ISRAEL-GAZA/DISENGAGEMENT Shadow of Israel's pullout from Gaza hangs heavy 10 years on

Record ID: 144085

  • Title: ISRAEL-GAZA/DISENGAGEMENT Shadow of Israel's pullout from Gaza hangs heavy 10 years on
  • Date: 12th August 2015
  • Summary: KISSUFIM CROSSING, BETWEEN ISRAEL AND GAZA (FILE - SEPTEMBER 11-12, 2005) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) COLUMN OF ISRAELI TANKS LEAVING GAZA KISSUFIM CROSSING, BETWEEN ISRAEL AND GAZA (FILE - SEPTEMBER 12, 2005) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) ISRAELI SOLDIERS CLOSING GAZA GATE AFTER ALL ISRAELI FORCES LEFT THE STRIP FORMER ELEY SINAY SETTLEMENT, GAZA STRIP (FILE - SEPTEMBER 12, 2005) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) PALESTINIAN BULLDOZER DEMOLISHING SETTLERS HOME PALESTINIAN STOMPING ON ISRAELI FLAG PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS PLANTING PALESTINIAN FLAG IN GROUND WHERE SETTLEMENT USED TO STAND
  • Embargoed: 27th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACX43TQWCV29G78X36QFFY1G7P
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS VIDEO WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    A decade on from Israel's unilateral withdrawal of around 8,500 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, the legacy of that August 2005 "disengagement" is decidedly less rosy, its fallout provoking angry debate in Israeli society to this day.
    With four wars fought and thousands of rockets from Gaza having rained down on Israel since 2005, the pullout has put a peace deal with the Palestinians even further out of reach.
    It would, said then prime minister Ariel Sharon, a former major-general not given to self-doubt, "grant Israeli citizens the maximum level of security". Other optimists said it would turn Gaza into the Hong Kong of the Middle East.
    Sharon, then 76, suffered a stroke and fell into a coma less than five months after the withdrawal. He died eight years later, having never regained consciousness, so that he never learned of the full consequences of his bold initiative.
    He believed it would fundamentally change Israel's security and the way the country was perceived by outsiders, ushering in an era in which land could be exchanged for peace, with the potential for a similar process in the occupied West Bank.
    Instead, Gaza was to fall into unrest and belligerence, becoming a daily reminder that separation from the territory did not remove responsibility for it or any impact from it.
    "I said okay, I am willing to give away my house but they should respect it and appreciate it. No one appreciated it, not in this country and not on the other side because instead of turning this beautiful site into something positive, positive industry or tourism because it is really a beautiful place, they turned it into Hamas training camps and a closer hostile point to this country," said Orit Mandel, a former Gaza settler.
    Four months after the pullout, the Islamist group Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian territories. A few months later, an Israeli soldier stationed on the Gaza border was kidnapped by Hamas militants, leading to a weeks-long Israeli military assault - Operation "Summer Rains". From Gaza, militants fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.
    "It was a very quick and hasty experience, to fix something problematic in an immoral way. You can't fix injustice by causing further injustice. They created a clearly immoral situation for thousands of people that lived in the place, invested (in it), built, grew, cultivated and loved, and they were uprooted. We were uprooted," said Kobi Borenstein, content manager of Gosh Katif museum.
    By the summer of 2007, Hamas had fought a civil war against the armed wing of the rival Fatah party and came out on top, seizing full control of Gaza. Rocket and mortar fire into Israel continued through 2008, leading to another war in December and January 2009 that left around 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead, the worst fighting in the area since 1967.
    Another war followed in 2012 and another in 2014 - the deadliest since the disengagement, with an estimated 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis killed. Critics pointed the finger at the 2005 pullout, while generals talked of how it might be necessary to "mow the lawn" in Gaza every couple of years.
    Gazans built a university on the rubbles of one of the evacuated Israeli settlements.
    Gaza lecturer, Kamal Altahrawi, said from the site where an Israeli settlement used to stand that Gazans are challenging their tough living situations.
    "This place was for killing Palestinians, anyone who got close to this place used to get killed by the Zionist oppressive regime. But now it turned into an academic institute that takes care of the minds of the Palestinian youth and their will that challenges the current siege," said Kamal Altahrawi.
    Of those who were withdrawn from Gaza, around 350 families remain without permanent housing, living in caravans or container-type homes on land to the north of the territory.
    While they received generous compensation for the upheaval, with larger families getting up to 2 million shekels ($500,000), they have been vociferous in their criticism of Sharon's decision, describing the withdrawal as a "national trauma".
    At the time, polls showed that around half of Israelis supported the move. But a recent survey by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies showed 63 percent now think it was a mistake. Nearly half now oppose any West Bank withdrawal.
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was Sharon's finance minister at the time, at first joined the cabinet in approving the disengagement. But on the eve of the withdrawal he resigned, a move that helped lay the ground for his eventual return for a second term as prime minister in 2009.
    Even current opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who supported the move at the time, finds it troubling now. Demographically, he says, it was the right thing to do, but "without a doubt, from a security perspective, the disengagement was a mistake," he told a right-wing conference last month.
    Economically, the disengagement was costly - the bill came to around 11 billion shekels (nearly $3 billion) - but Sharon maintained that the image of Israel in the world would improve as a result, and investment and trade would pick up.
    If uprooting 8,000 settlers from Gaza was hard, and had unexpected negative consequences, pulling 80,000 out of the West Bank could provoke insurrection, not to mention the collapse of the government. And there is no guarantee that it would lead to greater stability with the Palestinians.
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