Israel Matzav: Soldiers' opposition to expulsions continues

Soldiers' opposition to expulsions continues

Despite attempts by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to stop it, IDF combat soldiers continue to declare loudly and clearly that they will not take part in expelling Jews from Judea and Samaria.

Opposition by IDF soldiers to expelling civilians continues. Soldiers in the Shimshon battalion have printed service stage graduation shirts with the words "Shimshom Doesn’t Expel People From Homesh".

On the back of the shirt appeared the words "You were in Lebanon, you were in Gaza, were you in the newspaper?" The sentence appears beneath a picture of soldiers waving the sign "Shimshom Doesn’t Expel People From Homesh".

In recent days continued expressions of support for IDF soldiers who say they will refuse to expel Jews from their communities have increased. Twelfth Grade pupils recently published a letter in which they declared that they intend to join IDF infantry units, but that they did not intend to obey expulsion orders and orders to destroy Jewish communities.

The government has brought the plague of threats to refuse orders on the IDF. First, the IDF should never be used in police actions (and expelling people from their homes is a police action whether it's legitimate or not). Second, much of the IDF officer corps has relatives in Judea and Samaria. Does the government really believe that soldiers will happily expel their parents, siblings and cousins from their homes? Third, the government and the IDF have turned a blind eye to secular soldiers refusing to serve in the territories or in the IDF so long as it operates in the territories. Do they think no one notices?

Sorry, I could not find the shirt discussed so I took a different one for the graphic.

Israel Matzav: Soldiers' opposition to expulsions continues