Rabbi Lichtenstein (pictured above, left), dean of Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shvut, published a letter over the Sabbath in which he clarifies that he "has not taken a position on the Disengagement Plan, for lack of ability to properly judge the issue in depth." The rabbi made the letter public in his yeshiva after the religious left-wing Meimad party published a quote implying that he supported the disengagement.
Two weeks ago, Meimad published, in a weekly Torah pamphlet distributed in synagoguges, a quotation by Rabbi Lichtenstein that expressed support, in principle, for territorial compromise "that would allow us to protect our home..." Under the quote, the party placed a statement of its own position in support of the government's Disengagement Plan - implying that Rabbi Lichtenstein agreed with this position. In the recent edition of the same Shabbat flyer, Meimad clarified its previous notice.
Rabbi Froman (pictured on right), Chief Rabbi of the Judean town of Tekoa, published a poem entitled "And You Were Driven Mad" in another Sabbath flyer, Ma'aynei HaYeshuah. The poem describes the coming of the "iron teeth of the bulldozer [to] rake over the synagogues, and the children's homes, and the cemeteries and the soft sand and that which is holy and so very much our flesh."
The inspiration for the poem, the rabbi explained, was a daydream he had in which he saw scenes of uprooting Jews from their homes interspersed with images of the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva at the hands of the Romans.
Rabbi Froman is a signatory to a letter in support of the position of Rabbi Avraham Shapira, dean of the Merkaz HaRav Kook yeshiva and the leading spiritual leader of religious Zionists. Rabbi Shapira, supported by almost all other leading religious-Zionist rabbis, has called on IDF soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate Jews from their homes for the purpose of turning the land over to a non-Jewish authority. Rabbi Froman told Arutz-7, "I do not refuse orders; rather, I follow orders handed down from on high."
In the past, Rabbi Froman has met with political and religious leaders in Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, including Yasser Arafat. Just last month, the home of Rabbi Froman was twice targeted by vandals condemning the rabbi for such meetings and threatening him for being "a traitor."
In an interview with Arutz-7 yesterday, Rabbi Froman recalled that 15 years ago, he was asked what he would do if the military came to evacuate Tekoa, to which he replied, "I will die." The planned evacuation of Gush Katif, the rabbi explained, is likely to be far worse than that which took place from the Sinai communities in 1982 (where he lived), because "we are talking about people who get their life-force from the energy of the land. 'For a man is a tree of the field,' and the moment you uproot him, he dies."
Rabbi Froman also indirectly makes reference to the late Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook in his poem, writing, "Do you hear? Shoot me! And we will be as one flesh." Rabbi Froman explained, "It was he [Rabbi Kook] who said, 'Shoot me,' during one of the times that the Elon Moreh group set up camp in Hawara."