To Obey Orders or Obey God

The young Israeli soldier blinked, but did not flinch, when the bearded settler standing nose-to-nose with him spat out a single sentence: “The Nazis were just obeying orders too.”

Moments later, a young woman, her long skirt grazing the ground, approached the same soldier, speaking in gentle tones. “You are my brother,” she told him. “How can you even think of tearing us away from our homes? Don’t help do this.... Refuse orders. Refuse.”

The soldier, sweat sliding down his face in the noonday heat, stood his ground at the dust-choked, flyblown main checkpoint leading into the Jewish settlements of the Gaza Strip.

But Israeli commanders are wondering how many others heeding the admonitions of settlers or wrestling with their own beliefs might refuse to play any role in the dismantling of Gaza’s 21 Jewish settlements, a drama that begins in nine days.

So far, fewer than 100 soldiers have been brought up on disciplinary charges for refusing orders in connection with the Gaza withdrawal. That represents a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands who are playing some part in the drawn-out process of emptying the Gaza settlements of about 9,000 Jewish inhabitants.

But the specter of mass refusal has preoccupied senior commanders for months. In roadside tent camps and sprawling air-conditioned bases, conscripts are being closely watched and specially trained, sternly warned and solicitously counseled against breaking ranks.

For young Israelis, mandatory army service is a national rite of passage. The military serves as a kind of social glue, a common touchstone for the most disparate of lives and backgrounds.

Few Israeli institutions command such universal respect. Military service is also something of a family affair: At any given time, most Israelis have some relative either on active duty or in the reserves, for which men are called up well into their 40s. As with armies elsewhere, loyalties forged under fire can last a lifetime.

Publicly, the military is expressing confidence that only a handful of soldiers will refuse orders.

“Such actions are taking place on a small and controllable scale,” the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said last month.

Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the head of the army’s southern command, which is responsible for the Gaza withdrawal, echoed that comment: “No one should doubt the ability of the Israel Defense Forces to stand strong.”

By far the most notorious case entangled with refusal of orders has been that of 19-year-old Eden Natan-Zada. After deserting the army because of his opposition to the Gaza withdrawal, he gunned down four Israeli Arab civilians on a bus last week and was then beaten to death by a mob.

Much more typical is Avi Bieber, a fresh-faced 19-year-old corporal who was sentenced last month to 56 days in jail for disobedience.

Bieber made headlines in June when, in the midst of an army operation to clear abandoned buildings in a Gaza settlement that protesters had taken over, he suddenly contorted his face and shouted the slogan of the anti-withdrawal forces: “A Jew does not expel a Jew!”

Before a gaggle of TV cameras, he cursed his commander and urged others in his unit to join him in refusing orders. None did, though several were visibly shaken when he was led off to jail.

Bieber’s parents, immigrants from New Jersey who live in a West Bank settlement, declared their pride in his actions. He swiftly became a heartthrob of teenage settler girls who have spent the long, hot summer protesting the withdrawal. Right-wing websites proclaimed him a hero, and a settlement in Gaza named a street after him.

Spurred by that case and others, the army has been taking a tougher stance toward those who refuse orders, especially if they are veterans rather than raw recruits.

A captain in the military’s technology and logistics division is facing possible criminal indictment for disobedience, and a brigade chaplain who urged his soldiers to refuse orders is expected to be sentenced to prison, even though he later expressed regret and recanted.

The Yediot Aharonot newspaper last month reported that with the pullout approaching, commanders of military prisons had quietly been ordered to quadruple the number of places available to hold detainees.

Dissent within the ranks is not a new phenomenon in the Israeli military. The long and divisive conflict in Lebanon spawned an antiwar movement that included many soldiers who had served there. During the last five years of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, almost 500 soldiers, most of them reservists, refused to join their units in the West Bank or Gaza because they believed the Israeli occupation was inflicting undue suffering.

But the organized nature of the current wave of refusal, and the fact that it largely breaks down along religious-secular lines, is causing profound unease. Within the army, as in Israeli society, opposition to the Gaza pullout is being galvanized by religiously observant Jews.

Over the last decade, the number and influence of religious soldiers and officers have dramatically increased. They are thought to account for one-quarter of those serving in elite combat units and are heavily represented among field officers as well as the senior command.

Some of that influx has been due to the creation in the 1970s of “hesder yeshivas,” seminaries that combine military training and religious studies. These programs helped the army attract thousands of young religious men who might otherwise have sought to avoid military service, but the yeshivas’ rabbis have been at the forefront of those calling for disobedience in connection with the Gaza pullout.

Halutz, the army chief of staff, last month ordered a platoon from a hesder yeshiva disbanded after nine of its members refused to help with crowd control during a massive anti-withdrawal protest. Senior officers have been dropping strong hints that the entire hesder yeshiva system will be reexamined.

“Armies are hierarchical and disciplined by nature, and they simply can’t tolerate two systems of authority,” said Stuart Cohen, a senior fellow at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. “The army is making it very clear that taking orders from rabbis won’t be tolerated.”

Some religiously observant commanders and soldiers, including those affiliated with the settler movement, are left in the uncomfortable position of having to defend their loyalties.

Reserve Lt. Col. Otniel Shneler, a former leader of the main settler umbrella group, the Yesha Council, said he would obey orders because doing so would serve a larger cause of national unity.

“If told to carry out a legitimate order, I will do so,” he said.

Army commanders say even troops who oppose the withdrawal must accept the decision of the prime minister and other civil authorities who have endorsed handing over Gaza to the Palestinians.

“It’s not an issue of religion,” reserve Maj. Gen. Yakov Amidror said. “If we accept the right of an enlisted individual to choose his missions as he sees fit ... the entire system will fall apart.”

Commanders initially planned to have police and career soldiers handle most direct contact with the settlers. But weeks of huge anti-pullout demonstrations staged near the entrance to Gaza, and repeated infiltration attempts by hundreds of West Bank settler activists, also have put young recruits on the front lines.

At Kissufim crossing, many of the soldiers say they are worn down by daily confrontations with settler activists trying to enter Gaza without permits.

“It’s hard to take, especially since people from our battalion were killed in Gaza defending these people,” said a 19-year-old corporal who under army regulations could identify himself only by his first name, Itamar.

“We’re under a lot of stress,” said a 20-year-old sergeant named Roman.

“They are telling us all the time to refuse, they’re calling us Nazis all day long, they write their ID numbers on their arms as if they were in a concentration camp. It’s really difficult.”

Their commanders say they believe their young charges will persevere.

“What we have going for us is that they are all buddies, and whatever their mission, they cannot let one another down,” said Koby, an army captain with 70 men under his command. “You can tell them to remember this is a democracy, that the state has laws they are upholding, but in the end it’s their loyalty to one another. That’s what counts.”