Right-wing petition calls for refusal to evacuate settlements

A right-wing petition signed by 185 Israel Defense Forces officers, former lawmakers, scholars and public figures is calling on police and IDF troops to disobey orders to evacuate settlements.

The petition urges troops to "listen to the voice of their personal and national conscience," and refuse to take part in the removal of settlements, an act they define as a crime against humanity, a national crime and an explicitly illegal act.

The petition, the first of a series of advertisements published starting Thursday in the Besheva newspaper, will be seen on other papers Friday. It was signed by Ben Zion Netanyahu, the father of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as by Netanyahu's brother and uncle.

Among the signatories are Meir Har Zion of the renowned IDF unit 101, former Prime Minister's Office director-general Yossi Ben Aharon, senior IDF reserve officers, scientists, municipal council heads, former MKs, as well as writer Naomi Frenkel and Ezra Cohen.

The petition states that "in light of the Sharon government's intention to destroy settlements in the land of Israel and hand them over to the enemy, uprooting their residents and violently expelling them, we hereby declare that expulsion and uprooting are a national crime and a crime against humanity, constitute evil, arbitrary, dictatorial behavior, aimed at depriving Jews of their right to live in their country.

"We declare that the Israel Defense Forces' purpose is to defend against an enemy and not to act against Jewish civilians. The IDF is the people's army and does not belong to any political group."

"Therefore," the petitioners call on "public officials who are called upon to lay out the groundwork for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland, as well as on all of the officers, troops and policemen, to listen to the voice of their personal and national conscience and refrain from taking part in acts that will cast a mark upon them, and which they will regret for the remainder of their lives."

The petitioners also call on the "future victims of the expulsion not to cooperate with the expulsion machinery, not to receive compensation, to resist the uprooting but to refrain from harming the people of their nation, even though they come to demolish their homes."

	Professor Ben Zion Netanyahu, the finance minister's father, who signed the right-wing petition calling on security forces to refuse evacuation orders. (Archive)