Most of the activists belonging to the evicted settlers' organization Homesh First stayed away from a mass march, which they helped organize, to the evacuated West Bank settlement Tuesday.

The organizers of the march regarded it as a success, and are hoping to repeat the event which attracted several thousand right-wing activists and settlers.

The absence of the Homesh First activists suggests an alarming rift in the settler community.

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Last week, several groups asked the Israel Defense Forces to okay the demonstration. Presumably at the behest of the political echelon, the IDF approved the rally.

The Homesh First activists argued that it was almost "sacrilegious" to ask permission of the army, which evicted them from their homes during the 2005 disengagement.

"Our rights to this land are not subject to Israel Defense Forces permits and did not expire with the order to expel us," stated a newspaper advertisement recently published by Homesh First. Daniella Weiss, the head of the Kedumim local council, also supported the statement.

Rabbi Haim Druckman, the head of the Bnei Akiva yeshiva network and the man who initiated Tuesday's march - which went from Sebastia (the cradle of the settler movement) to Homesh's ruins - finds such statements alarming. He therefore urged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to allow the rally, and after the IDF also recommended allowing the settlers to "blow off some steam," Olmert agreed.

The Yesha council, representing municipal councils of Jewish communities in the West Bank, also asked the IDF's permission.

The IDF had another goal as well: weakening the splinter group of settlers who do not recognize the state's authority and are on the verge of permanently disassociating themselves from all that it represents.

In the absence of a confrontation with Homesh First supporters, Tuesday's event looked a lot like the Independence Day celebrations traditionally organized by the settlement movement.

But the dispute between settlers who accept the state's authority and those who wish to disengage from it is likely to rage on: In another month, Homesh First is planning to run another march to Homesh, "this time, to stay for good."

The more mainstream Yesha Council of settlements and the Bnei Akiva yeshiva network are working on plans to hold a three-day music festival at Homesh.