Friday, August 10, 2007

Disengagement - two years later

Another scandal - and there are too many of them - in Israel today is the treatment of the evacuees (or expelees) from Gaza. The members of Gush Kativ were forced out by the IDF in 2005 with peaceful resistance (although later there was violence at several expulsions, for example at Homesh and Hebron recently). But, residents of several of the Gaza settlements signed agreements in advance to go quietly and did so. However, all of them, the 7,500 or so former Gaza residents are still mostly unresettled after 2 years since their removal.
How is it that after all the promises, all the money spent and all the demonstrations and agreements, that 2/3 of the former residents of Gaza are not settled in permanent homes, do not have jobs and are without compensation. After the intial false start the Govt. empowered an organization named Sela to deal with the settlers and to satisfy their needs. However, very little has been done, those who were moved temporarily to caravillas, being small houses about 1/4 the size of a regular house, are still in these little constructions, usually without a/c in the intense heat.
Most of the Gaza settlers were successful farmers. The Govt. undertook to find them equal or nearly farms and fields. However, last year the crop failed in most cases. In a settlement near Ashkelon, the Govt. forgot to instal drainage so the irrigation caused flooding and all the crops were killed. Many people have not been given compensation by the Govt. for the value of the homes and land they were forced off, mainly because of bureaucratic hurdles. But, you can never trust the Govt. either because of policy or incompetence.
Now I don't know about you, but if I were a supporter of "disengagement," as it was euphemistically called, I would have tried very hard to make sure that those who suffered the results of this policy would be kept happy, because from now on noone will agree to be moved for political reasons because they know they won't be compensated as they are promised. People bought land there and settled there under Govts. that encouraged them, Govts often led by such reliable people as Ariel Sharon. But, noone predicted his 180 degree turnaround, and for what, so that he could save his reputation from being the "butcher of Sabra and Shatilla," which was an unjustified calumny. Even though he was dismissed from his position as Defense Minister at the time since he was in charge of the area where the massacre occured in 1982, it was not carried out by Israeli troops but by Christian militiamen. It was the international media more that anything that in their bias against Israel made Sharon a figure of hatred. So the settlers of Gaza had to suffer so that he could try to redeem himself, and it worked. Noone calls him that anymore, since he showed that he could be as anti-Israel as any respected leftist. But, the people he and Olmert had forcibly removed are still suffering for his sins.
So what will happen to these poor people, living in temporary accomodations after 2 years, some without jobs and without incomes and with small children, because the Govt. of Israel decided that to accomodate the Palestinians we should forcibly remove these Israeli settlers. And what did we get for it, more terrorism and a constant barrage of rockets from the very land that was evacuated. Never again!
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Note that I'll be on vacation again for a short time.

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