Thursday, August 16, 2007

"I was only following orders"

by Ruth Matar and Ariel Sharon
Dear Friends,

On Monday, August 6, 2007, the Olmert Government ordered 3,000 Israeli Military personnel to forcibly evict two Jewish families, with a total of 14 small children, from their homes in Hebron. (These families had originally been promised permits by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) which were later arbitrarily denied to them by Olmert’s Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz.)

These homes, incidentally, were built on the site of originally Jewish-owned property. These homes, amongst many others, were destroyed following the Hebron Massacre in 1929, in which 67 Jews were brutally murdered by the Arabs.

In addition to the eviction of the two families, the IDF was ordered to destroy a holy place of worship, the Shalhevet Pass Synagogue, which was named in commemoration of a ten month old Jewish baby murdered by an Arab sniper in 2001.

Many soldiers found these orders very disturbing; twenty-two of them approached their commanders to express their difficulty with taking part in this mission. Only twelve of these soldiers decided to actively disobey orders, two of them commanders.

These soldiers received a jail sentence of 28 days and upon release are to be demoted from serving in their fighting units.

It is important to note that the IDF eviction refusal was much more widespread than reported by most Israeli media...
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