Exodus From Gaza

Peloni:  It is hard to forget the day when the policy of abandonment and betrayal known as the Disengagement was set in place in 2005, when Jews would force Jewish lands of Gaza to be made Judenrein.  It was like losing sight in one eye, or having the stability afforded by two legs ripped out from below, but in truth, the loss which penetrated the Jewish psyche that day was so much more pervasive, perfidious, and painful, because it was intended that this legacy of loss and betrayal would be cast down thru the ages in perpetuity, an ever present betrayal to be handed down from generation to generation.  Today, some twenty years after that betrayal began, we stand at a point of perhaps repairing what was broken, of making Gaza Jewish again, of breaking the sense of legitimacy which makes Jews pariahs in their own lands, of ending the policy of Judenrein territory with Jewish compliance in the Jewish state.  Is this the path which will be followed in the days of the Day After policy, or will the Day After simply be a new rehearsal of the abandonment and betrayal which began in August 2005…

Tom Gross

A Jewish woman weeps as Israeli soldiers surround the settlement of Neve Dekalim, in southern Gaza, on August 18, 2005, and prepare to move in. Even those Israelis who strongly backed the plan were greatly saddened to see Jews dragged from their homes. The leftist novelist David Grossman wrote in Ha’aretz: “These are days of mourning for all Israelis. We can mourn today for the passion, the pioneering spirit, the purposefulness that for years pulsed through Gush Katif and which will soon dissipate like smoke, and for the fabric of life there that will be shredded come tomorrow.”

JEWS have lived on and off in Gaza for millennia, long before Islam or Christianity were founded, and for many centuries before the concept of a Palestinian nation was born. In the past, others have driven Jews out of this strip of land that hugs the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. But in August 2005, in a period of just seven days, 21 Jewish communities were forcibly removed by their own government, as Israel became the first country in modern history to relinquish land acquired in a defensive war to an enemy that had not yet made peace with it.

It was the Israeli army’s largest ever non-combat operation, involving 45,000 soldiers and policemen. Most of the world welcomed the unilateral withdrawal. Israelis were evenly divided: on the eve of the pullout a Tel Aviv University poll showed 48 percent of Israelis supported the plan, hoping that it would improve the life of Palestinians and lead to an end, or at least to a sharp drop, in acts of violence and the daily outpouring of genocidal propaganda in Palestinian society directed towards Jews.

Virtually not a single Jewish resident of Gaza left voluntarily. Many had to be carried out by soldiers and police. In some cases water cannon and batons were used, but there was no serious violence. After the residents had gone, the Israeli army, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, destroyed the settlements, leaving only the synagogues, which it was hoped the Palestinians would respect. On September 12, 2005, the last Israeli soldier left Gaza, and it took just 15 minutes for the first abandoned synagogue to be set alight.

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