When the leftists supported dissension in the ranks during the lebanon war in 1982 that was due to their 'conscience'. However, when their right-wing counterparts refuse to help in the dissolution of Jewish communities that is 'incitement'. On the one hand, Alex decries the insubordination as 'untying the knot that keeps society together', that threatens the unity of the state, while supporting actions that violently rip apart the fabric of unity that he claims to uphold. One can only marvel at such duplicity. Alex, if you want unity, I would suggest that you desist from playing a role in the propaganda and hate for the religious community by the secularists that has been waged against them for years, and support their rights to 'disengage' when deemed appropriate.

Israelis should be more concerned with the future of your tiny country than in expelling two Jewish families with a force of thousands of soldiers. What is amazing is that no more Jews refused to execute the order. But then, they've been brainwashed in their secular schools that "Settlers are bad", "Arabs are victims of the settlers", "We must be nice to Arabs so they'll love us", and similar self-destructive nonsense. The result is being reaped today with a large number of the population hating their own brothers and sisters. Olmert, Bush and Abbas are plotting the desintegration of Israel. The Saudis have again demanded that the Palestinian state must be a contiguous territory. That will require massive expulsions of Jews, more land for a corridor, and of course, giving up Jerusalem. That is the real problem, Jews of Israel. Not the rabbis. This expulsion of Jews was done to distract the population and divide it into camps. Those in favor of obeying their commanders and those in obeying their conscience. The country is being stolen from you under your very eyes, Jews, but the Leftists countinue to bleat about the rabbis and the undisciplined soldiers. Wake up, Jews of Israel. Defend your land, defend your country.

"A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand" Abraham Lincoln June 1858 This was a part of Abraham Lincoln's speech in connection with his nomination to the US Senate. Although he lost that election, he was electied President, and his belief in a United States was immediately challenged, severely tested and in the end cost him his life.

Dov Lior is one of a band of Rabbis who's decisions are political, not based on Torah. In fact they are worshippers of the Golden Calf (those who believe that the Land of Israel is the supreme value).

Mr. Fishman wrote: "If the decay of insubordination spreads, there will be no IDF, and there will be no Greater Israel." Greater Israel Mr. Fishman? As you penned this piece it is being reported: Mon., August 06, 2007 Av 22, 5767 Olmert and Peres: Palestinian state on 100% of West Bank area, with swaps By Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies , By Akiva Eldar, Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is examining a new framework for peace in which Israel will propose transferring to the Palestinian state areas equivalent to 100 percent of the territories conquered in 1967....

Lets give the rabbis a chance. Anyone will do a better job than olmert barak or peretz.

The students in the hesder yeshivot do less service than other soldiers and then their rabbis tell them to refuse orders. Close the hesder yeshivot down now and integrate the soldiers into other units before this sickness spreads.

Are you blind to the threat posed to a country which uses its army against its own citizens? Why are you even living in Israel - you certainly don't believe it belongs to the Jewish people. But the moment the IDF doesn't believe the land of Israel - all of it - belongs to the Jewish people - we've already lost the war.

Every able-bodied male should put in service in the IDF whether in a separate unit or not. Secondly, it is the government that is endangering the country with its talk of a so-called 'palestinian' state. We are acting like dhimmis!! We need a true Zionist government! By showing 'flexibility' we are only showing weakness to the Arabs. This puts us in a very dangerous situation as the situation in Gaza shows very clearly.

You say that this rotten fruit was discovered during the disengagement. What you completely overlook is that it was the expulsion of Jews from their homes and the continuation of such dispicaple un-Jewish practices which are the real "rotten fruit". No one would object to soldiers refusing orders to murder innocent children. Unfortunately there is a whole movement of people in Israel who are willing to abandon a Jewish state, and are willing to do so at the cost of the land itself and the lives of innocent Jews (God forbid). The refusing soldiers are heros, and they should multiply. This will show the government that they are incapable of dismantling Israel though they wish to, and that they had better start adhering to a proper moral code. The real fault is in the immoral policy that results in God fearing soldiers refusing to be coerced to taking part in evil.

Each young man that refused to take part in this KGB action hase more ethics and morals then you and me combined. The orders were against the moral foundations that the Zionist State of Israel was built. The IDF's mission is to protect the lives of Israeli citizens. Olmert has millions to remove settlers but no money to build a missle defense and help Holocaust survivors.

Your rather long winded article is a lot of hot air! The IDF is for the purpose of fighting Israel's enemies, not JEWS! Come to life and get your head on straight.

Precisely because of such potential confllicts of interest.

inside the green line and keep Maale Adumim and Ariel - sounds good to me.

does Friedman subvert the legal system, especially the Supreme Court. The real culprits are the many unintelligent individuals who have no leadeship capabilities and who made it to the top only because they belong to the 'elites'. They populate the upper echelons of the legal system, the IDF, etc, blocking effectiveness, common sense and real equity. Unfortunately there are too many examples.

If you aren't a student of history, look up "Kent State" It was an example of US military shooting college students during a protest. There are a number of instances where the US used the military against its own citizens going back to the 1770s.

Lincoln brought the rebellious south back into the Union. If God had been on the side of the south, my guess is you or your neighbors would still own Black slaves on your slave plantations in Atlanta and the southern plantation owners would be breeding them like animals as we speak.

