Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 34, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 25, 2005 Page: 21 of 24
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TJP V59-34 08-25-05 pl7-21 8/23/05 6:22 PM Page 21
August 25,2005
In Our 59th Year
Texas Jewish Post
21
COMMUNITY
continued from page 1
though of course it isn't over yet,"
Toubin told the forum.
Toubin recalled how Prime Min-
ister Sharon and the Israeli
government decided to take the uni-
lateral action only after Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators reached a
stalemate and it was becoming
apparent that a Palestinian child
born in 2010 would make Arabs a
majority in Israel, between the
lordan River and the Mediter-
ranean.
"By ceding Gaza, with its approx-
imately 1.1 million Palestinians, the
Israelis are extending this time by
anywhere from 10 to 20 years, where
the lews are still a majority popula-
tion in Israel," Toubin said. "Israel
won't have to choose between being
a democracy and a lewish state. It
wants to be both."
He urged Americans to "take a
moment to understand how diffi-
cult it is, and just how extraordinary
the Israeli people have been on both
sides of this debate, in carrying this
out. I think it's something the Israeli
people are going to be able to build
on. Yes, there's going to be some
scars. Yes, there's going to be some
healing."
The AIPAC leader expressed
worry about a terrorist "narrative"
calling the unilateral withdrawal
"merely a step along the road to new
conflict." That scenario "is much
more broadly accepted among the
Palestinian people than the narra-
tive describing a civil [Palestinian]
society" that might emerge from
Israel's bold gesture, he said.
It's unclear whether Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas "has the
ability and will to succeed," he said.
"It's a matter of whether they're
going to show the will to do what is
necessary in order to contain Gaza,
to make this not a step toward addi-
tional terror toward Israel, but a step
toward the Road Map and a step
towards peace."
Dallas Morning News reporter
and former Middle East Correspon-
dent Michael Precker, the evening's
third panelist, shared Toubin's cau-
tious hope that the withdrawal of
settlers was a positive step, but he's
"not optimistic things are going to
turn out well." He believes Hamas
— "an unyielding, fundamentalist,
violent, terrorist organization" —
could very well take over Gaza. "I
think you're going to have these
really unsettling scenes of huge ral-
lies on former Israeli settlements
that will be very painful to watch
and very hurtful," said Precker.
Precker noted the settlement pro-
ject in Gaza "cost billions of dollars,
put a huge toll on the army to
defend [approximately 8,000] civil-
ians in the middle of a hostile zone,
to impose a lot of hardships on
Palestinians in their day-to-day lives,
who were under curfew because the
kindergarten had to take a bus ride
down some road that was sort of in
hostile territory. And the army had
to move in and take over houses or
level houses and kick people out to
protect the settlers. It was very hard
for the Israeli army, and expensive
to do."
Though "a lot of bad things can
happen," he said, "none of that out-
weighs the benefit to Israel to draw
a border there and have them on
one side and the Palestinians on the
other side and start from there to
reconfigure their security...Every
poll has shown that a majority of
Israelis, as well as George Bush, as
well as most of the world, think this
is the right thing to do. As we watch
these painful moments, I think we
have to remind ourselves of that."
Fisher praised news media for
telling about the hardships of settlers
who were established in communi-
ties with beautiful homes and
gardens.
"These are people who were in
their 20s when they started to do
this and are now in their 50s," said
Fisher, who made aliyah when she
was 28, went to a yeshiva there,
"became religious," and met her
husband Warren, from Australia.
They married in 1985 and, in 1987,
moved to Efrat, between Bethlehem
and Hebron. "You're taking them
[settlers] and you're pulling from
their houses and from their farms,
from their children who were born
there and are now in their 20s and
30s and also live there. You're giving
them $250,000 — which I suppose
sounds like a lot of money, when
you think you're giving it to
someone who's an illegal settler —
and you're pulling them out and
saying 'Good luck. Start Over.' It's
just not simple."
Fisher provoked a mixture of
applau se and gasps when she offered
t
tarPT
Elad Fisher explains why some of his friends joined the disengagement resis-
tance, as Mark Toubin (left), Michael Precker and Elad's mom, Wendy, listen.
Photo: Steve Israel
a way "to start achieving peace."
"The one good thing I can say
about leaving Gaza is that it is pos-
sible now, if Sharon would deci de to
do it and the world would shut up
for a change, to carpet bomb Gaza,
right? Instead of going in and pussy-
footing around and going from
house to house and trying to save
lives and putting ourselves at risk,
that we could go in and 'nuke 'em.'
You know, Bush and Blair didn't
seem to have as hard a time doing
that from 40,000 feet over Iraq.
That's my opinion."
Toubin interjected that "Where
we are in terms of trying to develop
a peaceful resolution, I mean there's
a process out there. It's called the
Road Map. It's something that
America supports, Israel sup-
ports....It calls for first disarming
terror structures by the Palestinian
authority." But he said it will be
"very, very difficult" for Palestinian
leadership to "go about making
Gaza a legitimate territory and then
going to the West Bank and creating
a viable government."
