From: Center for Policy Research <cpr>
Subject: Gaza and separation from Israel


Gaza and the idea of separation

The Israeli Left's inability to cope with the challenges it is
presented with by reality becomes obvious at those moments when
the reality does not line up with the expectations of the left. We
were able to see this clearly during the Gulf War.  Because of the
Palestinian's popular solidarity with Iraq, Yossi Sarid -
currently Minister of the Environment - made his infamous
statement: "You look for me !", i.e., I'am not making any more
efforts to speak with you. From Yossi Sarid's point of view,
Palestinian reality during the Gulf War was not the lengthy curfew
or the danger of hunger it brought with it, but whether or not the
Palestinians accepted what was acceptable to the party. Similarly
MERETZ, MK Deddi Tzuker, recently faced with criticism from
residents of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour over his
government's and his party's lack of action for human rights and
peace, responded by asking those present at the discussion whether
they would rather have a Likud government. From the Leftists'
perspective this is the best government because it is THEIR
government, regardless of what it does.

These members of the Israeli Left have already decided how the
future of the Occupied Territories will look, and they want to
dictate to the Palestinians how to get there. An essential step
towards this future is their participation in Yitzhak Rabin's
government, and from their point of view the expulsions were a
marginal byproduct of this "government of peace", which need not
disturb the routine course of events. Likewise the "Rabinic"
policies in Gaza - the blowing up of houses with anti-tank rockets
and the significant increases in the number of persons injured in
the suppression of demonstrations - need not disturb it.

But the fact that reality is not as they would have it forces
itself upon them when a mob in Gaza falls upon a settler who has
lost his way, when a settler is stabbed by his Palestinian
workers, or when a Palestinian knifes people in the streets of Tel
Aviv. Then all hell breaks loose and the Israeli Left has nothing
to propose except separation: Let's cut ourselves off from the
Palestinians, let's build a fence so high that they won't be able
to harm us - this is the cry of the Israeli Left. Let us erect a
fence between us and the reality whith is the occupation.

Meron Benvenisti writes about this in Ha'aretz (4-3-93): "...The
liberal Left. which does not differentiate between physical
separation and 'the future of the territories', must come to
understand that the regime of magnetic cards, exclusion of Arab
workers, closure, and curfew are instruments of enforcement
designed for the suppression of a population in revolt, and that
their ideological support for separation only provides
'humanitarian' arguments for the legitimization of the <status
quo>.

Enforced separation is carried out only to meet the need of the
ruling community, but it is only the ruled population which bears
its burden. [.....].

"Whoover thinks that 'out of Gaza first' is a liberal,
humanitarian idea had best contemplate the question of whether
this position is also moral. It is very easy to shake off
responsibility for this concentration of human suffering, and to
thus also disregard responsibility for it's creation. It is very
easy to erect a fence between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in
Jerusalem, when this fence has a gate - the keys to which are at
the disposal of one hand - which opens to allow the Jews to pursue
all their interests, but is barred to the Arabs...".