Lessons from the 'disengagement'
It's five years this week since the Jewish towns of Gaza were uprooted by the Israeli government and some 9,000 Jews were expelled from their homes. Here's a video of the last days of Nezer Hazani, one of the towns whose Jewish inhabitants were expelled. For those who are not familiar with Jewish traditions, tearing one's clothes is a sign of mourning (and is required under certain circumstances).Let's go to the videotape and I'll have more afterward.
The Los Angeles Times reports - five years after the fact - that the 'disengagement' is a failure. Actually, they put it a little more delicately than that. They said that almost no one in Israel calls it a success.
This article is pretty much spot-on. Read the whole thing.
There is almost no support in Israel for a unilateral move in Judea and Samaria today - which is amazing when you consider that it was a major plank of Sharon's (and then Olmert's) platform in the 2006 election, which the Olmert-led Kadima party won. Support for unilateral moves eviscerated during the course of the summer of 2006, due to Gilad Shalit's kidnapping and then the Second Lebanon War (the proximate cause of which was Israel's unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000). When the Times says that only 35% of Israelis see evacuating 'settlements' in Judea and Samaria, they mean as part of a 'peace agreement.' That's because no one here believes any kind of real peace is going to happen in any of our lifetimes.
Finally, a word must be said about the Gaza refugees, who have borne the entire burden of Sharon's failed policy. Most of them are still unemployed and still homeless five years after the fact - even though there was a year to plan for the 'disengagement' before it happened. Many of the people who were expelled are - understandably - still traumatized by the experience.
My daughters have spent the last two summers being mother's helpers in a community in the center of the country. Last summer, when we went to pick one of them up, she showed us a group of caravans that was most unlike the lovely suburban homes in the rest of the community. She told us, "that's where the refugees from Gush Katif live. Most of them are 'messed up.'"
There is no way to compensate those expelled from Gush Katif for the trauma they suffered at the hands of their own Jewish government. In many instances, one could fairly say that their lives were destroyed.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:06 PM
3 Comments:
I'm not able to articulate the pain this brings to watch this video. I was in Gush Katif during the Disengagement - for 13 days until the very end. I will never forget it. To witness something like this that was done to Jews by Jews. This is what hurts. It still hurts to this day.. To think that some in my Orthodox community thought this was a good idea..
It was a kind of policy that no government ever inflicted on its own people.
I would like to see Amnon Abramovich volunteer first to give up his home, car and job since he so blithely talks of inflicting suffering on others. I don't expect him and his fellow leftists to set the "disengagement" example for the rest of the country.
If Arabs are given what they want, Jerusalem they will surely start inching towards, Haifa, Jaffa, Acco and one day in the future it will be this street in Tel Aviv or that block and that store. Then you will see them react with a fury we've yet to witness...
Post a Comment
<< Home