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P. David Hornik P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Jerusalem whose work has appeared in many Israeli, Jewish, and political publications. Reach him at:
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By P. David Hornik
October 27, 2004
Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times last Sunday:
Mr. Sharon, a man of the right, has finally realized the demographic threat posed by Gaza to Israel and wants to get out. He is being opposed by the Israeli far right -- the Jewish Hezbollah. This includes settler rabbis who have urged soldiers to disobey orders and, with winks and nods, have let it be known that if someone were to eliminate Ariel Sharon he would be acting out God's will. In this struggle between Jewish fanatics and Ariel Sharon, we must stand with Mr. Sharon. These settler rabbis are a blot on the Jewish people.
And a day later William Safire had this to say:
But now, the great majority of Israelis and Americans are behind Sharon's decision to pull 7,000 settlers out of Gaza. Because a zealous Jewish minority opposes giving up an inch of revered land, Israel is under great internal strain. Some rabbis are urging soldiers to disobey orders, tearing at the fabric of a Jewish state. Israel needs an ally, not a broker.
These gentlemen are entitled to their views, but they should get their facts straight. As an opponent of disengagement, according to Friedman, I should be signing up at my local Hizbullah office. Perhaps Jews were behind 9/11 after all? And Safire's "zealous Jewish minority" was found in one recent poll to comprise 44% of the population. True, the opponents of disengagement include Land of Israel purists who are against giving up land in principle. The opponents also include some genuinely fanatic and dangerous people -- just as the proponents of disengagement include people who itch to reduce Israel to indefensible borders or to dissolve it altogether into a "binational" state.
Most of the opponents, however, are people who think this is the wrong move at the wrong time in terms of security and the message it gives to Israel's jihadi enemies, and that the idea of "disengagement" is a sham if one leaves behind a Gaza teeming with terrorists and long-range artillery.
It is interesting, however, to consider the situation in reverse. Let's say that about a million Jews live in an area that also happens to be of historical and religious importance to Muslim Arabs. Mainly for that reason, a population of about eight thousand Muslim Arabs also live there. The Jews in this area of land find this intolerable and are driven to murderous passion by the sight of the Arabs' communities. In an attempt to force them to leave, they bombard them ceaselessly with mortars and missiles, blow up their school buses, invade their communities with knives and axes and guns.
Who, in this situation, would be considered the "zealots" and "fanatics"? Yet in the actual situation in Gaza, the Jews who merely want to live in the area are considered the fanatics while their attackers are more or less accepted as a fact of life, if not cheered by their admirers on the Left and in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Messrs. Friedman and Safire should at least appreciate this point: the belief that Jews should be allowed to live in Gaza does not entail the belief that Israel should have permanent sovereignty over the Strip. Some opponents of disengagement -- reportedly including Finance Minister Netanyahu -- believe Israel should eventually incorporate only the Gush Katif settlement bloc while ceding the rest of the land to the Arabs. Some believe Israel should wait for a genuine, meaningful peace agreement in which, whatever the ultimate political disposition of the Strip, the presence there of a tiny Jewish minority would not be considered objectionable. And some opponents of disengagement would countenance an eventual evacuation of the settlers in return for genuine guarantees of peace.
At any rate, those who are comfortable with the idea of Jew-free Gaza can take heart in the disengagement plan's victory in the Israeli Knesset. The future of the plan is still murky with Netanyahu, other Likud ministers, and the National Religious Party giving Sharon an ultimatum to hold a national referendum on the plan or witness the likely collapse of his government.
But we should be clear about what has happened here and call things by their right names. The reason the settlers are supposed to be evacuated is that they are under constant attack, and Sharon apparently feels that defending them is too much of a burden for the IDF. If the settlers were being allowed to do what they want -- live peacefully in an area rich in Jewish associations -- they would not be seen as constituting any sort of problem and their communities would not be slated for destruction.
In other words, a prospective evacuation will be a victory for Muslim-Arab hatred, intolerance, terror, zealotry, and fanaticism.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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