"According to the Hebrew calendar, today is the fourth anniversary of the disengagement. Israel uprooted approximately 10,000 Israelis – men, women and children – from their homes. To our regret, Gaza has become a base for Hamas-led, Iranian-sponsored terrorism; thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired at us. Therefore, today, I would like to emphasize …
Peace will go back to being based on reciprocity, not unilateralism. In the framework of the peace agreements, Israel expects that the Palestinians will recognize the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish People, that the problem of the refugees will be resolved outside Israel's borders, that there will be effective security arrangements and demilitarization, with international recognition and guarantees. These are not pre-conditions for the start of a peace process but the basic conditions for establishing a lasting and stable peace. Palestinian moderates should internalize this.” (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, August 2, 2009).
The Gaza Unilateral Disengagement, August, 2005
Most of us wanted to believe in that Disengagement of four years ago. Led by Arik Sharon, “the General,” the no-nonsense strategist, we trusted he had already planned the next steps, like a master chess player. We expected benefits we would reap for years to come for the deep wound Israel would self-inflict. There might have been a plan, but God thought otherwise. Prime Minister Sharon is still in a coma of sorts, and there is not a single soul who was privy to his Grand Plan.
Some of us opposed unilateral Disengagement. The most vocal opposition included the residents of Gush Katif, who for decades had lived with the full blessing and support of the Israeli government and created a green desert area. Their supporters also included predominantly religious Jews throughout the Diaspora for this community that developed an industry, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars into Israel through exports. The Gush Katif community also supported numerous Gazans, employing them full time.
For decades the prevailing argument in Israel was why should so many resources be spent to guard so few. “There is no reason to be there” was often spoken. The army periodically renewed its study of the cost benefit analysis of providing the defense of this small area in the Northern Gaza Strip. It was always in favor.
Israelis craving peace were willing to do whatever it took to usher in its arrival, including leaving the Gazans to themselves. Providing the billions in monetary aid and hundreds of truckloads of “humanitarian aid” that passed every day from Israel to Gaza, the area could quickly turn into a tourist Mecca. Good Jews, Peace and anti-Apartheid activists, Palestinians from the world over and Muslims in general could come and vacation in Gaza, along the shores of the Mediterranean, and support this newly created oasis. If one craved history, a short excursion into Egypt to view the Pyramids or to Israel’s Biblical sites or even to Jordan to see Petra could satisfy the sudden urge. Gaza is at the crossroads, as Turkey is between continents.
It was still a recent memory how Israel had given a very substantial portion of its land to Egypt in return for a peace accord. It had given away the area where Israelites traveled for more than 40 years until an unworthy generation has passed. To ensure peace by giving away a small strip of land, where only a handful of people lived in constant danger, sounded very reasonable to many.
How wrong we all were.
Wrong were those inhabitants who fought to the very last minute and rather than struggle to stand again on their own two feet, crumbled under their self pity and despair.
Wrong was the government that went blindly after a General who left no clue as to what the next step should be.
Wrong were the vast majority of Israelis who supported the move based on some convoluted notion of peace that cannot be achieved in our lifetime. The Gazans proved how wrong we all were when they began by desecrating the synagogues, burning the fertile hot houses, turning thriving towns into rubble and converting the area into a massive terrorist super-camp.
Wrong were those who opposed the Disengagement from afar. To take an integral part in what is happening in Israel, to truly bring about change, the fight should have been on the ground. They should have immigrated to Israel, to the Holy City of Jerusalem, and amidst a quarter of a million native English speakers, settled in the heartland of Zion.
Wrong was the IDF, who received orders from the political echelon and failed to remind the country it is not the job of the Israel Defense Forces to uproot Jews from their homes in their own homeland. It was morally repugnant, especially when it was done unilaterally, with no peace accord offered in return. Such a directive contrasts the mission of the IDF, the very essence of its creation.
Four years have passed and we lament the mistakes of the past. Some are still mourning, and yet, I am jubilant. That Disengagement must now be followed by the SECOND DISENGAGEMENT.
