"If I am told of plans to expel Jews from the Golan Heights, I will take
off my uniform and join the residents," Rami, another combat soldier, said.
Military sources said the recruitment of seminary students, Orthodox
Jews taught to love God and state, has jeopardized government plans to
withdraw from the West Bank. They said the most immediate threat was that
hundreds of soldiers and even police officers would refuse a military order
to evict Jews from a house in Hebron. On Nov. 17, Israel's High Court,
saying the ownership of the house was in dispute, ordered the eviction.
"I call on all soldiers and police to refuse any evacuation order [for
the Hebron home]," Rabbi Zalman Melamed, a Jewish spiritual leader, said.
"Even police must disobey the order. They can't dismiss the religious
police. They are needed."
The military has prepared an operation by thousands of soldiers and
police to storm the four-story building in Hebron, termed House of Peace by
its supporters. But military sources said Central Command, responsible for
the West Bank, has become concerned that Orthodox soldiers would refuse
orders to expel the Jewish residents.
"Either we leave all of the religious soldiers in their bases and we
don't have enough troops, or we force them to Hebron and risk that they
refuse to participate and encourage others to do the same," a senior officer
said. "Either way, as an army, we come out damaged."
During the 2005 expulsion, few Orthodox soldiers openly refused orders.
Those who warned commanders prior to the mission that they would not
participate were confined to their bases. Others were used for perimeter
defense or to remove belongings of Jewish residents of the Gaza Strip and
northern West Bank.
"I felt terrible," Noam, a soldier who like others refused to give their
full or real names, said. "I came home and was ashamed to tell others, even
my friends, what I had done. Why did I do it? I was scared. That's the
truth."
In November 2008, the military deployed hundreds of Orthodox combat
soldiers for perimeter defense during an operation to destroy an unlicensed
Jewish home in the community of Kiryat Arba, just north of Hebron. Several
of the soldiers recalled that their commanders had claimed that the mission
was to battle Palestinian insurgents.
The military sources said Central Command has been briefing commanders
and some units on the forthcoming operation in Hebron. The sources said the
goal was to prepare the troops for violent resistance as well as the
prospect that some soldiers would refuse to participate.
"We are still committed to upholding the rule of law and so we shall,"
Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said. "We will prefer talking and
will utilize every way we can, because at the end of the day the law is the
law and we will uphold it."
