Extreme rightists questioned over IDF insubordination
Activist Baruch Marzel, Rabbi Dov Wolpe suspected of encouraging disobedience in army by holding ceremonies in honor of soldiers refusing orders, giving them money as reward for their actions. 'This is a political investigation. Our mouth will not be shut,' Marzel tells police
The two, who head the radical SOS Israel organization, are suspected of holding ceremonies in honor of soldiers who refused to evacuate illegal outposts, and even gave them money as a reward for their actions.
Marzel is suspected of calling on soldiers to refuse orders. He refused to cooperate with his investigators, telling them that "this is a political investigation".
"Our mouth will not be shut," he stated. "We will repeat what the Halacha says and what the IDF ethical code says and what the State's laws say, that IDF soldiers should not engage in harming innocent people, and therefore we shall not cooperate."
The decision to launch an investigation into the matter was made by Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, who asked the police to look into an announcement published by the movement on the internet, in which its leaders declared that each soldier refusing to take part in the evacuation of the "disputed house" in Hebron in December 2008 would receive thousands of Israeli shekels.
The State Prosecutor's Office said at the time that the announcement's language raised suspicions of a criminal offense. The announcement stated, "We beg Israel's soldiers, who have sworn on the Bible at the Western Wall to be loyal to the people of Israel and to the homeland and not to join the enemy, but to refuse orders and help the residents of Hebron not to have their property robbed…
"We remind the security forces of the wonderful event in which the soldiers' parents who were present received a sum of NIS 1,000 (about $270) for every night they sat in jail for refusing the order to evacuate families in Hebron."
