"They shouldn't dare to even raise a hand against a policeman or a soldier," Sharon said in a meeting with soldiers who clashed with settlers Monday. "We will act against [them] with all our might."
Also yesterday, Sharon won an important political victory when the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party decided to join his reshuffled government, giving him a parliamentary majority for the first time since last summer.
With United Torah Judaism, the moderate Labor Party, and his own Likud Party, Sharon's new team will have 66 of the 120 seats in parliament. His hard-line coalition fell apart over opposition to the pullout plan.
Sharon told Likud members yesterday that he hopes for quick approval of his new government. "I believe that already next week I can present the parliament a new coalition that will lead the state of Israel," Sharon said.
On Monday, settlers threw rocks and scuffled with troops while slashing the tires of their vehicles in a confrontation at Yitzhar, a known center for extremist settlers in the northern part of the West Bank -- an incident seen as a precursor to resistance to the planned summer pullout.
Two settler leaders are being investigated on suspicion of inciting soldiers to disobey orders, the Justice Ministry said yesterday. One is Noam Livnat, whose sister, Limor, is a Likud member of parliament and Israel's education minister.
A soldier who called on his unit to disobey orders during the melee was sentenced yesterday to 28 days in a military lockup. It was the first instance of a soldier refusing to obey an evacuation order, the military said.
The level of violence by settlers against their own soldiers shocked the nation. One soldier fired his rifle in the air. Settler leaders warn that hundreds and perhaps thousands of soldiers will refuse to take part, officially opposing the trend but advocating resistance, even breaking the law, to stop the removal of settlements.
Amnon Strassnov, a former army prosecutor and retired district court judge, said those defying orders to evacuate "should be tried and put behind bars."
