From now on, posts of other authors' writings will only be posted here if they say something that is not being said by and large, and needs to be said. I'm going to start with this tidbit from Noam Chomsky's blog.
Any sane Israeli government would want to remove Israeli settlements from Gaza, where about 8000 settlers take a large part of the land and resources, and have to be protected by huge army contingents.
Far more rational, now that the occupation has turned Gaza into a hell-hole, is to get out and leave it as a prison in which the population can rot. The “Gaza disengagement plan” is, in fact, a US-Israeli West Bank expansion plan, designed to incorporate valuable land and resources of the West Bank into Israel, and leave Palestinians in a few unviable Bantustans which the US and Israel can call a “state”—rather as South Africa called the Bantustans “independent states.”
There is great agonizing now in Israel about the tragedy of the settlers who were handsomely subsidized to settle illegally in Gaza, where they have tortured and terrorized the population and stolen their land and resources, and now will be handsomely subsidized by the same generous fairy godmother (you and your friends) to settle somewhere else. People are wearing orange, etc. As the better Israeli journalists have eloquently described, it is a shame and disgrace. The same is true of the “trauma” of Jews evicting Jews. If Sharon wants to remove the settlers quietly, nothing is easier. Simply announce that the IDF will be withdrawn on date X, and a few weeks earlier the settlers will be gone.
It’s mostly cynical show to justify the US-Israel West Bank expansion programs.
The Gaza pullout is a rouse by the Israeli government to appear to do something without doing anything, or, as Chomsky suggests, to increase their power.
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