"We speak on behalf of the Jewish people -- past, present
and future. It is forbidden to give the land away," Shalom Gold
of Jerusalem's Har Nof congregation said at a conference called
by the Rabbis' Union for the People and Land of Israel.
Formed by Orthodox leaders opposed to 1993 interim accords
giving Palestinians limited self-rule, the Rabbis' Union was
mostly dormant until Sharon accepted the road map and its
vision of a new Palestinian state co-existing with Israel by
2005.
Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle
East war in what many Jews regard as the realization of a
biblical birthright. The land also provided strategic buffers
against Arab foes, and Israel's governments soon sowed them
with Jewish settlements -- a move censured internationally as
illegal.
A Palestinian uprising for independence that erupted in
September 2000, combined with Israel's rapprochement with
several Arab neighbors, have convinced many Israelis that the
time has come to relinquish Gaza and the West Bank. Even
hawkish Sharon allowed that ruling 3.5 million Palestinians was
impracticable.
But the Rabbis' Union reflects the rancor of Israel's
right-wing. This has only increased at the sight of the army
dismantling unauthorized Jewish settler outposts in the West
Bank as required by the road map, which Sharon affirmed at a
June 4 summit with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
"The terrible act of evacuating outposts is liable to lead
to an all-out plan of uprooting settlements," the Rabbis' Union
said in a resolution. "The government is under a biblical
prohibition against evacuating any outpost or settlement."
Rabbis have urged settlers occupying the hilltop redoubts
to resist passively. But there have been scuffles with security
personnel as well as injuries -- reminiscent to many, of the
infighting that preceded the 1995 assassination of Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (news - web sites) by an ultranationalist religious
Jew.
On Monday, a representative of some 250,000 settlers called
for recruits in the fight against the road map.
"We have decided to struggle against this," Zvi Hever of
the Yesha settler council told the Rabbis' Union. "We are
asking you to do all you can to enlist people for this cause."
