Disengagement primer

I have been following the coverage of the Disengagement of Israeli settlers from Gaza and have noted some misconceptions and false information. Here is a summary:
- The Gaza strip came under Israeli control as a result of the 1967 Six Day war that was forced on Israel by the belligerence of Egypt and its allies, Jordan and Syria.
- Gaza was not in fact "Palestinian land" but was occupied by Egypt, that then passed to Israeli control. It has never been under recognized Palestinian sovereignty.
- Since the area was captured in a defensive war and Israel had a legitimate claim to the territory it was legitimate for Israel to settle its citizens on that territory.
- This pullout is not the first time that Israel has transferred control of land to the Palestine Authority, in fact all the areas controlled by the PA, including the 80% of Gaza that it already controls, were transferred to the PA by Israel under the Oslo Accords.
- The 20% of Gaza controlled by Israel, that is now being unilaterally relinquished, was agreed to by the PA as part of the Oslo accords.
- Several of the settlements, such as Kfar Darom, were built on Jewish owned land before the war of independence, 1948.
- The areas on which the settlements were built were barren lands, no Palestinians were displaced to establish the settlements. In fact, the Palestinians did not believe that anything could be grown on these lands.
- The settlers established mainly hot houses and grew annual crops of vegetables and flowers worth hundreds of millions of dollars, by the sweat of their brow!
- m$14 has been raised (including from Jewish businessmen) to buy the hot houses for the Palestinians. It remains to be seen if they can make a go of it.
- Although Israel was prepared to transfer the housing to the PA, they want to destroy all the housing and use the rubble to build denser housing for their own people.
- The removal of settlers is being carried out with a minimum of violence and a maximum of compassion by the IDF and Israeli police.
- Most of the violence that has occurred is due to outside young infiltrators who do not belong in Gaza. So far one young woman set herself on fire at a check point outside Gaza and one policewoman has been stabbed.
- PM Sharon went on TV and in a long address declared his compassion for the settlers and for their sacrifice.
- The only reason the Oslo process was halted was because the PA under Yasir Arafat launched a war of terrorism against Israel starting in 2000.
- Israel is under no obligation to relinquish more territories, including the West Bank and Jerusalem, unless it does so as a result of a negotiation under the so-called Road Map plan.
- The first stage of the Road Map from the Palestinian side is to stop terrorism and destroy the infrastructure of the terrorist organizations. Failure to do so will prevent the peace process from proceeding.
I believe it is unprecedented for a country that gained territory in a defensive war to unilaterally give up some of that territory in the cause of peace. Israel should be commended for its actions and the onus should now be on the Palestinians to respond in kind.
Notwithstanding all the criticism of this policy, the fabric of the nation has held and Israeli democracy has shown its resiliency.