Rabbi: Sharon defiled IDF
On Sunday Ynet reports that organizers of an internet petition calling on right-wing youths to refuse induction into the army revealed that hundreds of youths have already signed the declaration against being drafted, and said they expected as many as 5,000 kids to sign in coming weeks; Education Ministry official says, ‘We will have to recruit the heads of the hesder yeshivas and pre-army seminars to work toward eradicating this awful phenomenon’
We were prepared for few lone acts of insubordination, but a protest of this magnitude is a phenomenon, senior Education Ministry official Tzipi Hur said Monday following Ynet’s report on the new online petition drafted by right-wing teens that calls for Israeli youngsters to dodge the draft in protest of the disengagement.
On Sunday Ynet reported that organizers of an internet petition calling on right-wing youths to refuse induction into the army revealed that hundreds of youths have already signed the declaration against being drafted, and said they expected as many as 5,000 kids to sign in coming weeks.
Right-wing Knesset Member Effie Eitam said in response to the initiative, “Their (teens) pain is authentic, but their conclusion is wrong. We have no other country and no other army.”
"The petition is in fact a call for the self-examining of the IDF. I am certain these youngsters will eventually become leading IDF officers," he said.
National Religious Party Chairman Zevulun Orlev also condemned the insubordination petition, saying, “This is a marginal group that does not represent religious Zionism, just as the insubordination during the pullout was marginal.”
Education Ministry officials are already gearing up to foil the initiative.
“We will have to recruit the heads of the hesder yeshivas and pre-army seminars to work toward eradicating this awful phenomenon,” Huri said.
“We will use all the necessary educational and religious tools to bring the children ‘home.’
Beit El Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, one of the most prominent leaders of the Religious Zionist Movement, told Ynet that he was flooded by requests from teens who are seeking his advice regarding their upcoming recruitment to the army.
One youngster wrote to him: If this is how the army acts toward us and banishes families from our lands, then I do not want to serve in it. This is a pathetic army that for the past four years has failed to protect Jews from mortar shells and has now come in full force to expel mothers and children whose legs were amputated.
Rabbi Aviner expressed his objection to insubordination. In his response to the youngster, the rabbi said, “You are not serving in the army for the benefit of those you refer to as ‘they,’ but for the people of Israel. The people of Israel have done nothing wrong, why should they lose a good soldier and officer? It is similar to when a husband beats his wife, so she leaves home. How is their baby at fault? He needs his mother for nourishment.
“Serving in the IDF is a big and pure mitzvah. Even if our prime minister has defiled it, it remains pure in its essence,” Aviner said.
Aviner explained in his answer to the youngster that, “It must be remembered that 300 million enemies surround us, and another 3 million are inside (Israel). We need a strong and devoted army against them – or else, God forbid, they will murder us and steal our land in one day.”
