JERUSALEM — American Jews are being recruited to resist Israel's plan to expel about 10,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank.

Resistance organizers said hundreds of American Jews have agreed to arrive in Israel over the next few weeks to participate in civil disobedience in an attempt to disrupt the eviction by the police and military. They said at least one American Jewish politician has joined the effort.

[On Thursday, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz agreed to postpone the start of the withdrawal until after Aug. 15, a delay of three weeks from the original timetable, Middle East Newsline reported. The decision must be approved by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Cabinet.]

"We are looking for people willing to stand up for Israel, as well as those willing to sit down in the street," Shmuel Sackett, a faction leader in the ruling Likud Party and a resistance organizer, said.

Sackett said the resistance movement has been recruiting people in the United States for what he termed massive civil disobedience. In lectures in the United States, he called for volunteers to oppose the withdrawal plan and funds for legal defense for those arrested in protest activities.

Another organizer of the civil disobedience movement is Moshe Feiglin, the head of the "Jewish Leadership" faction in Likud. Feiglin said a massive resistance campaign along with a refusal by soldiers to obey orders would prevent the expulsion of Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank.

In mid-April, a coalition of right-wing Zionist groups in the United States met to discuss a program to block the withdrawal plan.

They groups, including the Zionist Organization of America, Americans for a Safe Israel and the Rabbinical Alliance of America, agreed to organize an anti-withdrawal demonstration during the annual Israel Day Parade in New York on June 6.

"People have to know that they will be covered, that there are people who will cover their financial needs," Sackett said. "Joe Israeli in Hadera needs to know that Joe Cohen in Brooklyn will post the 10,000-shekel [$2,200] bail for him after he blocks the Ayalon expressway [in Tel Aviv]."

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind has been organizing missions to express solidarity with the resistance movement. He organized a three-day visit to the Gaza Strip in March and plans to return with hundreds of people in June.

"We hope we will not be prevented from entering Gaza, so we can stand in unity with the men, women and children in Gaza," Hikind said.

The call for massive disobedience has been opposed by some figures in the anti-withdrawal movement. Israeli parliamentarian Effie Eitam lectured in New York and termed civil disobedience a danger to Israeli democracy.

"I said they [American Jews] shouldn't be involved in supporting refusal, because they don't serve in the army and it would put them in a negative light," Eitam said. "There are some people who want to be a little bit out of the consensus — extremists. They don't need my permission to do what they want. But it is not my intention to endorse actions I don't support."