MKs Zevulun Orlev and Uri Orbach (Jewish Home) refused Wednesday to sign on to a bill proposed by MKs Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) and Aryeh Eldad (National Union) forbidding the IDF to evacuate Jews and demolish Jewish homes.
Orlev responded to the initiative by saying, “The proposed bill is dangerous to keeping the internal peace in the State of Israel. Whoever legally forbids the IDF to enforce the law in Judea and Samaria will be tying his hands from getting involved if and when armed resistance from Israel’s Arab citizens begins, during days of war as during days of peace,” adding that the proposed bill “is liable to cause Israel to collapse from within.”
Mk Uri Orbach added, “I don’t participate in every gimmick whose only purpose is to merely achieve a headline,” adding that, “the elected government needs to be permitted the freedom to order the IDF to operate according to the orders of the government.”
The bill was drafted following an incident on Monday in which Hesder yeshiva students serving as combat soldiers in the Nachshon battalion hung a sign protesting the evacuation of the Negohot community, located in the Hevron Hills region.
The bill states that the purpose of the IDF is to protect the existence of the State of Israel, its independence and the safety of its citizens and residents, emphasizing that “the IDF will operate only for defense needs and state security, for humanitarian needs and for human or property safety in Israel and abroad.”
An explanation of the bill says that during the Disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria, “soldiers found themselves torn between their rabbis' instructions and the orders of their commanders. Thousands of citizens viewed the IDF – the heart of the Israeli consensus – as an army of expulsion.” The proposed bill is designed to prevent similar situations in the future and in order to try to repair the rift between the nation and the military, it said.
MKs Hotovely and Eldad, who jointly sponsored the bill with Likud, Shas and National Union party members Tuesday, said Orlev's and Orbach's responses came as a surprise.