"Mario Profaca" <mario.profaca@zg.htnet.hr>
Subject: Fears of far-right plot to kill
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1255602,00.html
Fears of far-right plot to kill
Chris McGreal in
The Guardian
resistance to his plan to remove Jewish settlers from
The Shin Bet has increased protection for the prime minister
after threats
by extremists to defend the settlements by force, and
religious rulings by
some rabbis justifying violence.
Amid echoes of the assa-ssination of the then prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin
nine years ago, Mr Sharon told parliament he was disturbed
by the warnings.
"It pains me that, as someone who all his life defended
Jews in the wars of
me," he said. "This is something that must be
uprooted. All these
conferences and rhetoric cannot be allowed."
there were Jewish extremists who had already decided to kill
a top official.
"There are those who have already made the decision,
that when the time
comes, they will save the people of
"They will try to kill a minister, prime minister, a
policeman, a military
officer, I have no doubt. They don't always succeed and they
don't always
have the means to carry out the acts. But we are not lacking
extremists."
Last week the rabbi of
colleagues from the settlements that anyone who gave up part
of
non-Jews was open to a din rodef - religious licence for a
Jew to kill a
Jew. The rabbi qualified his ruling by saying it was not
possible to put the
ruling into practice in modern times.
Two cabinet ministers
drew parallels with Rabin's assassination by Yigal
Amir, who used din rodef as his justification for the
murder. The justice
minister, Yosef Lapid, said: "These are examples of
playing with fire, and
the grave of Yitzhak Rabin is a reminder of this."
Among those who have supported violence to defend the
settlements is Uri
Elitzur, chief of staff to former prime minister Binyamin
Netanyahu.
Mr Rabin's family has accused Mr Netanyahu and other
rightwing politicians
of contributing to the climate that led to the 1995 murder.
Earlier this week the Shin Bet chief, Avi Dichter, warned
the cabinet about
a process of "radicalisation" on the far right.
He singled out statements by some rabbis and leaders of the
settler movement
giving religious justifications for violent resistance to
the forced
evacuation of about 7,500 Jews from Gaza, and even attacks
on politicians
and senior military officials.
"I am worried about an escalation in violence," he
said.
The outlawed far-right Jewish group Kach said this week that
there were "no
more red lines" when it came to the actions justified
"to prevent the
expulsion of Jews from their land".
On Sunday, Israeli television showed film of three settlers
associated with
Kach instructing pupils at a school in Gaza to resist the
evacuation by
beating up officials involved in the removals.
One of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told the Jerusalem Post the
settlers would
defend their homes any way they could. "I don't believe
we will be the first
to open fire, but if the security forces fire on us then the
settlers will
fire back," he said.
Mr Dichter told the cabinet that a senior army rabbi,
Lieutenant Colonel
Yekutiel Wisner, had been beaten up by Kach supporters in
Jerusalem because
of his involvement in the removal of a synagogue from an
illegal settlement.
More moderate rabbis have called for the prosecution of
those who incite
violence.