Heads of the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (Yesha) met with Interior Security Minister Gideon Ezra Tuesday evening regarding recent suggestions that right-wing protesters of the disengagement plan may be charged with incitement and sedition.

The meeting, requested by the settler leaders, comes as the Justice Ministry is discussing the possibility of broadening the reach of laws that punish incitement. An amendment of the law would make it easier to charge and convict offenders of incitement.

Chairman of the Yesha Council Benzi Lieberman expressed concern over the targeting of settlers and right-wing opponents of the pullout plan, and that such a law would infringe on their rights.

"We are right now in a period when the general public thinks people should keep their mouths closed and people should be jailed for no crime except disagreeing with prime minister [Ariel Sharon's] disengagement plan," Lieberman was quoted on Army Radio.

2. Agents provocateurs

Selected passages from JPost:

While the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) openly admitted Tuesday that it has undercover agents within right-wing ranks, opponents of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan responded confidently that they know who they are and were working to weed them out...

On Tuesday, at a special meeting of the Knesset Law Committee, Shin Bet officials admitted they use secret agents within settler ranks but said they are only used to gather intelligence and do not work as "provocateurs." ...

The Shin Bet, the right-wing claimed, picked out young and vulnerable activists who have been arrested or are standing trial and offered them to drop the charges, in addition to money and other benefits, in exchange for becoming an informant.

One such activist, Gilad, 18, a high-school dropout who lives on a hilltop in the heart of Samaria, claims that on more than one occasion he was approached and asked to become an undercover operative.

The Shin Bet, he told The Jerusalem Post?, arrested him on two occasions and warned that if he did not join, it would make "his life miserable."

"Several months ago, I was standing at a bus stop when a white van suddenly pulled up and three guys armed with rifles jumped out and threw me inside," Gilad said. "They took me to the Hebron police station, where they threatened me and said they knew everything about me, where I go, whom I meet with and what I do. They offered me a matriculation certificate, money and other benefits, but thank God I succeeded in resisting the temptation."

Most recently, he said, he received a letter from the IDF informing him he was "not suitable" for military service. "I am sure this is the work of the Shin Bet," he said. "They warned me during my last interrogation that they would thwart my plans of joining the army."

3. Anti-pioneer incitement

Resistance News has documented a large number of examples, showing a systematic campaign of incitement against the Zionist pioneers of Yesha. Readers of this column, therefore, will not be surprised by the following item from today's IMRA:

Israel Radio features discussion: is media inciting against disengagement opponents?

Israel Radio's Inyan Acher ("Another Matter") program today featured a discussion under the headline "Is the media inciting against disengagement opponents"?

The discussion opened with a series of examples of major stories regarding disengagement opponents that were either completely wrong or blown out of proportion.

All the participants in the discussion, including Yossi Bar-Moha, General Director Israel Association of Tel-Aviv Journalists, agreed that the media has been irresponsible in its coverage, seriously exaggerating the "inciting" activities of disengagement opponents.

The journalists attributed the situation to the heavy pressure that journalists (fearing for their jobs in a savage market) face to keep their editors happy with scoops. "I see the heads nodding in the studio", noted the program anchor.

4. Bassi's psychological warfare flounders

Excerpt from Arutz 7:

Yonatan Bassi, in charge of the relocation of the 1,800 families threatened with expulsion, explained today that the "reports" that 800 families are interested in leaving on their own are untrue.

Several Knesset Members said yesterday that these "reports" came from none other than Bassi himself. Bassi, appointed by Prime Minister Sharon to head the Disengagement Authority, appeared at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday. He implied there that his personnel were negotiating with some 800 families over their future lodgings.

MK Ehud Yatom of the Likud later said, however, that "after we asked questions more deeply into the matter, it turned out that there are only a few dozen families that are willing to leave voluntarily."

In fact, Bassi said today, only 25 families have signed agreements to leave their homes voluntarily before the scheduled date of the evacuation, and another 38 are interested in signing.

Note: "Resistance News" is a daily column devoted to news about the Jewish resistance to Sharon's expulsion and resettlement plan. Let it not be said that IsraPundit observed the ethnic-cleansing of Jews in Yesha and reacted with indifference.