Hollywood types claim that appearing in a packed stadium and telling twenty thousand adoring fans that President Bush is “so stupid” is the essence of bravery. Later they go home, yell at the servants, and admire Hugo Chavez on television. But this does not make America any less of a fascist country. The goose stepping Gestapo is just around the corner, in Dick Cheney’s boot camp.

In Israel twelve soldiers demonstrated real courage. They stood up to a corrupt and immoral government, refusing an order to betray the Jewish people. Unlike the Hollywood loonies, the twelve soldiers will not go home for 28 days and their military careers are over.

(IsraelNN.com) Two officers and 10 soldiers were sentenced Monday night to 28 days in an army jail for refusing to participate in the expulsion of Jews from their homes in the former Hevron marketplace. The site is known as the Shalhevet neighborhood, named after 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass, who was murdered by a Palestinian Authority sniper several years ago.

The original group of 30 soldiers, all Hesder Yeshiva members of the elite Duchifat combat unit, balked when they were given their orders to replace Border Police officers during the expulsion. They told their commander before boarding an army bus bound for duty in Judea and Samaria that they would refuse to carry out the orders.

Under threats of a severe response by their commanding officer, more than half of the group backed down, but 12 continued to refuse to obey the order to forcibly evacuate the two families, including 14 children, from their homes.

In addition to their 28-day sentence in a military jail, the battalion commander, Col. Itai Virov, also demoted the soldiers from serving in a combat unit. The sentences are lighter than the active jail time called for by many left-wing politicians. Soldiers who refused orders during the Disengagement were often allowed to return to their units later on.

IDF Central Commander Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni removed the two unit commanders and 10 other soldiers from their positions in the elite Duchifat unit after they refused to obey the orders. “This is a phenomenon that endangers the very base the IDF stands on,” said Shamni. “This is an army of the people, and in a democratic nation soldiers must obey orders.”

An unidentified father of one of the Duchifat soldiers who balked at carrying out the order stated “the soldiers are standing with determination in their refusal to participate in any part of the expulsion of Jewish families from Hevron.” Another father, Moshe Rosenfeld, said in an interview on Army Radio “My son didn’t join the army to expel Jews, but to defend them. Furthermore, this is not an operation for the army, but for the police.”

The Duchifat unit is a special counter-terrorism battalion in the Kfir Brigade of the IDF Central Command infantry division. The Kfir Brigade is the largest such unit in the IDF, and includes Netach Yehuda and Nachal Hareidi forces. Duchifat soldiers specialize in urban combat and usually operate in the Ramallah area, with the responsibility for the protection of Jewish communities which include Beit El, Ofra and others.

Israel’s Kadima government has stopped pretending to be Conservative; ditto the Bush Administration.