Analysis / Rabbi Shapira shakes the army

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So much for Jabba's "National Unity" government.

Rabbi Avraham Shapira's call last week, urging religious soldiers to refuse to obey orders to evacuate settlements, could yet turn into a watershed moment in the disengagement.
Shapira's statement has rippled throughout the system, affecting other rabbis, soldiers and the upper echelons of the army.

A glance at the list of rabbis who support Shapira shows that many of the hesder yeshivot, where active duty soldiers study, have crossed the lines and joined the call to refuse the order, while many of the rabbis of the pre-army preparatory yeshivot - reservists with close ties to the army - remain undecided.

But if the calls by the rabbis lead to a wave of refusing orders, it could become the greatest internal challenge to the army since the war in the territories began four years ago.

Haaretz