#4 and his idiot yeshivot, are nto jews but reformists, who remove the words eretz yisrael form the Torah.

Normally what you say is correct, the police handle civilian matters, but in time of war or state of emergency, US troops of the National Guard can be deployed as needed. In the case of the occupied West Bank, the settlers are outside of Israel in an occupied war zone attempting to conquer territory, which would be akin to US citizens staking out settlements in occupied Iraq and claiming that the land then becomes part of the US, so the comparison you make is not really valid anyway. The settlers are violent law breaking extremists who need to be removed by the army as they are outside of Israel. The police should only respond to matters behind the Green line inside of Israel, and not be sent into an occupied war zone anyway.

To say the Rabbis wish for Israeli society to crumble is unfair and bizarre. First of all during the Intifida there were leftists who refused to serve in Judea & Samaria. They felt the "occupation" was immoral. Did Israeli society crumble? Did this author talk the same way? That the Leftists hd no idelogy behind their actions? The author in the article makes out to be as if the sky is about to fall on Israel. 2) Israeli Society is crumbling without any help from the Rabbis. The ignorance and hatred in Israeli Society is unbearable and complete foolishness. The fact that the Prime Minster is in the process of giving away the land for nothing. Giving away land for nothing has no justification whether s from a secular or from a religious perspective. 3) If people have proof of Jewish ownership and if the government reneged on its past agreeements with the jews of Hebron. And security is not being enhanced for the average Israeli Citizen by expelling them from the market? Furtherrmore, after the Gaza disaster, the Government can't seriously argue that they know what their doing? because the proof is with the hundreds of qassam debris that shows otherwise. Then what basis does the Government have to give such orders? Government can't act above the law, yet ,demand its citizens to follow the Governments words to the letter. That is what is destroying the Israeli Society not the Rabbis. The first step is to be intellectually honest about the root of the problem, not just have an exaggerated knee jerk reaction.

National Guard is NOT "the US military". Learn it already.

...and let it return it's self-respect

Wow! Alex is a very confused man. While the secular left ruling (so called) elite and their politically driven IDF leadership have been demonizing the most patriotic segment of the society for years - the reviled nationalist camp - he opines that it is THEY and their Rabbis who are tearing apart the IDF. Either he is stunningly blind, or willfully malicious. It is the nationalist youth from these hesder programs (threatening to close them down is like biting the hand that protects you) who serve as the backbone of the IDF, and are approx 30% of its officer corps. On the other side of the spectrum are the lazy, finger in the eye youth of the secular elite who do ANYTHING & EVERYTHING to evade service. Their parents send them out of the country and even have forged medical 'exemptions' for them. Alex has the gall to malign Rabbis for sowing deep divisions in the IDF, when it is THEIR students who are risking life and limb to protect the likes of Fishman. There were more hesder students killed during last summer's war than from the other communities. Now, if telling their students that is it illegal and immoral to throw Jews out of their legal homes, and that the ONLY task of the peoples army ! is to PROTECT the Jews, then it is Fishman who is confused, not the other way around.

These are political issues and how dare the Army be forced to get involved in such matters. Someone is being down right stupid and there seems to be a hidden agenda in all of this to denigrate the religious troops. The Chief of Staff a believer himself needs to step in, investigate and defuse the situation. Of Course the principle to uphold orders is correct. But there are some nasty forces at work here and they do not wear Kippot

You mean "idiot yeshivot" like Mir, Ponovezh, Lakewood? How do you have the chutzpah? Perhaps you'd like to tell us the short list of things Chazal tells us are forbidden for a Jew to do, even to save a life. The very short list every Jewish child learns in cheder. And whether that list includes handing over bits of land? Then we can talk about who are the reformists, and whose statements are based upon Torah and whose upon their extreme right-wing political views.

B"H What if Peace Now is insubordinate with a violent protest? Are you going to shut down Peace Now?

Here is the U.S. Law: The Posse Comitatus Act is a federal law of the United States (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed in 1878, after the end of Reconstruction, and was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The only exception is a general riot, where the Governor of the State or the President of the U.S declares an emergency. Does evicting two settlers in Hebron constitute an emergency?--Hardly!

Either the point of my tb was completely lost on you or you just like to make an a-- of yourself, because that's what you do best. Be that as it may, I didn't come to the US until l959, and as an adult. Now that you mention it, I must have forgotten to bring my slaves with me. Looking around my subdivision, the forebears of some of my neighbors could very well have been slaves, though most of the others, I'm sure, know as much about cotton plantations as I do. On the other hand, were I not an admirer of Abe's, I wouldn't have mentioned him, would I? In contrast to a lot of people, who have lived in the US for generations and can't even tell you who's buried in Grant's tomb, I made it my business to learn the history and the language of my chosen country and how to comprehend what I read. God, btw. had nothing to do with the South's losing the Civil War. That was attributable to the fact that the Union had the better military, access to more natural resources and due to the industrial revolution's having made inroads in the Northern States. Slavery as a moral issue had not much to do with any of it. That - like the Jews for Hiter - was a pretext. It came down to the fact that Northern industries, who had to pay wages, could no longer compete with the slave labor of the South and simply had to be eliminated. Why else were the Southern slaves worse off after their emancipation than before? Once their free labor no longer affected Northern industries, nobody really gave a flying flip about them for another 100 years. Anything else, Einstein?