A decade later, many Israelis see Gaza pullout

as a big mistake

Pal
estinian workers in the early morning by greenhouses that still remain from the former
Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim on Aug. 3, 2015. They are still used to grow
vegetables but farmers complain that they cannot export. (Heidi Levine/For The
Washington Post)

By William Booth and Ruth Eglash-August 14

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip Ten years ago this month, the Israeli army undertook
one of its most controversial missions, uprooting more than 8,000 Jewish settlers from
their homes here in Gaza, some by force.
Many Israelis today believe all they got for their troubles were more rockets.
The evacuation of all Israeli troops and civilians from the Gaza Strip, a unilateral
disengagement ordered by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005, at the urging of
President George W. Bush, was a searing episode for Israel, and a gamble.
But after three wars in six years, they have not disengaged from Gaza at all.

For the Palestinians, the Israeli withdrawal offered a chance for self-rule.
But Gaza today is governed by the Islamist resistance movement Hamas, branded a terror organization in the

United States and Europe. The last elections in Gaza occurred almost a decade ago.
The disengagement remains a subject of soul-searching and finger-pointing in Israel.
The lessons that todays Israelis say they learned from the pullout reverberate now
more than ever.
For many Israelis, especially on the right, the aftermath of the withdrawal serves as a
kind of object lesson that supports the open-ended 48-year military occupation of the
West Bank and mistrust and resistance to a two-state solution.
Courageous said Bush
Ten years ago, the Gaza withdrawal highlighted the deep ideological dividebetween
Israels national religious movement, whose members believe that Jews should live on
all the Land of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and more
secular political forces who saw the 21 settlements in Gaza, and the thousands of
Israeli troops needed to occupy the strip, as a security threat that would undermine the
Jewish and democratic core of the state.
It is out of strength and not weakness that we are taking this step, Sharon vowed in
2005, hoping to mollify critics of Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories. Bush
hailed the move as courageous.
After weeping mothers were escorted from their kitchens by teenaged soldiers, the
army razed the emptied homes and even uprooted the palm trees, because the
settlers of Gush Katif did not want to see their neighborhoods occupied by Arabs.

Burned remains in the Jewish settlement of Dolah in the Gush Katif bloc on Aug. 16,
2005. (Heidi Levine/Sipa Press)

A Jewish settler weeps as she is forced to leave her home in Kfar Darom on Aug. 18, 2005. (Heidi Levine/Sipa
Press)

I hope the departure of our forces from the Gaza Strip symbolizes the beginning of a
period of tranquillity, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, head of Israel's Southern Command, told
the small crowd of Israeli soldiers who lowered the flag 10 years ago.
There was little peace.
The departing troops did leave two dozen synagogues standing, even though the
Palestinian leadership begged them not to; they were desecrated by Gazans
celebrating the Israeli withdrawal after 38 years of occupation. The remaining
greenhouses were looted.
A few months after the pullout, Hamas won parliamentary elections against the weak
and unpopular Fatah Party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The
following year, after street battles between Hamas and Fatah militias, Hamas seized
control of the strip, and promises made by Israel and the United States to Gaza for
eased travel and trade evaporated.
Hamas and Israel fought their third war last summer. Both sides say they
are preparing for a fourth. Israel controls the air and sea of Gaza and restricts imports,
exports and passenger travel. Egypts land crossing with Gaza has been mostly closed
in the last year. The enclaves 1.8 million people often say they are living in a prison.
Today many Israelis point to the unilateral withdrawal of troops to argue, as Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does, that Israel cannot risk giving the Palestinians an

independent state.
The premier and his allies warn that if Israel pulled out of the West Bank today, Hamas
would take over there as it did in Gaza and expose Israels major cities to more
rockets at closer range.
Hamastan, Netanyahu warned on the eve of his historic fourth reelection in March,
pointing to the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority without Israeli protection wont last five minutes in the West
Bank, said Yossi Kuperwasser, former director general of Israels Ministry of Strategic
Affairs. They exist by Israels bayonets.
The rise of Hamas in Gaza undermines the credibility of a two-state solution, said
Efraim Inbar, a professor at Bar-Ilan University. It shows the Palestinians are not
capable of establishing a state as the world understands the word.
Inbar told an audience at a recent conference on the Gaza pullout that the years since
have only strengthened the Israeli consensus that there is no partner for a peace
deal.
The best evidence, he said, is Gaza.
Settlers still in trailers
Ten years later, emotions are still raw among the Gaza evacuees and their supporters,
who believe the Israeli government betrayed and then abandoned them.
Hundreds of the former Gaza families still live in temporary mobile homes, and when
Sharon died last year after a prolonged stroke, they were not among the mourners.
Orit Strook, a former member of the Israeli parliament and a settler in the West Bank,
called Sharon one of the great builders of the land of Israel, and its greatest
destroyer.

A bedouin man wearing a cowboy hat rides a camel nearby new apartment buildings in the area of the former
Jewish settlement of Ganei Tal on Aug. 2. (Heidi Levine/For The Washington Post)

A veiled woman and children play at the Asdaa City amusement park complex, built on the ruins of the former
Jewish settlement of Ganei Tal, on Aug. 2. (Heidi Levine/For The Washington Post)

We lost everything for a big mistake, said Sammy Hilberg, who moved to Gaza in
1979 to farm tomatoes he sold at a price guaranteed by the Israeli government.
And in addition to losing everything for a big mistake, we still have rockets falling on
us and the whole world is still bad mouthing us, he said.
We were alone in the world, said Einat Bloch-Yeret, who was born in a Gaza
settlement and 17 years old during the disengagement. She lost her brother in Gaza;
he was shot by a Palestinian sniper at the start of the second intifada in 2000.
She moved to the United States for a time and said, I could see more of our country
from the outside. All the time we are trying to show the world how good we are to the
Arabs. We give them everything and we get nothing.
Internal war
Israel Ziv, a major general in the Israeli Defense Forces who was responsible for
planning the evacuation from Gaza in 2005, said, My biggest issue then was
preventing an internal war Jews against Jews. We had never confronted such a

challenge before in the army.

Israeli commanders feared that soldiers, even officers, might refuse orders to evacuate
the settlers.
There were those who said it was impossible to withdraw from Gaza. But if the
government wanted to do it, it could be done, Ziv said. It left a wound but it did not
turn into a war.
But Ziv wonders if the army could do it again.
Under terms outlined by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, a future peace deal with the
Palestinians might give them a state based on 1967 armistice lines with agreed upon
land swaps. These swaps might allow Israel to retain the so-called settlement blocs
that contain most of the 350,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank today. Under this
scenario 50,000 or 100,000 settlers still might find themselves living outside of the
land retained by Israel. Could more ideological, well-armed settlers be evacuated, too?
Ziv said, I expect it will be harder.
The people would have weapons and I hope they will not use them against their own
soldiers, he said.

A Palestinian man walks on what was Gush Qatif beach, where Jewish settlers ran a hotel, on Aug. 2. (Heidi
Levine/For The Washington Post)

Return to Gaza?
Recently the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies sponsored a poll that revealed

half of the Jewish Israelis thought Israeli civilians should return into the coastal strip.
The results surprised some of the researchers.
I thought it was a stupid act at the time, and I think so today, said Yaakov Amidror,
former national security adviser to the prime minister and the head of the National
Security Council, of the withdrawal.
But that doesnt mean we can go back to Gaza today, he said. We cannot
unscramble the eggs. I suggest we forgo this dream.
Eglash reported from Nitzan, Israel.
Posted by Thavam