The Israeli
Left Is Opting For Suicide
By Tanya Reinhart
27 March, 2005
Yediot Aharonot
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.
Lets 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
doesnt 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 weeks
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 Zeevi, a former
general and politician who was assassinated in 2001 while serving as
Israels 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, Haaretz, March 2, 2005).
(2)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 dont even know what exactly
are their compensation rights (Yediot Aharonot, Weekend Supplement,
March 18, 2003).
Translated from
Hebrew by Mark Marshall
http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart