Israel haunted by its mistakes in Gaza
Today, Israelis admit that the disengagement from Gaza was a mistake and wonder how the move could have gone had it been done in cooperation with the Palestinians.
July 26 marks the 10th anniversary since Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The eviction of the settlements in the Gush Katif bloc and central Gaza Strip and the deployment of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) along the international border are perceived by a majority of Israelis as a historic mistake that turned Gaza into a security threat to Israel, particularly its southern communities. Polls conducted after the withdrawal, before Hamas forcefully seized power in the Gaza Strip and in the years following, have consistently shown that even those who supported the dramatic decision by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the time came to believe that they were wrong.
The sense most Israelis feel of having gotten the short end of the stick stems from the unfounded hope that the IDF’s pullout and the eviction of the settlements would quell the Palestinian demands for an end to the occupation and that they would devote their energy to rebuilding their lives in the Gaza Strip. Not only has Gaza become a significant security threat to Israel in the past 10 years, but also, paradoxically, Israel’s military moves to stop the rocket fire into its territory have seriously harmed its foreign relations and international standing.
Even though the facts speak for themselves, the question remains: Could things have transpired differently? Was the Israeli pullout from Gaza a colossal historic mistake and had Sharon not made that dramatic move, would things have turned out differently?
It’s best to start by discussing the security situation of the Jewish settlements in Gaza on the eve of the disengagement. Until the evacuation, the settlements of Gush Katif were subjected to daily terror attacks. Nearly 6,000 mortar shells were fired during the second intifada (2000-2004) from the nearby Gaza town of Khan Yunis at the communities, which increasingly turned into fortresses. The roads leading from the area of Kissufim to Gush Katif were designated targets for the Palestinian organizations in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli defense establishment and political leadership, chief among them Sharon, knew full well that the security and safety of the residents of Gush Katif and central Gaza could not be sustained for long.
