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If 8,000 Arabs were forcibly evacuated from their homes by the Israeli government, the whole world would be up in arms. How can it possibly be that the Israeli government itself is planning to uproot, by force of arms, 8,000 law-abiding Jewish citizens from their own homes?
These citizens live on the Gaza strip. They’ve been there for 20 years. Their own government asked them to go there to live. The land was a desert when they found it. They brought in water and electricity. They endured terrorism in order to hold onto the land for themselves and for Israel. And now, after all that work, their own government is planning to force them to leave. The homes of the Israelis are to be turned over to the very terrorists who were killing them, for those terrorists to live in. This is not an exaggeration. It is anticipated that the literal terrorists who were killing citizens living in Gaza, will be living in the homes of the Israelis after evacuation.
Raphaella Segal, Speaking to a Group, Uses a Map to Illustrate a Point
In the past six weeks I have personally met and listened to Israeli government spokesman David Baker; Gaza resident Mr. Sody A. Naimer; Israeli citizen and Deputy Mayor of the city of Kedumim, Raphaella Segal; and numerous Americans who are very concerned about the planned evacuation.
No one can figure out what Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is thinking.
Israeli government spokesman David Baker would say only this: “8,000 Israelis in the middle of 1.3 million Arabs doesn’t work.” But look at the map:
Gaza is contiguous to Israel. It’s bounded on the west by the sea. How is it in the middle of 1.3 million Arabs? I’m really asking. Charles Krauthammer, with whom I almost always agree, argues:
The idea is this: Israel must (unilaterally, if necessary) rationalize its defensive lines—in order to (1) protect its citizens, (2) permanently defuse the Palestinian terror threat and thus (3) open the door to a final peace.
How can this possibly be considered a rationalization of the defensive lines? For military purposes it is the reverse. It gives the terrorists a convenient staging location for attacks into Israel. Looking at the map, it appears that the Gaza strip is outside the 1950 Armistice Line. So in that sense it might be considered “rationalizing” the lines. But that seems like faulty logic; what’s the benefit to Israel of recognizing an artificial border from 50 years ago, when it is at such cost to Israel’s own citizens, and at such great reward to the terrorists? The world will say—and will say correctly—that terrorism was successful in winning the Gaza strip for the terrorists. That killing children at bus stops worked.
No one seems to be able to understand why Sharon is doing it. From Daniel Pipes:
With the passage last week of a budget bill in Israel, the government of Ariel Sharon appears to be ready to remove more than 8,000 Israelis living in Gaza with force, if necessary.
In addition to the legal dubiousness of this step and its historical unprecedented nature (challenge to the reader: name another democracy that has forcibly removed thousands its own citizens from their lawful homes), the planned withdrawal of all Israeli installations from Gaza amounts to an act of monumental political folly.
It also comes as an astounding surprise. After the Oslo round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (1993-2001) ended in disaster, many Israelis looked back on Oslo’s faulty assumptions, their own naïveté, and resolved not to repeat that bitter experience. Israelis awoke from the delusion that giving the Palestinians land, money, and arms in return for airy-fairy and fraudulent promises would lessen Palestinian hostility. They realized that, to the contrary, this imbalance enhanced Palestinian rejection of the very existence of the Jewish state.
So… what’s Sharon thinking? This appears to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mysteries on earth at this time.
A woman at last night’s event, where Raphaella Segal spoke, observed that in World War II, Germany began by attacking its Jewish citizens, and moved on to attacking the whole world. She pointed out that the Intifada began in 1987, and was renewed in 2000; that the U.S. let it continue; and that terrorism directed against the U.S. increased tremendously during that same period, leading to 9-11. She has a point. The terrorists want to destroy Israel, and the U.S.
Terrorists must not be rewarded in any way, shape or form. It just encourages them. They must not be rewarded; they must be opposed, vigorously and decisively.
Click here to sign a petition opposing the forced evacuation of Israelis from their homes by their own government.
