Mideast - AFP
Hardline Israeli rabbis forbid uprooting of West Bank, Gaza settlers
Date: Thu, Jun 24, 2004
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Radical rabbis representing Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites) issued a religious edict forbidding the Israeli army and police from uprooting settlements in the occupied territories.
"Nobody has the right to take part in the evacuation of a settlement in Eretz Israel whether they be a civilian, policeman or a soldier," said the edict, which followed a meeting on Wednesday in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, close to Jerusalem.
The Committee of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and the Gaza Strip also called for mass prayers to be held at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s disengagement plan, which envisages a withdrawal from all 21 Gaza settlements and four in the northern West Bank.
The rabbinical committee, presided over by Rabbi Dov Lior, consists of many of the most hardline Jewish religious figures in the territories. Its edicts are not recognised by other rabbis.
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, strongly criticised the rabbis for encouraging settlers to flout the law.
"If someone says that the Torah forbids carrying out legal orders of the government, this is just like those supporters of refusal on the left who say that their conscience forbids executing legal orders of the IDF (army). There is no difference" he told public radio.
"Both of these constitute raising one's hand against the law, and against national security."
Sharon says he is determined that all 7,500 of the Gaza settlers and all troops will have left by the end of next year.
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