Israel Matzav

The crime and punishment of Gush Katif

It began with the disengagement, the mother of all spins and corruptions. Now it's public knowledge that Ariel Sharon's "farm team" invented the disengagement in order to rescue the Sharon family from a series of legal and criminal quandaries.

It is public knowledge that Sharon wasn't interested in this move, he thought it would be bad for Israel, but the newspaper headlines were screaming the words "Greek Island" and "Cyril Kern" and it was crystal clear that these scandals would lead to an indictment, dismissal from the premier's post and perhaps even a prison sentence.

Sharon had to make a tragic choice between what he thought was very bad for Israel but good for himself and his family, and between what's good for Israel and bad for Sharon and his family.

He chose badly, but this is not the greatest violation. The greatest violation of all is that it worked. It became possible. The spin wizards and headline acrobats actually tipped the legal scales, closed files, recruited the media, and managed to take the prosecution, the high court and the military with them.

The spin wizards took them all on a course whose motives everyone knew were tainted. Everyone knew they would be obliged to pay a fee when being recruited, either by their obedience, or in the decision to close the file, or in keeping silent - and they all paid up.

The Winograd committee will not pinpoint these findings, because no committee of inquiry is built to probe ties that that go so deeply. But if they really want to fix the foundations, they should look courageously at the signs indicating that all the failures and downfalls we have experienced in the past year didn’t constitute the crime but rather the punishment.

The crime was perpetrated at the end of last year in Gush Katif, and if we wish to start making amends, we must repent our sins first.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:11 PM