerstein’s position.
“There is certainly a significant escalation here both in the expression and the direction and therefore we have to consider … our position opposite these unusual statements,” Mor-Yosef said.
Moshe Negbi, Israel Radio’s legal analyst, said Wallerstein’s statement can be likened to saying it is permissible to assassinate the prime minister so long as the killer is willing to sit in prison.
“Even if this is not a call for violent opposition, this is a clear violation of the law forbidding civil rebellion,” Negbi said.
