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By Micah D. Halpern
December 28, 2004
Israelis want "the Gaza settlers" out. The only Israelis who don't seem to realize it are - "the Gaza settlers" themselves. Why? It's probably self-denial and self-deception, heaping portions in equal amounts.
For years, Israeli men and women were encouraged to uproot themselves from inner Israel and move to the Gaza Strip where they were thought of as heroes. They were the first line of defense for the mainland. They risked their lives and their careers to make the move and to stay in their new homes. They went there for ideological reasons and for political purposes.
But not now.
Leaving your home never sounds reasonable. But Israeli residents of Gaza are citizens of a country whose policy has changed. While Israel once strongly believed that their presence in Gaza was essential, now Israel believes that the situation has changed and it is wrong to continue there.
Yesterday's pioneers have turned into today's pariahs. Why? Because they just don't get it, they refuse to get it. They will not allow themselves to realize that Israel has turned 180 degrees on the issue of Gaza.
Those few who actually do get it, like the residents of Pa'at Sadeh, are thought of as turncoats and traitors by their once fellow Gazans, as practical and wise and even more heroic, by the rest of Israel.
This week Yonni Bassi, the head of Israel's Disengagement Authority, announced that the Gaza settlement of Pa'at Sadeh agreed, as a whole, to be relocated to an area near Ashkelon. Granted, Pa'at Sadeh is a settlement with only 20 families, but that is how the process begins. The government will soon be voting on the terms of the relocation and these settlers will be the recipients of "the early bird special."
What is motivating these settlers to leave? The residents of this settlement are 100% not religious. By leaving now they will receive a monetary settlement and their industry will be relocated with them on their new home site. Now that the first steps have been taken, even religious settlers will begin to break ranks, leave their homes voluntarily and take the deal offered them.
Here's where the problem begins: self-perception. Gaza settler education has always found its basis in the perpetuation of the identity of Gaza's residents as pioneers and heroes, the people who put their own lives at risk by living in harmâ??s way in order to better protect greater Israel. An entire belief system was predicated on this self-perception. But now, for most of Israel, all that has changed and "the Gaza settlers" cannot believe that the rest of Israel wants them out. They just cannot believe it.
As a result, "the Gaza settlers" have become totally out of touch with mainstream Israeli thinking. They take actions and make decisions that totally miscalculate Israeli reaction, because they totally misunderstand how Israel now perceives them.
Still thinking of themselves as pioneers, the men and women of Gaza thought they could sway the voting public in their direction by playing the "pioneer card." They were wrong. By aggressively playing that card, they further alienated themselves from the voters of Israel.
And then they broke the hearts of Israel.
In a public relations stunt that backfired, "the Gaza settlers" called on all Israelis to wear a Star of David, not a proud blue and white star like the star that adorns the Israeli flag, but an "orange star" symbolic of the Holocaust. The pioneers now thought to transform themselves into victims, drawing the parallel between their lives as Israelis being relocated and the victims of Hitler's mass murders.
What the settlers cannot see is that that even those other Israelis who would side with them and who do disagree with the government's decision to relocate Jews from anywhere in Israel would be appalled by such a parallel.
No doubt relocation was one of the stages of Hitler's murder process and another was wearing the Jewish Star, but few Israelis would take kindly to the extension of that metaphor. To equate the democratically elected and representative government of Israel with Nazi behavior was stepping way over the line.
Even then, the abuse of the Holocaust was far less disconcerting for Israelis than the exaggeration and the total lack of perspective. It suggested that those who might disagree with them are - Nazis.
It's become a true contest, an "us" versus "them." As time goes on, misunderstandings become greater. Some Israelis are even saying that the government should let "the Gaza settlers" stay there after the handover if they like it so much. But that, too, is an exaggeration.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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