[There is a growing rebellion in Israel. The Jews have a number of living military heroes. It is amazing how the most prominent of these have come forward and openly called on people to disobey the Government’s orders. Some soldiers are starting to rebel openly against disengagement and have said they will not remove Jewish settlers from their houses. This is a fascinating development… and one which I will be watching closely this year. Jan]

Anti-pullout pamphlet: PM bringing a holocaust on Israel

Thousands of anti-disengagement activists who attended a Jerusalem rally led by prominent rabbis in Jerusalem on Thursday, received a pamphlet accusing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of bringing a holocaust onto the people of Israel.

“Your madness and that of your government will bring a terrible disaster to the nation of Israel, the like of which hasn’t been seen in the Holy Land since the days of Titus and Nebuchadnezzar,” the leaflet reads.

“Don’t preach to us about not mentioning the Holocaust … You are the one who has already brought a holocaust to thousands of dead and wounded in your licentious manner; and you are the one who is currently taking millions of Jews into the borders of Auschwitz,” it continued.

Under the call, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me,” which served Moses after the sin of the golden calf and Matityahu the Maccabee against the Greeks, thousands convened in the Israel Convention Center for a symbolic mourning ceremony designed to express their sorrow and pain at the “plan to uproot and deport Jews from the Land of Israel.”

The ceremony was led by Rabbi Gedalyahu Axelrod, a former judge at the Haifa Rabbinical Court. Axelrod urged those present – most of whom were from the messianic faction of the Chabad movement – to demonstrate “utter devotion” to the cause.

Axelrod’s address was followed by a reading of the Shema prayer. Thereafter, to the cheers of the crowd, “certificates of esteem and distinction” were distributed to a number of prominent and well-known evacuation refuseniks. Among those who received certificates were medical officer Dr. David Matar, Major Boaz Haetzni and Staff Sergeant Yosef Mordechai Balant, who was released Thursday from jail after serving 28 days for calling on soldiers to disobey orders during the recent evacuation of an outpost adjacent to the Yitzhar settlement.

Balant, Haetzni and Matar, together with other refuseniks, were borne aloft to a lengthy ovation.

Noam Livnat, who heads the Defensive Shield anti-pullout campaign, said that if the Israel Police is busy trying to quell stormy anti-disengagement demonstrations throughout the country, it will not have the manpower to implement the pullout. The Defensive Shield campaign has already collected the signatures of some 10,000 soldiers who say they will disobey orders to evacuate settlements.

Colonel (res.) Gideon Altschuler called for a collective refusal to follow orders.

The master of ceremonies, Noam Arnon, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron, told those present of the “first refusal” – the refusal by Rabbi Shmuel Hefer to open fire on the Altalena. “Things were, and things will be,” Arnon said, adding that obeying God came before everything.

“And all the king’s servants that were in the king’s gate bowed and reverenced Haman,” Arnon quoted from the Book of Esther. “But Mordechai bowed not, nor did he reverence.”

“We,” declared Arnon, “are the students of Mordechai, not of Haman, and not of Ahashverosh, the corrupt king.”

Haetzni, who spoke on behalf of those who received the certificates of merit, said that “the day will come when every man in Israel will ask: ‘Whose side were you on during the Sharon era?'”

For his part, Rabbi David Dudkevich, the rabbi of Yitzhar, called on the public “not to be tempted and not to kneel before the golden calf.”

Source: w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
URL: /hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=544794
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent