Most Israelis relieved at pullout
Reuters
Date: 09-12-05
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - In fury, Israelis ousted from their Gaza settlements watched television images of Palestinians charging into the former enclaves on Monday.
But even the images of Palestinian youths smashing and torching synagogues did not stop a majority of Israelis breathing a sigh of relief as Israel's army withdrew after 38 years of occupation in the Gaza Strip.
"That land is very hostile, it is cursed and so many soldiers and people have died there," said Nomi Pasternak, a Jerusalem architect. "I saw no reason to retain Gaza."
Israeli forces locked border gateways that led to the 21 former Jewish settlements in Gaza at dawn as Palestinians erected flags atop the ruins of settler homes razed by departing troops and set synagogues ablaze.
It was the culmination of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians -- an initiative that bitterly split Israeli society.
To most Israelis, Gaza was a deadly quagmire without strategic or economic worth. To the 8,500 religious settlers, it was a land the Bible bequeathed to Jews.
"I was very sad. There is a lot of pain," said Debbie Rozen, ex-spokeswoman for the Gush Katif settlement bloc who followed Monday's scenes from a hotel room in Jerusalem where she moved after being forcibly evacuated with her large family last month.
She said she was miserable to see the attacks on synagogues, which Palestinians saw as despised monuments to occupation that Israel left standing among the demolished homes.
"I thought it would be an opportunity for the Palestinians to show that maybe, just maybe, they would care about our holy synagogue," Rozen said.
SETTLERS CRY BETRAYAL
Other settlers were more angry than sad, particularly at Sharon, once godfather of the settler movement who uprooted the first settlements from land Palestinians want for a state.
"The burnt synagogues ... are an appropriate backdrop to the Israeli army's surrender and its shameful exit under fire," said Eran Sternberg, former chief spokesman for the Gaza settlers.
Rightist opponents called the pullout a reward for a Palestinian uprising and said it set a precedent for giving up settlements on biblical land.
But polls consistently showed most Israelis favoured getting rid of Gaza, where settlers lived in hard-to-defend enclaves alongside 1.4 million bitter Palestinians crowded into the rest of the tiny coastal strip.
There is less enthusiasm for ceding settlements in the West Bank, which Israel captured along with Gaza in a 1967 war and is now home to 245,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians.
Pasternak said she was thankful for the outcome of the pullout. But she had hoped Israel's authorities could have been more organised in helping ex-settlers find new homes.
"I was in favour of the disengagement from the start but I did not think (Sharon) could do it and I did not like the way in which it was done, in Sharon's mode, that is, hastily, like a bulldozer," she said, using the burly premier's nickname.
Avi, 46, a former army reservist who did two stints of duty in Gaza in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was in no doubt that the decision to jettison Gaza was the right one.
"I can't think of a single good thing to say and I don't have any positive memories of my service in Gaza," the high-tech engineer said of the days when Israeli forces patrolled teeming refugee camps and chased stone-throwing youths .
Removing Gaza's settlers has won Sharon international plaudits. The final stage of the pullout was completed in less than 24 hours on Monday morning instead of the four days officials had predicted.
Source
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