Secularist MK seizes chance to sever soldiers from rabbinical authority

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By Stan Goodenough
August 21, 2007

A Knesset Member from the secular-left Meretz is trying to exploit a recent refusal by religious soldiers to participate in the uprooting of Jews in Hebron to change the oath of loyalty all soldiers make when joining the IDF.

Avshalom Vilan was incensed earlier this month when 12 soldiers, some acting in accordance with rabbinical rulings, disobeyed orders to forcefully evict Jewish families from two apartments in Hebron - one of the three holy cities in Israel.

This is unacceptable, Vilan ranted. "Soldiers should obey only their superior officers and no-one else."

He banged off a letter to this effect and sent it to Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Insert the word "only" in the soldiers' oath, he advised, so troops will declare their readiness to "obey all the orders and instructions handed down by authorized commanders ONLY." Vilan also proposed that soldiers sign a document containing the oath.

This, he said - casting aspersion in advance on any Israeli who would obey his/her conscience and refuse to sign such a declaration - "would reinforce their commitment to the IDF and its laws."

Like many secular-leftists in Israel (whose behavior is mirrored by secular-leftists the world over), Vilan despises God-fearing Jews and seeks to "help" them out of their "backward" ways.

To this former elite forces paratrooper, the idea that soldiers would disobey orders is anathema - and orders to ethnically-cleanse Jews from the cradle of Israel's nationhood (or anywhere else for that matter) are not immoral.

Past leaders in Vilan's Meretz Party have gone on record calling in the Knesset for "the LORD God of Israel to take a rest and leave us to run our own lives."

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