Nation, family are divided in standoff over Gaza

KFAR MAIMON, Israel -- Shaul Ariel and his son met yesterday on opposite sides of a conflict boiling in Israel these days. The father joined protesters from all over the country trying to march into the Gaza Strip to prevent next month's evacuation of Jewish settlers. The son, a captain in the Israeli Army, was part of a huge force sent to block their advance.

On the second day of an anxious standoff between the two sides, each numbering about 15,000, troops scuffled with government critics and sealed off their makeshift camp in this small farming town, while demonstrators vowed to push ahead to Gaza even if they have to defy soldiers and police-- in some cases members of their own family-- to get there.

The confrontation is being viewed as a dress rehearsal for the withdrawal itself, when soldiers and police will remove thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank, in one of the country's most divided periods since a right-wing Israeli assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel a decade ago.

''The nightmare scenario is that one side or the other will use force and lose control," said Arye Naor, a political scientist at Ben-Gurion University and a specialist on right-wing ideologies in Israel. ''But I don't think we'll see soldiers and settlers shooting at each other."

The protesters, most of them religious Jews, have been camping at Kfar Maimon about 12 miles west of the Gaza Strip since late Monday, in what organizers had planned to be a three-day march to the Gaza settlements.

Exceptional measures taken by authorities have kept them from moving toward the Strip. Yesterday, police went on maximum alert for the first time in two years, canceling leaves and training courses and erecting roadblocks throughout southern Israel to prevent more protesters from reaching the area.

When some of the protesters rushed the exit of Kfar Maimon yesterday, police, some on horseback, closed the gates and traded punches with hordes of demonstrators. Some protesters, including young children, called on the troops to switch sides and join the fight against the withdrawal. ''Don't say you're only obeying orders because that's the difference between a policeman and a robot," one protester shouted into a megaphone.

Two police officers were lightly injured in the melee and 18 protesters were arrested, according to police.

''My orders are unequivocal: not to let this march reach Gush Katif," Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Israel Television, referring to the main cluster of Gaza settlements.

Mofaz said many of the demonstrators, if allowed to reach Gaza, would remain there for the next month and try to obstruct the withdrawal plan, slated to begin Aug. 17. The plan, unveiled by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last year, has cleared all political and legal hurdles, but settlers say it violates the Jewish right to all of the Biblical ''Land of Israel" and Sharon's election promises.

Sharon had been the settlers' main political backer until last year and the architect of Jewish settlement construction, including those in the Gaza Strip. He says the withdrawal will make the country more secure and help legitimize Israel's control over parts of the West Bank.

After about 20 minutes of scuffling, the two sides settled into a routine, with protesters sprawling out on patches of grass at Kfar Maimon, praying in groups and listening to speeches, while music blared from a makeshift stage.

Troops fanned out along the community's perimeter fence and brought in crowd dispersing gear, including a water canon, to prevent settlers from leaving.

Bentsi Lieberman, one of the leaders of the settlement movement in the West Bank and Gaza, said the protesters were determined to reach Kissufim, the entrance to the Gaza Strip.

''I can't say if it will be in two hours or 18 hours but we are ready. We have more perseverance than police. We will go to Gush Katif," he said from a stage at Kfar Maimon, addressing the demonstrators.

Ariel, whose 24-year-old son serves in an army combat unit, said he decided to journey yesterday from his kibbutz in northern Israel to the march at Kfar Maimon because he sympathized with the protesters.

Before he left home, Ariel learned from his daughter-in-law that the platoon his son commands had been ordered to the area. In Kfar Maimon, the two met on opposite sides of the perimeter fence. Ariel brought his son, who asked that his name be kept out of print, a cake baked by his mother.

''He's helping to enforce the blockade and I'm inside here, like a concentration camp," said Ariel, a 66-year-old religious Jew.

He described his family as politically diverse. His wife supports the Gaza withdrawal because she believes it will advance the cause of peace with the Palestinians, he said. One of Ariel's daughters was also among the protesters, but another daughter felt the march was wrong and would not reverse Sharon's plan. ''It's a very difficult period for Israel," he said. ''But I'm shocked at how this government is behaving, preventing us from demonstrating."

Ariel's farming collective in northern Israel, Sde Eliyahu, is also home to Yonatan Bassi, who heads the government agency in charge of relocating settlers from Gaza and the northern West Bank.

When Bassi took the job, some members of his kibbutz were so incensed, they tried to prevent his salary from entering the communal kitty.

Ariel said most residents are opposed to the withdrawal; his wife was one of the few exceptions. ''But in the end, we're a family and we love each other very much. And that helps us get beyond our political differences."