Federation President Larry
Coben, in a letter to the editor of the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sat-
urday, wrote that "our Federation
solidly supports the policies of the
Israeli government in the with-
drawal from Gaza."
Fisher said her family has a beau-
tiful home and, "if I felt that giving
back everything would lead to a sit-
uation where I could believe that
peace was going to come from it, it
would be in seconds, and I think
that I speak for many, many people."
Fisher was joined at the event by
her husband Warren, and their sons
Elad, 15, and Bezalel, 12. They spent
their annual August visit here with
her parents, Fay and Leon
Brachman and her sister Debby
Rice, who was chair of the event.
MOMENTUM
continued from page 1
settlement project was irreversible.
Now pundits are challenging that vi ew.
Writing in Ha'aretz, Zvi Barel
argued that the ease of the evacuation
had shattered the irreversibility theory.
"Suddenly it becomes clear that the
logic that dismantled the Gaza settle-
ments can also be applied to the West
Bank. The fears that drove the state
are also reversible: no civil war or mil-
itary mutiny. Only curses, nails and
oil," he wrote. "This is precisely the
time for the state to continue down
the same path it charted in Gaza and
proceed to the West Bank, the illegal
outposts, the tiny settlements, the
lawbreakers — even the state's fear of
the settlements can be reversed."
Only six weeks ago, Yonatan
Bassi, the official in charge of reset-
tlement and compensation, argued
that a similar operation in the West
Bank would be impossible because
of the large number of settlers
involved: If Israel annexes only the
three large settlement blocs close to
the pre-1967 boundaries, the esti-
mate is that 50,000-80,000 settlers
would have to be moved from far-
flung settlements.
That could mean up to 10 times
the effort and 10 times the amount
in compensation, compared to the
Gaza operation. That, Bassi had
insisted, made it impossible.
Six weeks ago many analysts
would have agreed, but Bassi's thesis
seems far less convincing today.
The speedy evacuation also is
helping Sharon. The fact that he
didn't shrink from the Gaza opera-
tion and carried it out with such
impressive efficiency has enhanced
his international reputation.
An Italian group has nominated
the Israeli prime minister for the
Nobel Peace Prize, and Sharon him-
self feels confident enough to
address the U.N. General Assembly
next month, a forum in which Israel
regularly is criticized.
Even some Palestinians have been
impressed by the Gaza operation. In
a rare expression of empathy for
Israeli suffering, journalist Daoud
Kuttab, writing in The New York
Times, argued that "whether Pales-
tinians and Arabs will admit it or
not, the powerful images of the last
few days cannot be ignored."
The "new view of Israel" that such
images inspired could help the cause
of peace, Kuttab suggested.
Sharon's domestic situation has
improved , too. The way in which the
evacuation was carried out won him
plaudits in the media and could
translate into several percentage
points of support in polls.
More importantly, there are signs
that he maybe gaining ground in his
Likud Party, where he faces a leader-
ship challenge from former Finance
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Though recent polls showed
Netanyahu ahead in the party, there
is a growing perception among
Likud activists that Sharon would be
a much more electable candidate in
a national election.
Sharon's recovery in the party
could prove temporary, however;
much will depend on the Pales-
tinians' next moves. If there is a
renewed outbreak of terrorism,
Netanyahu will blame the Gaza
withdrawal. If there is quiet,
Sharon's comeback will gather pace.
Most importantly for many sec-
ular Israelis, the balance of power
between their vision of a democratic
Israel and some settlers' vision of a
theocratic state seems to have swung
dramatically in the democrats' favor.
Novelist Amos Oz articulated the
mood in an article in the Yediot
Achronot newspaper.
"For more than 30 years," Oz wrote,
"the settlers' dream has overwhelmed
the dream of secular Israelis. Day in
and day out, the vision of Greater
Israel and the reign of the Messiah
crushed the hope of being a free
people and building a just society."
But now, Oz wrote, the tables
have been turned: The settlers no are
longer setting the agenda, and
they're experiencing distress similar
to what they caused mainstream
Israelis for nearly three decades.
The settler defeat has put the
Yesha settler council under enor-
mous pressure. Hard-liners, who
blame the Yesha council for the
failed anti-evacuation campaign, say
the group was not militant enough.
But Sharon maintains that Yesha's
leadership did little to curb violence
and that, consequently, he will not
allow the group a role in govern-
ment plans to develop the Negev
and Galilee to host evicted settlers.
For now, secular, pragmatic
Israel, with Sharon as its chief repre-
sentative, has the upper hand. The
extremists on both sides are at bay.
The question is, for how long?
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Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 34, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 25, 2005, newspaper, August 25, 2005; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188094/m1/21/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .