Letter circulated among religious and settler groups calls on teens to rebel.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFbaruch marzel 88(photo credit: )
Settler leaders defended their authority on Wednesday against accusations by far-right-wing activist youth that the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip was irrelevant.
A letter, which was circulated among religious and settler youth groups, called on the teens to rebel against the council.
"At a time when all our energies should be going to fighting the government and its withdrawal plans, it's foolish to waste energy on internal battles," said council spokeswoman Emily Amrusy.
This was the second time in a week that the council has come under attack. Leaders of more moderate settlements earlier accused the council of spending too much time focused on battling the government rather than finding ways to work with it.
Earlier this week the youth wing of Baruch Marzel's Jewish National Front Party circulated a letter, picked up by the media on Wednesday, attacking the council and its leaders for seeking the path of compromise when it came to defending the outposts and the settlements.
"We will not listen to your orders anymore," the authors of the letter stated. "We will take our fate into our hands. We will lead a different battle without compromise," the letter stated.
It accused the council of failing to learn the lessons of the Gaza pullout last summer and the demolition of nine homes at the Amona outpost in January. "You are taking us from one failure to another," the letter's authors accused the council. Attacking one of the logos of the failed Gush Katif campaign, the letter stated that "we will not win out with love."
Council Chairman Benzi Lieberman dismissed the letter as illogical. He noted that the settlements and the outposts the teens wanted to fight for were all constructed and maintained by the council.
Without the efforts of the council there would be nothing to defend, Lieberman said. He added that the council was not making decisions alone or in a vacuum.
With an eye toward uniting the opponents of any further territorial withdrawals, the council is busy these days seeking the opinions of religious Zionist leaders, said Lieberman.
But Marzel told The Jerusalem Post that he didn't believe that the council was capable of leading the battle to defend Judea and Samaria and neither did the youth wing of his party, which met earlier this week and decided to circulate the letter.
"We are organizing a different leadership and we are calling on the youth to rebel against the council," said Marzel. He said that he and the youth viewed the protest against the demolition of nine homes in Amona as the start of a different and more successful battle.
More than 150 activists and 86 members of the police and IDF were wounded during the operation. Marzel said he felt the aggressive nature of the protest and the willingness of the mostly teen protesters to stand firm against the IDF and the police had acted as a deterrent against further such actions.
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