The Second Disengagement, Rosh Ha’Shana 5770
Israel must disengage from American Jewry. It must do so now and can wait no longer. The effort should be planned and executed by the Jewish New Year starting in September 2009. There is no time to waste. Having learned the lessons of the First Disengagement, the process must be carried out promptly, passionately and perfectly.
The country will shed tears, most orchestrated, a few real. A song lamenting an illusion will ultimately emerge with a true understanding. Its melody will be so ancient as to bring back a deep belief, not in the power of politics, money or the lure of America, but in the very essence of Israel itself. A rebirth of the knowledge the Jewish Homeland exists as a result of a Covenant with God.
In the Second Disengagement, the master planner is President Hussein Obama. His administration will oversee the necessary moves. The military and other annual aid to Israel will be reduced to nothing and the pressure to diminish Israel will increase. This is already evident as first attempts begin to flower – the American Consulate in Jerusalem has just removed all mention of Israel, allowing Arabic but no Hebrew translations. This will be but a small example as the full Obama-Clinton Plan takes full effect.
Difficult days lie ahead for American Jewry. It will be blamed for supporting Israel, a stubborn country that refuses to do what it is told to bring about peace. The settlements will reappear (in discussions), like a red contagious rush. American Jewry, who so strongly opposed Prime Minister’s Netanyahu’s insistence on minimal expansion to accommodate newborns and basic community needs, will be targeted. It will be blamed for the ten top Obama advisors – all token Jews – for all the hardships that remain in store as a byproduct of a failed economy and down to a widespread Swine Pandemic.
As a matter of convenience Jews will once again be made scapegoats, blamed for the economy’s collapse and the root cause of all the suffering, unemployment, hunger and crime. Jewish life will become close to unbearable. Now having to care for their own, their elderly and young and to provide social services to their communities, American Jewry will be distanced from standing so strongly with Israel (or at least with their vision of a Peace Now Israel).
For their own sake, for their long-term well-being and for Israel’s sake, American Jews should disengage from Israel. They may always emigrate, but the decades old co-dependence must stop. It is unhealthy and will bring only destruction. Jews will visit Israel, the “right of return” will continue in full force and effect, money will continue flowing – but the message must be in the most practical terms: We are separated.
Those who opposed the First Disengagement so strongly would immediately point out the devil is in the details. But an astute observer will equally recognize this is not the case. The vast majority of American Jews voted for (then Senator) Obama. Tens of millions of dollars were raised from these same American Jews.
To this day, the major Jewish organizations continue to provide strong backing for President Obama and his aspirations to impose peace on a region he does not in any way comprehend. Rabbi after Rabbi, cantor after cantor and leadership of one religious institution following another signed a letter supporting the President, condemning Israel. AIPAC, so immersed in its mountains of gold amassed over the decades, decided to sway from its own stated rule-that-should-never-be-bent and categorically oppose the Government of Israel under Netanyahu.
American Jewry is the one enabling President Obama’s dreams of a weak Israel and strong Muslim world, and Israel is paying the price for this folly. If we were today living under Ottoman rule, one would immediately recognize the signs that Israel was about to be tortured. Ah, but we are in the 21st Century, and President Obama is too slick, too oily an orator to exercise brute force. Why bother with it when the majority of American Jewry is covering his back.
Israel, stand strong. Disengage. Break the ties that bind you into submission to America’s leaders, and the sooner you do so, the better. When graffiti morphs into violence, when American Jews businesses begin closing and Jewish American lives are threatened, then you must accept them into Israel. Just as you have done for the better part of a century – bringing in Yemenite and Jews who fled Muslim rule in Arab lands, embracing Ethiopian Jews, absorbing a massive immigration from Russia and most recently opening your gates to French and Venezuelan Jewry.
The time draws near when you must also accept the American Jew in masses onto your tiny land on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Until then, Israel, act unilaterally, disengage.
