Yearning for Gaza's lost paradise
Op-ed: Despite what right-wingers think, the disengagement was not a 'Jewish Nakba', but the beginning of a possible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. It’s a shame no one in the opposition today rises against this blatant rewriting of history.
Every year, especially in recent years, immediately after Tisha B'Av, members of the right wing mark the anniversary of the disengagement from Gaza, as if it were a kind of Jewish Nakba (The Arabic word for 'catastrophe' to describe Israel's 1948 War of Independence).
Nostalgic articles and websites describe the miraculous life in Gush Katif (a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip removed in 2005) before the disengagement from Gaza, as if it were a magical tourist site and the settlers were expelled from the Garden of Eden. That is really not the case.
Before the disengagement, Gaza actually bore more resemblance to hell.
The 8,000 permanent residents of Gush Katif and the isolated settlements in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip were subjected to daily terrorist attacks, which killed dozens and wounded hundreds.
Since the beginning of the first intifada (Palestinian uprising) in December 1987, the Gush Katif settlements and their residents had been the target of thousands of terror attacks. Palestinians began by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, continued with planting explosive devices and shooting attacks, and reached their peak between 2001 and 2005, when they began bombing the residents of "Paradise Lost" with 5,094 mortar shells and Qassam rockets. Entire army units were solely concerned with preserving the lives of a few residents.
The IDF soldiers patrolled the dangerous area in armored personnel carriers day and night. They also patrolled along the Gaza-Egypt border (Philadelphi Route), escorting women and children on their way to school, regional activities and after-school clubs. Many of IDF soldiers lost their lives patrolling these areas.
The IDF assigned an entire battalion-size force to secure Netzarim settlement alone.
The maintenance of the Gaza Strip was a ticking demographic bomb in which isolated settlements were planted. It was a complete political and security folly, the most outrageous in Israel's history.
This was the background to the Disengagement Plan.
All those who refused to see Gaza as an "inseparable part of Israel" thought there was no point in continuing to form settlements in the heart of the refugee camps in Gaza with the backing of the IDF.
So Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a daring executive decision to put an end to this anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist act of remaining in Gaza.
If it had not been for Sharon, we would have been stuck in this hell hole.
Because of a wave of deliberate distortions of past events, I am forced to make, with awe and reverence, a terrible vengeful account of "before the disengagement" and "after the disengagement."
To the false claim that the number of terror victims has increased since the disengagement, there is a crushing response:
Since the first Qassam rocket attack in April 2001 until the disengagement in 2005, 113 civilians and soldiers were killed in terrorist attacks in Gaza.
Since the disengagement in August 2005 until today, during a 13 year period, the terror of Hamas and its partners has claimed the lives of 120 soldiers and civilians (including 73 victims of Operation Protective Edge).
The number of victims of the despicable Hamas's terror attacks after before the disengagement took place is three times greater than the number of victims following the disengagement, including IDF soldiers who were killed in Gaza.
The ultimate goal of the disengagement was to significantly reduce the demographic threat to Israel as the state of the Jews.
This goal has been fully achieved, and even the right-wing leadership admits it.
True, since the disengagement Hamas has bolstered its army, but not as a result of the disengagement, as right wing members claim.
In 2009, after The Gaza War, Netanyahu promised to bring down Hamas. Since then, for almost a decade, the prime minister has refrained from making this promise again.
Why? because he simply prefers the continuation of Hamas' rule in Gaza to the rule of the Palestinian National Authority (PA), despite the fact that the entire world, including the United States and the moderate Arab states, prefer the rule of the Palestinian National Authority.
Bibi opposes the PA's rule over Gaza because he fears that it will strengthen them and their President , Mahmoud Abbas, politically and internationally, even at the price of the continued suffering of the Gaza vicinity residents.
Members of the right wing support the continuation of the Hamas regime for another reason—the return of the PA to Gaza will eliminate two justifications for enduring this political deadlock:
There is no point in conducting negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas, who does not represent the Palestinians in Gaza; Gaza is ostensibly the Palestinian state, and there is no need for another one.
Unfortunately, no one in the current opposition—who predominantly supported the disengagement—rises against the rewriting of history and the blatant slander campaign, headed by members of the right wing, against the disengagement in general, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who initiated and executed the move, in particular.
The disengagement was and continues to be the essence of the central and left wings' worldview which calls for a complete separation from the Palestinians, preferably through a negotiation process, and, in the absence of a partner—through a one-sided move.
Only thus will Israel remain the nation-state of the Jewish people.
