Last night, the deadline for Jewish settlers to leave Gaza voluntarily was crossed. The head of Israel’s military in Gaza, Brig Gen Dan Harel, said force will not be used to evict settlers until Wednesday morning at the earliest. I think the army itself is working on a tight, but unpublicised deadline. It’s obvious that all settlements have to be cleared by Friday. Any action during the Sabbath period could invite violence from settlers who have so far, chosen to remain.
Meanwhile, Hamas and the PLO are trying to outshout one another on just who was responsible for the Israeli withdrawal. Both echo the same line: “Gaza today, Jerusalem tomorrow.” They need to accumulate as much political capital as possible in the run-up to Palestinian elections that might well define the region’s geo-political character for the next ten to twenty years. So far, frighteningly, it is the militant groups who are winning. The grassroots draw a parallel between Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. They see an Israel fleeing because of suicide bombs. The incentive for violence has just been pumped up tenfold.
Israel faces mortal danger. But Ariel Sharon was an army general. He is a strategist, first and foremost. Within his unilateral pullout plan might lie plans within plans. Like his old friend, Ehud Olmert, he believes that Israel is similarly threatened by the demographics of retaining Arab-dominated Gaza. It is a matter of weighing between two evils. The subdued, politically-correct statements that have come out of Sharon’s and Olmert’s mouths, coupled with occasional flashes of the pullout’s true intentions, testifies that Israel’s ruling elite knows what it’s doing and the consequences of it.
But I am not sure that Israel will be safe from terrorism in the immediate future.
I don’t agree with building settlements- deliberately called kibbutzim to evoke a kind of religious legitamacy- on the Occupied Territories. Yes, Israel annexed the lands after fighing a war that the Arabs initiated, but displacing tens of thousands of natives from their homeland, and then banning them from returning is plain terrible. It is a human issue, not a political one, as some in the Likud would like it to be.
Nonetheless, I fear too Hamas’ overriding charter; which is to erase Israel from the planet’s surface. Like most militant groups, Hamas overtures to truce and temporary peace are simply steps in reaching their most cherished goal.
Israel has taken a significant step back from the brink. Will the Palestinians move next?
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