“Disengagement” completed

Aug 23rd 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

After the clearance of Jewish settlers and protesters from Gaza, Israeli forces have now evacuated the last of four West Bank settlements also being abandoned. Ariel Sharon's “disengagement” plan has been completed

THERE were a few angry words and many tears. But there was no repeat of last week’s violent confrontations as Israeli troops moved in to remove settlers from Netzarim, the last of the 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip to be cleared, on Monday August 22nd. Whereas Israeli troops and police had to use riot shields and water cannon to remove anti-withdrawal protesters from the Kfar Darom settlement last Thursday, Netzarim’s residents had agreed to leave voluntarily. On Monday evening, Dan Harel, the military commander of the evacuation, announced that no Israeli civilians remained in Gaza.

Earlier that day, after prayers, Netzarim’s families had filed out of their synagogue towards the buses waiting to take them to Israel. In a last act of peaceful protest, they carried on their shoulders the synagogue’s menorah (sacred candelabra). The symbolism of this should have been clear to all Israelis: it re-enacted the scene depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome, in which Roman soldiers triumphantly carry off the menorah of Jerusalem’s temple after destroying the city, in 70AD, to crush the Great Jewish Revolt against imperial rule.

With Gaza’s settlers gone, demolition crews with heavy equipment have moved in to begin tearing down their homes. It will take perhaps another month before the Israelis have completed the demolition of the settlements (and military bases) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) can take control of all of the strip’s land. At the weekend, Mahmoud Abbas, the PA’s president, laid out plans for the redevelopment of the strip once the Israelis have gone—including thousands of new apartments on the site of the Morag settlement and a new seaport alongside what is now Netzarim. The plans will depend, of course, on international aid—and on the PA’s ability to maintain order in Gaza once it takes charge.

Gaza’s Palestinian majority will have been especially relieved to see the last Jewish families leave Netzarim. This settlement was particularly resented because it almost cut the strip in two, restricting Palestinians’ freedom of movement as well as keeping some of their farmers from their land. On Saturday, Hamas, the largest Palestinian militant group in Gaza, repeated its claim that it has driven the Israelis out of the strip through its campaign of violent “resistance”—and it pledged to fight on and drive Israel out of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
However, a shaky truce agreed between the PA and militant groups earlier this year has continued to hold. Apart from a few minor incidents, the militants have held back from firing on Israeli troops and departing settlers.

Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was once a champion of the settlers, encouraging them to move into the lands captured by Israel in its 1967 war with its Arab neighbours. Now they and their supporters on Israel’s nationalist-religious right regard Mr Sharon as a traitor. Under his “disengagement” plan, Israel is abandoning all of the Gaza strip and evacuating four of the 120 settlements in the West Bank. To hardline opponents of the pull-out, Mr Sharon is abandoning parts of the Promised Land that God gave to the Jews, a tragedy on a par with the Romans’ sacking of Jerusalem or the Nazi Holocaust. Other Israelis simply fret that Gaza is being given away with no Palestinian concessions in return.

However, a majority of Israelis continue to support the withdrawal, even though they wonder whether it will make them much safer or bring peace nearer. Since the Gaza settlements began, Israel has paid a high financial and military price to protect the 8,000 or so Jews in their enclaves, surrounded by 1.3m angry and frustrated Palestinians. Now some Israelis hope—and many Palestinians fear—that by abandoning Gaza, Israel will be able to strengthen its grip on the much larger settlements in the West Bank.

In a summit with George Bush last year, Mr Sharon won the American president’s public backing for Israel’s desire to keep forever the most heavily populated West Bank settlements. The Palestinians will, of course, resist this fiercely. Likewise, the Israeli settler movement and its supporters will fight moves to give up any more of the West Bank settlement blocks.

On Tuesday, the Israeli security forces dragged out the remaining anti-withdrawal protesters in Sanur and Homesh, the last of the four West Bank settlements due for evacuation under the current disengagement plan. There had been fears that protesters, having failed to stop the Gaza evacuations, would re-group for a last-ditch battle over the two West Bank outposts, which have rather stronger biblical credentials than Gaza—they overlook the valley where, according to the Book of Genesis, Joseph (he of the coat of many colours) was sold into slavery by his brothers. But though the security forces once again had everything from paint to eggs hurled at them, nothing could stop them from methodically carrying off the protesters, just as they had done in Gaza. By the afternoon, with the police declaring the operation completed, there had been no reports of serious injuries.

The abandonment of Gaza and some small chunks of the West Bank, after 38 years of occupation, has been a wrenching experience for Israel. But it has so far proved less traumatic than might have been feared. Little blood was spilled; the Jewish state did not fall apart; and the rule of law prevailed in the end.

Those who see Mr Sharon as a betrayer—including many in his own Likud party—will no doubt be plotting their revenge. The pull-out's opponents will be hoping that the rowdy scenes from the settlements, shown endlessly on television for the past week or so, will discourage future Israeli governments from contemplating any broader retreat from the West Bank. But some other Israelis—and of course the Palestinians—will hope that an important precedent has been set.

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