Ex-Mossad head says Israel risks religious coup
JERUSALEM: Israel faces the danger of a coup by religious troops opposed to quitting the Gaza Strip if it does not stop far-right rabbis from preaching mutiny, a former head of the Mossad intelligence agency said on Sunday. Danny Yatom, a retired army general who headed Mossad from 1996 to 1998 and now serves as a lawmaker for the pro-pullout Labour party, said he saw the seeds of full-blown rebellion. "There are too many rabbis calling for orders to be disobeyed en masse, effectively, a mutiny. If there are enough soldiers willing to put such edicts ahead of the army, it will cause a crisis that could lead to a coup," Yatom told Reuters. The army declined comment and a religious former general said Yatom was being alarmist.
Most Israelis back Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to leave the occupied Gaza Strip and a corner of the West Bank this summer. But the preponderance of pious Jews among conscripts, especially in key combat units, has stirred concern that many could refuse to evacuate biblical land that Palestinians want for a state.
While the Yesha umbrella settler council has called for the evacuations to be resisted non-violently, some ultra-nationalists have vowed to put up a fight. In the latest call, a former Israeli chief rabbi said soldiers should refuse to return to units after this month’s Passover holiday and thus hold up the withdrawal slated to begin on July 20.
Yatom said Israel should learn from the failed attempt by French hardliners to engineer a coup against President Charles de Gaulle and scupper the 1962 withdrawal from colonial Algeria. "They acted on the belief that their ideology took precedence over the democratic processes in France," Yatom said. "We can only hope that in Israel there are enough people with the maturity to resist the messianic pull of radical rabbis." He accused Israel’s Justice Ministry of laxity in enforcing anti-sedition laws against far-right leaders, several of whom have made strong comments against Sharon’s policies.
Justice Ministry officials, backed by civil rights groups, have voiced misgivings at tightening up laws that could be perceived as gagging legitimate protests. The Israeli army, which has jailed at least one soldier who sided with Jewish settlers during their evacuation from an unauthorised West Bank outpost, declined comment. But Yaacov Amidror, a religious former general, called Yatom’s warning alarmist.
"You’d need two or three division at least to carry out a coup," he told Army Radio. "It is true that there is a higher percentage of religious soldiers in the top units, but that is because of their love of the country. They have no intention of bringing its ruin."