According to an official IDF press release, the incident earlier today went like this:
As a result of security assessments and information indicating the intent of extremists to use uninhabited structures in the southern Gaza Strip to construct an outpost prior to the disengagement the IDF demolished 11 uninhabited structures this afternoon, near the Israeli community of Shirat HaYam in the southern Gaza Strip. According to IDF assessments, the construction of this outpost could have led to possible confrontations.
The activity was completed quickly and decisively. During the activity, dozens of civilians illegally entered the closed military zone that was declared, in an attempt to interfere with the IDF activity and vandalize IDF equipment and vehicles. As a result of this rioting, scuffles broke out between the civilians and the IDF force at the scene, during which 10 Israeli civilians, an Israeli Policeman, 4 Border Policemen, and 5 IDF soldiers were lightly wounded and were taken to hospital for further treatment.
During the activity an IDF soldier shouted out a political statement in public. He was taken from the scene and will be tried by a senior officer.
A soldier shouted a "political statement." For which he will stand trial. Gee, I wondered. What could he have said? "I support Sharon?" "Get out of my face you settler freaks?" Unlikely. For that, he probably would have gotten a promotion. What he shouted (after he had already been arrested for refusing to demolish the structures) was this:
"Yehudi lo megaresh yehudi"A Jew doesn't expel a Jew.
Damn straight.
(Actually, a Jew doesn't expel an Arab -- or anyone else --, either, which is a big problem I have with this pervasive anti-disengagement slogan. Still, in this context it has the meaning intended. Don't ask me to do this. This, I won't do.)
"I am proud that he was able to stand up and say what he feels," declared Ralph Bieber – father of IDF soldier Avi Bieber, who refused his military orders during the demolition of a row of abandoned homes in Gush Katif on Sunday.
"We have been getting phone calls from people who are proud of what he did and that he was able to say what he feels," Bieber told The Jerusalem Post late Sunday night.
The Bieber family moved to Israel from New Jersey nine years ago and, following two years in Efrat, moved to the nearby settlement of Tekoa. Ralph, an insurance broker, said he spoke at length with Avi, 19, about what he would do the day the army called on him to participate in the disengagement.
"He discussed this with me and I said to him 'I can't tell you what to feel. You should do what is in your heart," Bieber recalled Sunday night.
On Sunday, Bieber said, in the middle of the violent clashes with the settlers, he received a phone call from his son.
"He saw his officers beating up other Jews," Bieber recalled. "He never saw anything like this, Jews beating other Jews. He called me in the middle and said 'Abba [father], what should I do?' He said: 'Jews are beating. Jews are beating Jews.' I said go to your commanders and that is what he did."
Update: Avi has company.
