Thursday, Oct 21, 2004
Threat to Sharon from Jewish extremists: Peres
By Conal Urquhart
[- AP A SECURITY RING: The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon (centre), surrounded by an unprecedented number of bodyguards, walks inside the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, in Jerusalem on Wednesday.]
TEL AVIV, OCT. 20. Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, is in danger of assassination at the hands of Jewish extremists, said Shimon Peres, leader of the Labour party.
The atmosphere in Israel was similar to the political turmoil of 1995 when Yitzhak Rabin, the then Prime Minister, was murdered by a religious nationalist, he said.
Mr. Sharon and many of his colleagues in the Likud party were at the forefront of the campaign against Mr. Rabin and the Oslo peace process he was trying to push through.
Hatred
Now Mr. Sharon has earned the hatred of the same constituency which produced Yigal Amir, who shot Mr. Rabin at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Israeli settlers are opposed to Mr. Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza settlements. They believe that any attempt to move a Jew from his or her home is illegal, and that abandoning sovereignty over the Palestinian-dominated Gaza Strip goes against God's will.
"I am very fearful of the incitement, from the grave things that are again being heard," Mr. Peres told Maariv newspaper.
"I am afraid someone will try to assassinate the Prime Minister. There is a lot of similarity between the situation then and today." The head of Israel's internal security agency has made similar warnings and Mr. Sharon is never seen in public unless surrounded by bodyguards.
Threats to Mr. Sharon's safety are just one of the emerging obstacles to his disengagement plan. On Monday more rabbis called on soldiers to disobey orders if they were told to evacuate settlers from the Gaza Strip.
`Violated law'
Avraham Shapira, a former chief rabbi of Israel, said last week that Mr. Sharon's planned withdrawal violated Jewish law. In a statement signed by 60 other rabbis, Mr. Shapira said observant soldiers should not take part in the removal of settlers from their homes.
Many of the 7,000-8,000 settlers are likely to take compensation and move elsewhere, but a large minority are expected to resist. Hundreds of soldiers have been jailed for refusing to serve in the occupied Palestinian territories, and a number - usually estimated in the thousands - have avoided service by feigning illness.
- © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.