In 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza, removing its settlements and soldiers from the territory.
Since then, Hamas has taken control of the Strip, prompting regular fighting between Gaza terrorists and the Israeli army in which thousands of Israelis and Gaza Palestinians have been either killed or maimed. In 2006, Hamas kidnapped Gilad Shalit and the poor guy spent five years in captivity in Gaza.
The Israelis who were evacuated from Gaza in 2005 were treated shoddily by successive Israeli governments, with a 2010 Israeli report slamming the “absolute and complete failure” of successive administrations to look after them, instead turning them into “refugees in their own country”.
Meanwhile, Israel’s image has not benefited at all from the disengagement. Global hostility towards the Jewish state is far higher now than it was seven years ago.
Do you think the disengagement from Gaza was a mistake? If not, why not?
The “disengagement” (called more properly, the forced evacuation of its own citizens by Israel – well, that’s the nice way of saying it) was a HUGE mistake. Every intelligent person who has paid any attention to Arab terrorism in the past 60 years, knew EXACTLY what would happen, and it did and has continued since 2005.
Interesting true story – when Israelis first went to Gaza to begin creating communities there, the local Arabs laughed and said it couldn’t be done – after all, THEY had not been able to grow anything on the sand. But Israeli/Jewish towns & villages grew and were beautiful with flowers & trees and even GRASS growing. They developed agricultural projects and more. When the Jews of Gush Katif & other Israeli areas of Gaza left, the local Arabs were offered, FREE OF CHARGE, greenhouses which contained hydroponicly-grown produce, read to continue, harvest & sell. But the local Arabs DESTROYED the greenhouses saying they would NEVER work with, live in, accept anything created by Jews.
The envy of the Jews has basically eaten them alive… and their response has been to do all they can to now not only destroy what Israelis have built but also destroy the Israeli people…
And where do they think they’ll get their electricity, clean water, telephone service, etc. if that happens????
Was it Sharon’s way of distracting from legal problems? Did he and others in power really think it would work….who knows? We can only judge by results. Many on both sides have lost their lives, some their homes and livelihoods. Land for peace? Really?
I got to the stage ages ago where i think any yielding of ISRAELI land to jihadists is a bad mistake. It was very cruel what they did to the people of Gush Katif, and anyone who knows anything about Islam would not have contemplated it for a moment. It is very difficult to operate in Israel with all the pressures but the govt needs to be able to acknowledge and act on certain basic facts, that gtheir country is always under attack, that their enemies are Islamic and therefore act under different rules, and they do not respect “nice”.
This might also help the few Palis who do want normal lives.
meanwhile, an interview from an Isralei musician about life with the rockets.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=435885396464971
I should clarify – when I say that their enemies – and ours really, Islam is the enemy of Western civilisation – do not respecxt “nice” I do not mean that every single Pali who lives in Israel should be expelled, though it often seems that way.
But there are too many military dangers that are treated with shocking leninecy, eg the huge numbers of Western propaganda artists, media, and Hamas groupies that are given far too much freedom to damage the country while adopting the Privilege of entering it.
Difficult one. But now Israel can pound Gaza without mercy and even to invade if necessary and if you have strong government that not taking orders from Obama.
which was exactly what Sharon’s purpose and promise was, but Hamas, being blind fanatics, chose to interpret that as indication that a constant, low grade war against Israel would ultimately make them victors and all Jews the vanquished. What beggars belief is the lies about the rockets Hamas has fired since the withdrawal being about the blockade (the consequence of the rocket attacks and other acts of war like the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit) that people credulously swallow from apologists for Hamas / the Islamist cause
I still think, despite everything that has happened since then, that it was a good idea. Israelis living in Gaza would be sitting ducks for the attacks. I think Sharon was trying to pull Israelis back behind defensible borders. Given everything–what would be happening now if Israelis still lived in the strip?
Makabit is certainly right. In the last years of Gush Katif, Hamas’ favourite modus operandi, or at least one of them, was attacks on school buses. There’s little in the way of terrorism that carries a greater emotional charge than attacks on children, and it’s a policy that Hamas has diligently followed since the Israeli pullout, not only with its relatively recent attack on a school bus using a Kornet missile but with the consistent timing of its rocket attacks for whenever the kids of Sderot and other towns nearby were on their way to and from school, the times when they are most vulnerable. Perhaps our political leaders and international charities would be less anti-Israel if that were the image of Hamas that they are most often confronted with. Given Hamas’ commitment to genocide in its Charter, short of Israel stooping to Hamas’ level by threatening genocide and using the means at its disposal to have a go at it every few days (I think that’s what one might call a “proportionate” response), separation of the populations would appear to be prudent. What is essential is that it should be done on Israel’s terms. It is better to change the landscape than to be pushed up against a wall in negotiations with Obama “having their back”, as reported, “holding them back”, had it been reported with greater accuracy. If Abbas / Hamas then behave responsibly, good – Israel has no demands on them. If not, let them take the consequences.
This comments thread is, I’m sorry, even sad, to say, ahistorical. Over 50 years ago, I asked my history teacher whether [agent of a Middle European 19th Century royal ruler] honestly believed that people could be held down forever. His answer, at some length – which flattered the question and questioner – was no.
That’s why Sharon pulled out of Gaza. The price would be lower, in the long run, than staying. The question should be “how can Israel ensure that Hamas keeps its rockets to itself?” Part of the answer is not, if possible, by putting the lives of yet more young, very able, Israelis at risk by going in for house-to-house street clearing to destroy Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.
The answer is to get the US to put pressure on Egypt (which wants the US’s and the IMF’s and the EU’s money for its fractured economy) to do the job for it. And a significant number of Israeli commentators (and others with Israel’s interests at heart) are saying that this is what the Israelis have pulled off; or at least have started to pull off. Look at The Tablet; The Commentator; Israel Hayom; The Times of Israel; Forward; even Foreign Affairs (all available online).
I was (as someone with friends and relatives in Israel, some of them of reserve age) all set for a ground incursion as the follow up to the arial hammering Hamas had taken. That said, I’m relieved that the cease fire appears to be holding. It may well be that the same scenario operates for Hamas as for Hezbollah. Nasrallah is on the record as saying, after the 2006 war, that had he known how hard Israel would retaliate, he wouldn’t have started the process. Having lost a huge amount of their munitions/rockets and numerous people and buildings, it’s possible that Hamas feels the same, despite the rhetoric.
Give the Israeli government, intelligence and military sone credit for knowing what their doing.
The price would be lower, in the long run, than staying.
We’ll wait and see about the long run but in the short-term the price is certainly higher. I don’t have statistics for how many Gazans and Israelis died in the seven years preceeding the disengagement but I am almost certain the figure will be considerably lower than that for the seven years since the disengagement, particularly on the Gazan side.
I hope you are right about the ceasefire and the issues surrounding it. Several Israeli sources are suggesting the ceasefire was only agreed by Israel because Egpyt and Jordan were threatening to cancel their peace treaties with Israel.
I doubt Sharon’s first concern was loss of life on the other side of the border, whether or not he could fully appreciate just how nihilistic a movement the MB/Hamas is.
Israeli governments are not noted for having too many joined up brain cells but the Gaza pull out was a master stroke.
rz your brain cells has died long ago it must be for trolling on number of blogs
Yawn
The beauty about the Gaza disengagement is that there will be no disengagement from Judea and Samaria, never mind the Golan. Provided Israel eventually retakes Gaza and drives out the terrorists and their families, possibly creating a coexistence-oriented Arab-majority province, then the whole exercise and all the sacrifices will have been worth it.