Some excerpts from the story:
Pinhas Wallerstein – senior member of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza:
"I have received hundreds of emails from Jews abroad who expressed their support and are interested in coming to Israel to fight the plan," Wallerstein told The Post. "I am personally in favor although we [the settlement council] will have to discuss the idea since there are Israelis who do not like when Jews from abroad interfere with what is going on here."
(But, Pini, what about left-wing Jews in America who want to interfere because they support dismantling the settlements?)
and..
Rabbi Mordechai Friedman – head of the American Board of Rabbis, an organization made up of some 1,000 orthodox clergymen – said Tuesday that hundreds if not thousands of his followers will come to Israel to fight the plan.
"The government needs to protect its citizens and when they don't the citizens can take back the government," Friedman said. Claiming his organization curses Sharon on a weekly basis, Friedman added that he agrees with Wallerstein's call to break the law when fighting the plan but that it needs to be done violently.
"We need to paralyze the country," he said. "The only way to do that is with means which include violence."
(But it's not your country to paralyze, Mordechai.)
and...
Calling the plan "ethnic cleansing," Gro Wenske, head of the Norway-based Christian Bible and Israel Organization, pledged her participation in the resistance. She said that hundreds of Christians from Norway will come to Israel to fight the evacuation.
(Let's just call Gro what she really is: A Jesus freak with too much time on her hands. And unfortunately, I'm sure the attractive Norwegians won't even come.)
This is just ridiculous. On this blog I've expressed my distate for American Jews actively advocating Israeli policy positions, whether they are on the left or right of the political spectrum, when they don't even live here and feel the consequences of what they are advocating. But I'm just shocked the settler leaders are proposing bringing people who don't even have Israeli citizenship to fight the evacuation plan.
Would this happen in any other democracy in the world? If anything this proposal is another indication of the settlers' desperation.
On the other hand, does the right-wing want to legitimize the active involvement of non-Israelis in such a debate? What is to prevent left-wing organizations from actively recruiting people from around the world to come to Israel and protest government policy? There are certainly more people worldwide who favor dismantling the settlements (and more than a few, unfortunatley, who favor dismantling all of Israel). Should they also be summoned to Israel to join the fray? Or is it an invitation-only affair?
This country already has far too many extremists as it is. Bringing to Israel nutty pro-settler Americans to oppose the disengagement is exactly what we don't need.
