TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Warning of dire consequences to Israel's future, the defense establishment is seeking a crackdown on settlers who have clashed with soldiers and on groups advocating soldiers disobey orders to evacuate settlements.
At the same time, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is having difficulties enlarging his government and it is not clear when -- or even if -- he can present an enlarged coalition to a Knesset vote.
Tension has risen because the government is likely to decide in January or February to implement its disengagement plan that calls for a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank.
The original decision was taken last June, but was a decision "in principle" and under hawkish ministers' pressure, Sharon has undertaken to bring about a final decision in his Cabinet in March.
That date may be advanced now as the Justice Ministry Sunday told the Cabinet the settlers slated for evictions deserve ample advance notice of five to six months. The pullback itself is to begin in July, Sharon said at that meeting.
Monday the army and the police got a taste of what the pullback may entail when they tried to remove two illegal empty caravans at Shalhevet, near the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar south of Nablus.
Settlers poured oil on the road leading to the site to prevent the army from reaching it.
They stoned soldiers and policemen wounding one of them, punctured police and army vehicles, and forcibly resisted eviction.
A soldier who lives in Yitzhar and was on leave put, St. Sgt. Yossi Filant, put on his uniform and went to the site and urged soldiers to disobey orders and not evacuate the site.
Filant was arrested, brought before a senior adjudicating officer Tuesday but refused to be tried before him. He exercised his legal right, but in doing set in motion a process whereby he will now face a military court where he can be defended by a lawyer but may find himself with an even heavier sentence.
During the showdown at Shalhevet, a soldier reportedly chased a girl who cut the tires of an army vehicle. Other settlers attacked him, and he said he feared they were trying to grab his gun. He inserted a magazine and when someone reportedly aimed a handgun he fired in the air.
Up to this point, soldiers were often sent out barehanded to prevent a resort to arms. With tempers running high in such engagements, there is a danger that arms would be used. Hence Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said Tuesday he would do his best to try and work out a "common denominator" between the sides.
"The distance between the first shot and the first burst of (automatic) fire is very short. ... There will be no civil war in our land," Metzger said.
However, in his semiannual report to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday, the head of the Shabak security service Avi Diechter warned of extremist groups who do not answer to mainstream rabbis or the settlers' established leadership.
Dozens of them have recently moved to the Gush Katif area in the Gaza Strip to prevent the eviction, the Haaretz newspaper reported.
Diechter told the Knesset committee those extremists are "a minority but one that is very threatening and problematic." He said it has a nucleus of a few dozen people but that there are "several hundred supporters around it."
According to Diechter their ideology is totally against the state. They believe in the use of force to attain political and ideological goals, and Diechter was particularly concerned they might try to attack on Muslim sites on al-Masjid al-Aqsa, which Jews call the Temple Mount, the third holiest site in Islam.
A source who heard his briefing Tuesday, told United Press International the Shabak chief noted those extremists behave like an underground, have access to weapons, possess military know-how, and are "not ashamed" to steal weapons from the army. In a cave, the Shabak found a machine gun and LAU anti-tank missiles, he said.
Diechter said the Shabak has "information" saying that when the evacuation takes place, those extremists will spread rumors that security forces have opened fire, and that snipers out there are directed by the Shabak. All that would be done to justify shooting at soldiers, Diechter said.
Committee member Haim Ramon of the dovish Labor Party asked him why those people have not been arrested or put under house arrest. Diechter said the Shabak faces a legal obstacle since it cannot reveal its testimonies.
The defense establishment has now asked the attorney general, the judge advocate general and the civilian police to press legal charges against any person "who raised a hand" against the security forces.
"We will not let any person lift a hand against IDF soldiers," Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said.
The problem is collecting sufficient evidence to persuade a judge. Tuesday a judge released people arrested during the clash in Shalhevet and cited lack of evidence. Israel Radio reported that soldiers usually do not recall exact details of the people whom they fight.
Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim asked the Justice Ministry to initiate legal action against right-wing elements trying to convince soldiers to refuse orders "to expel Jews from their homes."
Thousands of soldiers have reportedly signed undertakings not to participate in the eviction and military chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said the refusal could lead to disaster. "There is a danger to us as a people, a society" he said at a meeting with all the officers from the rank of colonel and above.
Boim told Israel Radio, "If this continues, it could lead to a situation in which the army cannot function, and that would be a severe threat to our entire Zionist enterprise."
In an almost unanimous vote, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee urged Attorney General Menachem Mazuz "to put on trial bodies and people who are organizing refusals or who are advocating it."
"Use of the weapon of refusal (to obey orders) is playing with fire and threatens Israel's security and existence," the committee added.
Sharon meanwhile learned that 13 members of his own Likud Party tried to persuade the ultra-orthodox Torah Judaism faction not to join the coalition. Sharon and the Labor Party have concluded a coalition agreement, but the prime minister is still short of votes for a majority in the Knesset. He has therefore sought to co-opt Torah Judaism.
Alluding to the rebelling Likud member's letter, Sharon told his faction, "This is a call for toppling the Likud government."
It is Sharon who is "endangering democracy. He is the one who is breaking the law," insisted former minister Uzi Landau, of the Likud.
"We are out there to fight over Jerusalem and Israel's security," Landau said. He accused Sharon of behaving like the French monarch Louis XIV who said, "The state is me."
Torah Judaism meanwhile is taking its time waiting for the decision of one of its aging leaders, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, on whether to join the coalition.
A well-placed Likud source said that if Sharon fails to have a large enough coalition he may opt for early elections, but would not stop his moves for disengagement.
