The "disengagement" of Jewish families from Gush Katif and Shomron has begun. In just a few short days, the Israeli government tells us, any Jewish person in these regions still clinging to their homes and their way of life will be in violation of the law and must be removed -- forcibly if necessary.

I still do not believe the deportations will take place. My faith in G-d does not permit me to countenance the idea of any such intentional treatment of Jewish people by other Jewish people.

Events of the past few days have only strengthened my beliefs. More than a quarter of a million people demonstrated in Tel Aviv this week to protest the threatened expulsions, despite the government's claim that they have a majority of popular support. More than three thousand people have managed to enter Gush Katif in recent days despite the government's best efforts to prevent traffic into the area. And more and more Israeli soldiers are questioning their roles in the deportations.

For over fifty years we have had the heroic stories of Israeli soldiers defeating much-larger armies in 1948, 1956, and 1973; of liberating Jerusalem and the Kotel in 1967; of rescuing over 100 kidnap victims in Entebbe in 1976; of saving the world (at least temporarily) from nuclear destruction at Osirak in 1981.

An Israeli soldier is not just a person, s/he is a force of nature, a messenger of G-d sent to be a true light unto all nations. I now believe it is on the Israel Defense Forces that the failure of the ethnic cleansing of Yesha will depend. And so I send this open letter to all the men and women of the IDF:

Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters,

You are examples of the brightest, the bravest, the most beautiful, and simply the best that The Jewish State and the Jewish people can be. We who oppose the expulsions of the Jewish population from Yesha do not hate you. In fact, each and every one of you is well loved by each and every one of us.

When you see someone you love doing something harmful or self-destructive, it is your responsibility to try and stop them. Dear soldier, you are engaging in the willful removal of hard-working, innocent people from their homes, their livelihoods, their history, and the heritage of all Jewish people -- including your own and that of your children and their children. It is my responsibility to tell you that you must stop doing this right now.

Since the creation of the modern Jewish state, you have been the thin blue-and-white line that has protected the Israeli people from harm -- often at the cost of your own lives. It may be difficult, but you must refuse to obey the orders that now ask you to destroy instead of protect. Listen instead to the orders of a higher authority. And listen instead to your own hearts and souls. Then just walk away.

Yes, walk away. Disengage yourselves from this ill-conceived plan. Better yet, walk straight ahead. Widen the blue-and-white line by joining with your fellow Jewish people to stand against removing them from any part of Eretz Yisrael. After all, they are your parents, your grandparents, your children, your brothers and sisters, your husbands and wives, your friends. Many of them have been members of the IDF in the past or will be in the future. They are courageous Jewish people just like you. Don't abandon them. Instead, be as one with them.

Some months ago, when the "disengagement" plan was first announced, I was in an airport and met a soldier from the Israel Defense Forces. He told me that he could not refuse the orders to remove Jewish people from their homes because if soldiers like him didn't do the removing then someone else, someone more brutal, would do it. His feeling was that if he and others like him were involved then at least he could ensure that the removals would be done gently. 

He seemed very sincere, but I had to ask him "What could possibly be gentle about ripping families from their homes? What is gentle about destroying the only homes that children have ever known, or that survivors have come to trust? How gently can you demolish the greenhouses, the synagogues, and the yeshivas? How can you gently dig up the graves of people who loved their land enough to die for it?"

I now ask all of you these same questions and more:

What will happen to the Israeli economy and its people when the agricultural produce of Gush Katif is no longer available? 

How many more soldiers and civilians will be injured, maimed, or murdered in the defense of their country after our lands are handed over to our enemies and its borders become virtually indefensible?

Will you allow a craven, corrupt, and cowardly Israeli government to turn you into Sonderkommandos?

What will happen in five years -- or ten or thirty or fifty -- when your children and grandchildren ask you what you did when the Israeli government demanded the ethnic cleansing of Yesha? What will you tell them? Will you pretend, like the Germans after the Shoah, that you didn't know what was happening? Will you be like the French, who after the war all claimed to have fought in the Resistance? Or will you be able to tell them truthfully that the destruction of Gush Katif and Shomron never took place because of people like yourself? 

And what will happen at the final accounting of your life? What will you say to G-d when you are asked about your part in the history of The Jewish State?

I pray that you can give a good accounting. I pray for your courage and integrity. And I pray for your safety, and for that of all of Klal Yisrael, especially the Jewish people of Gush Katif and Shomron. 

Please don't let us down.