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Last update - 14:55 20/01/2008 Hilltop youth say they no longer believe in 'the rule of heretics' By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Gush Katif, Amona, Israel  Seven 14-year-old girls who were arrested last month at the unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost of Givat Haor near Beit El, were put in the Neveh Tirza jail for three weeks due to their refusal to identify themselves or recognize the authority of the court to rule on their case. After they subjected the legal establishment to public humiliation, a "creative solution" - as defined by Dr. Yitzhak Kadmon, head of the Council for the Welfare of the Child - was found last week. Jerusalem District Court judge Noam Sohlberg subsequently ruled that police were obliged to identify the girls, and not force the girls to identify themselves. Sohlberg decided that if police had not identified the minors within 48 hours, they would be released from custody. Advertisement On the basis of this decision, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court freed four of the girls on Friday. The affair has not ended, though, and not only because another three girls still remain in custody. Their friends, incidentally, demonstrated on Saturday in front of the Neveh Tirza jail in Ramle. The past three weeks have further exacerbated the recourse to isolation and feelings of alienation from the institutions of the state, which part of the National-Religious youth have felt ever since the evacuation of Gush Katif [in 2005], and all the more forcefully following the major clash over Amona, some two years ago. It was enough to view a few days ago the dozens of girls, most students at religious girl's high schools in the West Bank's Benjamin region, who protested outside the Jerusalem Magistrates Court and sang with hoarse voices - almost unbelievably - the anthem of anti-Zionist Haredi sect Neturei Karta: "In the rule of heretics we don't believe, and their constitution we don't acknowledge. In the way of the Torah we will go, in fire and in water. In the way of the Torah we will go sanctify the name of the heavens." Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, who is attune to the current spirit of the youth, wrote an open letter to them in the Shabbat leaflet "Small World" on the Torah Portion "Bo." He explained that "it is not the rift at Amona that we mourn, but the rift that still exists." He proposed again, as is his way, adhering to that "which unifies and joins us, which determines and is greater than that which separates and divides us," and to use "the reserves of strength in our Israeli unity." Responses to this exhortation, and other similar ones from the "stately" stream in Religious Zionism, were not slow in coming. They reflect the spirit that the arrested minors wished to project to their surroundings. Shiran Shabbatai, who was beaten by police at Amona, wrote to Rabbi Aviner in the pamphlet of rightist organization "Northern Headquarters" that: "A whole worldview, 'the stately view,' which has an impressive record of achievement, is found today in a crisis while beneath it a new, more determined worldview is growing, which is under examination. This worldview is prior to crystallizing and stabilizing and still needs to prove itself," Shabbtai confessed, but made clear to Rabbi Aviner that: "We are in a new reality." Irit Halevy, from the Noga College in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, also describes a new reality which she calls "freedom." "There is one thing that the religious youth wish to give up," she resolves, "the empathy, the desire to be loved, accepted. How do we say it here? 'To sanctify the name of G-d.'" "We don't want to be slandered, spurned, alone. All these words are the absolute antithesis to the National-Religious character we have been educated about. This was made cynical use of at Gush Katif. There they simply outlawed all effective struggle," she added. As opposed to this, Halevy writes: "At Amona there was a feeling of some kind of freedom. Like the nerd kid who is tired of the class bully... As one who lives in a generation where the regime is alienated from the basic truths of my life, I sense that the greatest challenge for us today is simply to agree to rush to be in a minority opinion, from the understanding that the silent majority is waiting for this minority to lead the state of Israel, and the redemption of Israel to a good path." Halevy, who had stayed in one of the houses in Amona, added: "Whoever does not understand the vast depth of frustration over the struggle for Gush Katif, does not understand the spark in the eyes of the girl charred by the tire smoke and battered by the blows of police officers. Related articles: Watchdog: Release 7 girls arrested at outpost Children rights group: Release minors arrested at outpost Bookmark to del.icio.us   Message from space A newly-launched Israeli spy satellite sends Iran a very clear message. Gravediggers' plight Even getting buried in the Gaza Strip has gotten more complicated these days.   1.   RIght and worng hardly the question here 14:58  |  Ofer Maimon 20/01/08   2.   G-d Is With Them 15:00  |  Norman F Birnberg 20/01/08   3.   Digginig in the dirt 15:04  |  Gideon Reader 20/01/08   4.   Binberg- if you feel so strongly 15:18  |  Uday 20/01/08   5.   if only this was a democratic country 15:20  |  Sam 20/01/08   6.   Majority=Right, Minority=Wrong ! Always ? 15:22  |  Dr. Johan Friedman 20/01/08   7.   Get a Life 15:30  |  sj 20/01/08   8.   Totally delusional... Religion is the #1 Problem in the world 15:38  |  POP 20/01/08   9.   He is not fooled, neither is he mocked 15:50  |  Natallie Durson 20/01/08   10.   Unruly 15:58  |  jjvanka 20/01/08   11.   The last refuge 16:30  |  Chris Linthwaite 20/01/08   12.   Birnberg (2) 17:22  |  jjvanka 20/01/08   13.   The state belongs to a handful of oligarchs 17:30  |  a Jew 20/01/08   14.   Toasted to a delicious golden brown 17:35  |  Gideon Reader 20/01/08   15.   Durson (9) 17:52  |  jjvanka 20/01/08   16.   Disobaying the law 17:58  |  Mordechai 20/01/08   17.   Rabin disobeyed law by talking to PLO in 1993 18:32  |  What`s good for him 20/01/08   18.   why aren`t they released? 18:47  |  sml 20/01/08   19.   STUPID!!!!! 18:59  |  JodanisPalestine 20/01/08   20.   POP - #8 19:06  |  JordanisPalestine 20/01/08   21.   Israeli left gave up on democracy first 19:14  |  Ilan 20/01/08   22.   # 11 - Chris Linthead 19:20  |  JordanisPalestine 20/01/08   23.   #22 These children are indoctrinated by the adults 23:22  |  Chris Linthwaite 20/01/08   24.   gideon reader 3 00:17  |  realism 21/01/08   25.   Aviner can`t talk 19:25  |  Yaakov 21/01/08   26.   Confusing "State" with Torah 23:05  |  QuestionsAboutAviner 21/01/08   27.   Are they underdogs? I always feel for underdogs 07:30  |  newageblues 22/01/08

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