Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, is in danger of assasination at the hands of Jewish extremists, claims Shimon Peres, leader of the opposition Labour party.
The atmosphere in Israel was similar to the political turmoil of 1995 when the then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a religious nationalist, he said.
Sharon and many of his colleagues in the Likud party were at the forefront of the campaign against Rabin and the Oslo peace process he was trying to push through. Now Sharon has earned the hatred of the same constituency which produced Yigal Amir, who shot Rabin at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Israeli settlers are opposed to Sharon’s plan to with draw from Gaza settlements. They believe any bid to move a Jew from his or her home is illegal, and that abandoning sovereignty over the Palestinian-dominated Gaza Strip goes against God’s will.
”I am very fearful of the incitement, from the grave things that are again being heard,” Peres told the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. ”I am afraid someone will try to assassinate the prime minister. There is a lot of similarity between the situation then and today.”
The head of Israel’s internal security agency has made similar warnings and Sharon is never seen in public unless surrounded by bodyguards.
But the public security minister, Gideon Ezra, said he was confident the state security service Shin Bet had learned the lessons of the Rabin killing.
”I think it’s much harder to get to the prime minister than it used to be, and therefore I am less concerned than I used to be,” said Ezra, a former deputy chief of the Shin Bet.
Threats to Sharon’s safety are just one obstacle to his disengagement plan. On Monday more rabbis called on soldiers to disobey orders if they were told to evacuate settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Avraham Shapira, a former chief rabbi of Israel, said last week the planned withdrawal violated Jewish law.
In a statement signed by 60 other rabbis, Shapira said observant soldiers should not take part in the removals.
Many of the 7 000-8 000 settlers are likely to take compensation and move on, but a large minority could resist. – Guardian Unlimited Â