Ruth Matar makes iced coffee in the kitchen of her central Jerusalem home, a picturesque stone cottage which also houses her gold-smithing workshop. A deep blue tapestry on the living-room wall depicts the golden circle of Jerusalem's Old City walls, and bears the motto "For Jerusalem's Sake, I Will Not be Silent." Outside, a distant muezzin calls worshipers to prayer from one of the city's numerous mosques.

"I began the movement with my daughter-in-law, Nadia," she explains, seating herself at the dining table. A warm, pleasant woman in her mid-sixties, Ruth Matar is co-chair of the controversial right-wing 'grass-roots' movement, Women in Green, and nothing like the tough, intimidating militant one might expect upon reading the organization's literature: "We insist that Israel remain a Jewish state. We are actively and intimately connected with the fight to preserve a united Jerusalem," says their website.

"It was very soon after Rabin won the election," she explains. "We became immediately concerned about the fact that Rabin was going back on his promises. He said he'd never speak to the PLO, he said we should never leave the Golan Heights. But as soon as he was elected, he started to break all his promises. So we decided to demonstrate, outside the prime minister's residence." Matar takes a sip of her coffee and continues. "The next day the newspapers reported that the demonstration was held by a group of settler women, and we were enraged. We weren't settler women with flashing eyes; we were average people, mothers, grandmothers, who wanted to express disappointment in the government."

The form this disappointment took was the creation of what the Women in Green describe as "the most active Zionist organization on the Israeli scene." And, in the light of last week's governmental vote in favor of the disengagement plan, they are planning on being more active than ever. "Mr. Sharon is much worse than Rabin in that respect," says Matar. "He was overwhelmingly elected on the strength of his agenda, and as soon as he was in power, he adopted the opposition's platform." Disengagement from Gaza is for the Women in Green the worst of his crimes.

"We will do everything within our power not to let it happen," she says. "It's illegal and immoral to pull people out of the homes they've lived in for three generations. I don't think people realize," she continues, "what a horror this is. Jews evacuating Jews from their homes." She shakes her head gravely. Back in biblical days, says Matar, the territory comprising Gaza was assigned to the tribe of Judea when the Israelites came from Egypt. "There are ancient synagogues there," she claims, "which the Arabs have destroyed."

Such uncompromising views on the part of the Women in Green have made them extremely unpopular with the Israeli authorities. At the beginning of October, co-founder Nadia Matar was brought in for questioning by the Israeli police force. This was after she likened a letter sent by Disengagement Authority Director Yonatan Bassi to the people of Gush Katif in Gaza to one written by the "Judenrat" (Jewish Council) in 1940s Berlin. Both letters requested Jews to leave peacefully and comply with the authorities' demands. The former letter, however, is seen by a large proportion of the Israeli public as a step toward peace; the latter, as history tells, ended in the Holocaust.

But in a world where women are often seen as a conciliatory, rational force, is it not Women in Green's ultimate aim to achieve peace? "Peace is a word that's become meaningless," responds Matar. "Peace to the Arab is to get all of us to leave. But don't think of us as an extremist group. We're representing the majority though you may not like to believe that. We believe that we're entitled to a Jewish state. We believe in Biblical promises; we believe this is our land and that Sharon, erstwhile 'Lion of Judah,' has made a Devil's pact with the Left."

Such opinions on the part of a women's movement may seem shocking. But as Matar mentions in the course of the conversation, now that female suicide bombers are becoming a more common phenomenon, the days when women advocated peace above all else have been left behind.

So what does the future hold for the Women in Green, now that disengagement looms over them as a real threat? "We're going to do our darndest to hold on to Gaza," says Matar, "Any number of Knesset votes can't change that. Do they change thousands of years of Jewish history and entitlement, and the promises of the Almighty?" The demonstrations will continue, she says, the Women in Green being particularly visible in public protests thanks to their trademark green baseball caps.

"We chose green," she says, "because it's the color of hope, and also because there's no such thing as a 'green line.' All areas of Israel are green and beautiful, and all belong to us, the Jewish people." Outside, the Muslim call-to-prayer ends, and the sound of a Jerusalem Christian church's bells chiming midday drifts in through Matar's windows, on the honeysuckle-scented breeze.