By Dr. Aaron Lerner
April 4, 2008
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The idea behind the evacuation compensation law is far more sinister than simply to divide and conquer the settlers by offering them financial incentives to leave their homes.
An offer of compensation, it should be emphasized, before negotiations with the Palestinians are completed and the resulting agreement is approved by the Knesset and whatever other democratic procedures are established for confirming such a deal - should it ever be reached (for example, a national referendum).
But the idea of the evacuation compensation law goes far beyond just trying to preempt the democratic process.
Its aim is to delegitimize those who remain even more than encourage those who may leave and in turn justify abandoning them.
"The State is willing to pay them to leave, why should our sons risk heir lives protecting the crazy ideologues who insist on staying?" the mantra will go - repeated time and again by the broadcast and print media.
And security will, indeed, be slashed, with an eye towards making life so precarious that most residents ultimately flee for their lives.
Will this program succeed?
It is far from clear that an evacuation compensation law can pass the Knesset.
Promoting security deterioration is also hardly a certain formula for destroying the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. At the start of Oslo, Shimon Peres explained that the settlers would only be a problem in the short run. The expectation that the settlers would run for their lives has not, however, panned out and in fact Jewish population growth rates in Judea and Samaria have consistently outstripped most areas within the Green Line.
Trying to pre-empt the democratic decision making process via the enactment of an evacuation compensation law may please Washington, and it certainly can be a vehicle for increasing animosity against communities targeted for abandonment.
But a simple word of caution to the proponents of the legislation is in order: For over a decade you failed miserably in predicting the consequences of the policies you have advocated. There is no reason to expect your analytical skills to be any better at predicting just how such a law, if indeed passed and implemented, would indeed play out.
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