Israeli Military Supports a Delay in Gaza Pullout For Jewish Holiday

Israel’s defense minister urged Thursday that this summer’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip be delayed by three weeks in deference to a solemn Jewish religious commemoration.

The recommendation by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz all but guaranteed that Israel’s pullout of settlers and soldiers from the Mediterranean enclave would be postponed until mid-August.

The move to delay the evacuation of 21 settlements in Gaza and four smaller ones in the northern West Bank demonstrated the continuing political clout of observant Jews, who are the majority among the settlers who are to be uprooted.

It also underscored anxiety on the part of the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon over potentially fratricidal passions that could be unleashed by the plan to evacuate settlers from land they regard as their biblical birthright. The withdrawal would represent the first time that Israel has fully relinquished war-seized land that is claimed by the Palestinians for their future state.

Although the Gaza pullout plan has the support of a solid majority of Israelis, it is vehemently opposed by the country’s minority of ultra-religious Jews. The settlers and their supporters were unable to block the withdrawal in the Knesset, or parliament, but have embarked on a campaign of street protests and angry rhetoric directed at senior government figures.

Sharon put the question of a delay to top military commanders this week while signaling that he was ready to go along with a postponement.

Mofaz’s recommendation represented a turnabout by the military. Army commanders previously maintained that putting off an operation of this scale by three weeks would seriously disrupt months of planning.

Thousands of reserve soldiers have been given call-up notices for service for the originally scheduled dates of the pullout. In addition, thousands of police and regular troops are undergoing elaborate training for carrying out the evacuation.

The previous date for the withdrawal would have coincided with the start of a traditional mourning period for the destruction of Jewish temples in ancient times, during which observant Jews refrain from festive activities such as weddings. Under some rabbinical interpretations, activities such as moving household goods also would be forbidden.

Opponents of a delay widely mocked what they called a climb-down by the government on the basis of a holiday of which it had been aware since the earliest stages of planning. A sardonic radio skit this week depicted a Sharon-like character complaining loudly that he didn’t have a Hebrew calendar handy when he set the timetable.

“So now, suddenly, everyone remembers Tisha B’Av?” lawmaker Dalia Itzik said, referring to the Jewish day of fasting that ends the mourning period. “Remembers it, as if we didn’t have it every year?”

Opponents of the withdrawal were elated, expressing hopes for further delays or even a scrapping of the evacuation. But Sharon insisted that there was no weakening of resolve to press ahead with the plan.

“The disengagement will be carried out,” he told Israel’s Army Radio, using his government’s term for the Gaza pullout. “Whoever thinks this will open the way to other delays, or to a failure to implement, is simply wrong.”

Some in Sharon’s government expressed concern, though, that the delay could cause a crucial loss of momentum.

“We should get it over with,” Deputy Premier Shimon Peres, a veteran Labor Party politician, told Israel Radio. “There is no need to extend this suffering, even for the settlers’ sake.”

Other officials quietly pointed out that not enough progress had been made in setting relocation plans for the uprooted settlers, and suggested that a delay might soothe settlers’ sensibilities while giving the government more time to grapple with the logistics of resettling more than 8,000 people.

Sharon, meanwhile, reiterated plans to consolidate Israel’s hold on large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, a strategy bitterly denounced by Palestinians and opposed by the Bush administration.

Palestinians say that with a burst of building in the West Bank, Israel is drawing the borders of their state without negotiations.

In an April 11 meeting, President Bush told the Israeli leader that such construction runs counter to the U.S.-supported peace plan known as the “road map.” Sharon appears undeterred.

In a series of interviews with Israeli media before the Passover holiday, which begins this weekend, Sharon spoke of plans to build up large West Bank settlements, including the largest one, Maale Adumim.

“I want to save as much of the settlement enterprise as I can,” he told the daily Yediot Aharonot.

Although there has been a drop-off in fighting since the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat nearly six months ago, there have been signs that violence might increase.

Palestinian militants set off a roadside bomb Thursday near an Israeli jeep patrolling the boundary with the Gaza Strip, injuring one soldier. Such attacks were commonplace at the height of the intifada, or uprising, but have become rare.