Gaza disengagement pits Israeli against Israeli

Israel

Israelis are at the brink of civil conflict, said Yaakov Katz and Matthew Gutman in The Jerusalem Post. Tens of thousands of Jewish settlers and their supporters have massed near the Gaza border to protest next month’s evacuation, when some 8,000 Israelis are to be relocated from Gaza to Israel. The protesters wanted to march into Gaza and surround the Gush Katif settlements, hoping to prevent soldiers from removing the settlers. But the Israel Defense Forces have already closed the Gaza border, and the protesters are stalled in makeshift camps. The “stifling desert heat” punishes both sides in this standoff. It’s shaping up to be “a psychological war of attrition between right-wing activists and security forces.”

The protesters claim to be waging a campaign for Gush Katif, said Tel Aviv’s Ha’aretz in an editorial. In reality, they are waging “a campaign against the State of Israel.” The Knesset voted to order withdrawal from the settlements, and the High Court of Justice upheld that order. The settlers who resist are antidemocratic. They are trying to “impose on the majority, through violent means, an ideology accepted only by the minority.” If they continue to oppose the army and the state, it will only lead to “national disaster.”

The settlers have every right to be angry, said Paula Stern in Jerusalem’s Israel Insider. The government’s disengagement plan is “neither a disengagement nor a plan.” The Jewish and Palestinian populations will not be “disengaged” from one another, since there are no plans to build extra infrastructure in Gaza. The Palestinians will still have to come to Israel for medical services and other needs. And there’s no “plan” for where to put the uprooted Jewish farmers, other than “waiting stations several kilometers away.” Worse, “where will we rebury those who are buried in Gaza now?”

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The real reason the settlers are upset, said Daoud Kuttab in The Jerusalem Post, is that they’re being treated “like Palestinians.” Jewish settlers bristle at the thought that they will need to apply for permits to enter areas they used to call home. “Inhuman!” they call such measures. “Collective punishment!” What do they think we Palestinians have been enduring? “Israelis are realizing what happens when they employ the oppressive policies used for years against the Palestinians on their own people.” The people rise up. They rebel. They may even turn to violence.

Uri Glickman

Ma’ariv