[VTJP] Fw: The Israeli Left is opting for suicide; Yediot op-ed

[James M Leas]

Op Ed piece in Yediot Aharonot, Israeli's largest daily newspaper by Tanya 
Reinhart
 
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From: Tanya reinhart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:41:49 +0100
Subject: The Israeli Left is opting for suicide; Yediot op-ed
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  THE ISRAELI LEFT IS OPTING FOR SUICIDE 
  Tanya Reinhart 
  Yediot Aharonot, March 23, 2005. Translated from Hebrew by Mark 
  Marshall
  To judge by the political discourse, being a leftist today means 
  supporting Sharon. Even when his government decides yet again to postpone the 
  evacuation of the illegal outposts to an unknown future date, the pundits 
  explain that the mere fact that he even raised the matter for discussion in 
  the government is indicative of the seriousness of his intentions. Sharon will 
  evacuate Gaza first, they say, and afterwards the outposts, and in the end 
  maybe even the West Bank. And those who most believe that  Sharon will 
  dismantle settlements are the parties of the Left. On what basis? 
  Sharon is known as a man who has not always told the truth. At the time of 
  the Lebanon war, he succeeded in concealing his plan even from the then-Prime 
  Minister, Menachem Begin. He has no problem making promises and then not 
  fulfilling. For three years now he has been promising the US that he will 
  immediately evacuate at least the outposts that were created 
  during his current term as Prime Minister. So what? - He can always propose a 
  new commitment that would 
  postpone the realization of the previous one. Why should the Gaza 
  “Disengagement” be any different? The answer that the Right and the Left agree 
  on is that this time Sharon has changed. That is an interesting answer in the 
  realm of psychology. But what confirmation does it have in the realm of facts? 
  It is much easier at the present to imagine many scenarios in which there will 
  not be any evacuation of settlements in July, than the one in which there will 
  be an evacuation. 
  Let’s take for example the problem of the evacuees. That is a real 
  problem. The Gaza Strip settlers went there at the behest of the Israeli 
  government. They must be compensated for this dreadful idiocy, to allow them 
  to rebuild their lives. A government that really wanted to evacuate them would 
  have already given them the compensation, so they could leave before the 
  evacuation. In the evacuation of Yamit, in 1982, the overwhelming majority of 
  the residents were compensated and left before the evacuation. Those who were 
  present in the confrontation on the scene were settler activists from the 
  outside, with whom it is easier to deal than with families actually living 
  there. According to Yonatan Bassi, head of the Disengagement Administration, 
  over half of the present Gaza Strip settlers have already expressed their 
  willingness to leave (1). So why doesn’t Sharon facilitate their immediate 
  departure? Could it be that he wants the photographs of the first attempt to 
  evacuate them to show us entire families with their children, whose world has 
  been destroyed, so that we will understand through empathy that it is simply 
  impossible to evacuate? 
  And why this foot-dragging over the Budget? What the right-wing opponents 
  of the Budget are demanding is a referendum. The mainstream of the settlers 
  camp is not interested in a complete break with Israeli society. Their leaders 
  are saying that they will be ready to accept the decision, but only if it is 
  proven clearly that it is the will of the majority. The Likud rebels of course 
  have their own agenda, which they hitch to this demand. But precisely on this 
  issue, it is a simple matter to call their bluff by giving them what they 
  demand. According to all the polls, there is a decisive and stable majority of 
  60%-70% in favour of the evacuation of Gaza. Even in the poll taken a couple 
  of days after the terror attack at the Stage Club in Tel Aviv, 66% said they 
  would have voted “yes” for the plan, had a referendum taken place that day 
  (2). The disengagement will pass in a referendum. That is clear even to the 
  Right. Why then does Sharon oppose it? Perhaps he does not really want the 
  settlers to compromise and accept the will of the majority? Maybe he is afraid 
  that if the evacuation decision passes in the referendum it will have to be 
  actually carried out sooner or later? 
  All there is, then, is the faith that Sharon has changed. In its name, all 
  the parties of the Left are obediently lined up behind him. Not only the 
  Labour, which would be probably willing to sit in any government, even one 
  headed by “Gandhi”*; but also Yahad and Hadash**. Sharon is submitting for 
  approval a budget of plunder and robbery, that cuts further the surviving 
  remnants of public services, and all the left-wing parties have to say is that 
  we have to help him to pass it, because he said that he will evacuate 
  settlements. 
   
  Of the 100,000 people who showed up for the demonstration of the Left 
  parties a year ago, that demanded a pullout from Gaza, 90,000 stayed home in 
  this week’s demonstration.  Could it be that many of them feel in their 
  heart of hearts that they are being deceived? The Israeli Left chose to commit 
  suicide. It is no longer beholden to its voters. It is beholden only to 
  Sharon.
  * “Gandhi” is the peculiar nickname in Israel of Rehavam Ze’evi, a former 
  general and politician who was assassinated in 2001 while serving as Israel’s 
  Minister of Tourism. He had a reputation as an extreme nationalist and 
  anti-Arab chauvinist who openly supported transfer. The present Sharon- Labour 
  government decided lately to establish a national memorial day for him, 
  similar to that of Rabin. [M.M] ] 
  ** Yahad is a moderate Zionist party headed by Yossi Beilin. It supports a 
  two-state solution.  Hadash is the Israeli Communist Party, headed by 
  Muhammad Barakeh. It is a non-Zionist Jewish/Arab party. [M.M]
  ========== 
  (1) “Some 800 of the 1,700 families living in Gush Katif and northern 
  Samaria have already expressed willingness in principle to leave their homes 
  under the disengagement plan and negotiate over financial compensation, 
  according to Yonatan Bassi, who heads the disengagement administration. Of the 
  remaining 900 families, he believed …[only] 300 families, the hard core of 
  settlers opposed to the evacuation, would refuse to leave of their own accord” 
  (Gideon Alon, Ha’aretz, March 2, 2005). 
  There is ample information in the Israeli media regarding the frustration 
  of the Gaza Strip settlers, who feel that the government is leaving them in 
  the dark. Alex Fishman interviewed Itzick Ilia, deputy Mayor of the regional 
  council of the Gaza Strip settlements, who says he represents between 70 and 
  80 percents of the settlers who are willing to leave. He reports a meeting 
  where “people poured out their problems… People cried and shouted. No one 
  talks to them. There is some new law that appeared in the internet, but people 
  don’t even know what exactly are their compensation rights” (Yediot 
  Aharonot, Weekend Supplement, March 18, 2003).
  (2) Sima Kadmon, Yediot Aharonot, Weekend Supplement, March 4, 
  2005, (Mina Zemach’s “Dahaf”’ 
  poll).
  http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart







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