Date Posted: Monday, December 22, 2003

Members of Israel's elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, posing with their backs to the camera, say they will not serve in the Palestinian Territories because they no longer want to participate in the immoral defense of Jewish settlements.

JERUSALEM, Dec 21 (MASNET & News Agencies) - More than a dozen members of the Israeli army's most celebrated commando unit have written to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refusing to carry out missions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, because they believe the army's operations there are immoral, Israeli media reported.

According to the report, between 13 to 15 reservists, including three officers, from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, said they would no longer participate in the "rule of oppression" and the defense of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We will no longer give our lives to the rule of oppression in the territories and to the denial of human rights to millions of Palestinians and we will no longer serve as a defensive shield for the settlements," the television quoted the letter as saying.

"We cannot continue to stand silent," they wrote, charging that Israeli military activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are endangering "the fate of Israel as a democratic, Zionist and Jewish country."

"We will no longer corrupt the stamp of humanity in us through carrying out the missions of an occupation army... in the past, we fought for a justified cause [but today], we have reached the boundary of oppressing another people," it added.

"We will no longer cross this boundary."

The Sayeret Matkal, or General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, is Israel's most elite commando unit and has often been compared to the U.S. military's Delta Force or the British army's SAS, reports Reuters.

Ex-prime minister Ehud Barak was once its commander, as was another former premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, also served in the force, known for daring operations outside Israel's borders. Its soldiers rarely serve in the Palestinian areas, reports the Associated Press (AP).

The signatories to the commando letter were all identified as being reservists, but it was not clear how many were still involved in active military duty, reports the news agency.

Since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Sayeret Matkal has spearheaded Israel's campaign to round up armed combatants, tracking down and arresting senior wanted Palestinians, rounding up "terror units" and searching for weapons caches.

The letter was likely to send shockwaves through the defense establishment due to the seniority of the unit, best known for its spectacular rescue of 106 passengers from a hijacked plane at Uganda's Entebbe Airport in 1976.

Last week, the Israeli press revealed a 1992 plan to assassinate former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, after Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf war.

The plan was to have been carried out by the Sayeret Matkal unit, but was aborted at the last minute.

The latest refusal to serve comes three months after 27 Israeli air force pilots - all but nine of whom had retired - sent a petition to air force head General Dan Halutz outlining their refusal to undertake missions in the Palestinian territories in which civilians could be killed.

The commandos' and pilots' letters are the most high-profile acts of defiance by members of the armed forces since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when a tank brigade commander resigned rather than invade Beirut, after saying he saw children through his field glasses, reports Reuters.

Several hundred Israeli soldiers have refused to serve in the Palestinian territories and have been sentenced to prison terms. Others have quietly worked out alternate service with their units, reports the AP.

The "refusenik" movement swung into the spotlight in January 2002, when 52 reserve officers and soldiers signed a letter saying they would not serve in the Palestinian territories.

The letters from the commandos and pilots are especially noteworthy, however, because those selected for the units are considered Israel's finest, reports the AP.

As news of the letter spread, several politicians who served in the unit heaped condemnation on the signatories, saying the army was not a forum in which to raise political issues.

Barak called on them "immediately" to retract their decision, saying it was "a serious mistake," army radio reported.

"Within a democracy there is no place for refusal... it is essential to conduct the struggle against the government's policies in the public sphere," he said.

Labor MK Matan Vilnai, who served as deputy commander of Sayeret Matkal, said the refusal to serve was "a phenomenon that must cannot be accepted in any manner... One must change policy with democratic tools and not through the army."

Ehud Yatom, a deputy from Sharon's right-wing Likud party who also served in the unit, called for the signatories to be brought to justice and said they were hurting the army's fighting capacity.

And the army's chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, said anyone who has anything to say about the army's actions should "do it within a military framework," the radio said.

Sharon's office declined to comment.

The legal and constitutional committee at the Knesset (parliament) is to hold an urgent debate on opening criminal procedures against "refuseniks" in the coming days, the radio said.

The committee wants to broaden the scope for prosecution outside of the military tribunals.

Israeli television stations said it was likely that those signatories still in active service would be dismissed from the unit. The air force removed the nine combat pilots still in active duty after they signed their protest letter in September, reports Reuters.

The conflict in the West Bank and Gaza, and inside Israel, has led Israel's government to order its forces to retake large parts of the West Bank handed over to Palestinian control under interim peace accords, reports the AP.

Explaining that it needed to keep Palestinian attackers at bay, the military set up hundreds of roadblocks and declared closures and curfews all over the West Bank, decimating the Palestinian economy and severely harming the society, reports the news agency.

Palestinians demand that Israel withdraw from all the West Bank and Gaza, where they want to create a state.