Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry
It’s important to publicize the names of those people who spearheaded the disgraceful process of the Gush Katif expulsion. The public must know who was responsible for this colossal tragedy. It’s imperative that these people should not be permitted to guide the ship of state and that such a crime against the Jewish People should never be allowed to happen again.
1.
It’s quite ironic that just as we commemorate seven years since the expulsion from Gush Katif, all the rancid garbage left behind by this cruel miscalculation has blown up in the faces of its perpetrators. There are at least two main levels where it doesn’t appear that anyone can escape the frightening symbolism. The terrorism that reared its ugly head following the expulsion has become the central threat to Eretz Yisroel, more than any Arab army. Egypt is in turmoil, as the ruling parties try to outdo each other in their hatred for the Jewish state, while the Gaza Strip has long since become a sophisticated terrorist stronghold menacing Israeli cities.
On this front, to our great regret, all the predictions have proven accurate. But worst of all, the cost has been far greater than what even disengagement proponents dared to estimate. While seven years ago, opponents of the Gush Katif withdrawal waved banners with the slogan “A tailwind for terrorism,” it’s now quite clear that the expulsion didn’t just provide a tailwind. It has brought the harsh and devastating terrorist war of attrition back to life.
However, there’s yet another, albeit less painful, circle being closed at the present time. The political entity that gave birth to the expulsion, which was then still part of the Likud Party and later officially became the Kadima Party, is laboriously taking its last breaths. The small-minded politicians who supported the expulsion and made possible the terrible visions from seven years ago are now fighting for their political future in the murky darkness they created, mindful that the end is quite near.
The party’s chairman, who served as minister of defense during the expulsion, has become the most ridiculed person in Israeli politics, and he will always be remembered as a childish and bizarre individual. His predecessors in the party leadership have earned equally tarnished reputations. Ms. Tzippi Livni is no longer considered as an alternative for leadership, Chaim Ramon is beset by criminal allegations, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has taken up permanent occupancy at the courthouse.
There is no joy in all this. “When your enemy falls, do not rejoice.” However, there is a clear understanding that the writing is on the wall. Withdrawing from the territory of Eretz Yisroel is the path of national suicide. The party born in sin has finished its journey in shame. This is the end of the road. While Kadima will probably run in the upcoming national elections, its electoral prospects are shrouded in serious doubt. Last week, many of its Knesset Members, fearful of reports that the party may be wiped off the political map, tried to save themselves before it was too late. As this article went to press, their efforts had been unsuccessful, and these MK’s have been compelled to remain aboard their sinking ship until after the recitation of ‘Kaddish.’
2.
The end of the Kadima Party should serve as a warning sign that those who led the way on the path to this frightful expulsion will eventually pay the ultimate political price. Yet, the ones who are really experiencing the pain for the crime of ‘disengagement’ are the entire Jewish People. When everyone was talking about the murder of the Jewish tourists in Bulgaria, they should have recalled those experts who foresaw prior to the expulsion that terrorism would increase and the withdrawal from Gush Katif would breathe new life into these murderous organizations. This includes those in Lebanon, which were apparently responsible for the brutal carnage at Burgas Airport.
It’s not easy to see the bloody results experienced by the People of Israel over the past seven years. It started with the Second Lebanon War, which broke out less than a year after the Gush Katif withdrawal, continuing the following winter with Operation Cast Lead. It grew progressively worse during the next six years, when Hamas made all the cities of southern Eretz Yisroel their virtual captives, firing missiles at will and giving local residents little respite or hope for prolonged tranquility.
It’s staggering to think how many of these same people remained so indifferent and complacent during that tragic summer seven years ago. How could the Gerer Chassidim living in Arad and Ashdod have supported the uprooting of their brethren from Gush Katif? How could their chief parliamentary representative – MK Yaakov Litzman – have paved the way for the implementation of the disengagement plan in the Knesset Finance Committee? At the pivotal moment for the Jews living on the Gaza Strip, he ran off to the Dead Sea for a postal service conference, claiming that it was more important than stopping this wicked proposal. The real reason was the money that flowed to Torah institutions when the ultra-Orthodox joined Ariel Sharon’s government.
The party born in sin has finished its journey in shame. This is the end of the road. While Kadima will probably run in the upcoming national elections, its electoral prospects are shrouded in serious doubt.
Today, residents of southern Eretz Yisroel would be quite happy to turn the wheel of time back. Even Kiryat Malachi has become an area under the constant threat of terrorism. Those politicians who had supported the expulsion wish they could change the past and declare their opposition to the whole idea. But they were extremely short-sighted and drugged with power when they sold their souls for a committee chairmanship or a deputy ministerial appointment. Historians say that they will be forever known as those who changed the course of history – in the worst possible way. We are not reminding these people of their transgressions for the purpose of smugly declaring that “we told you so.” The sole objective here is to encourage government policymakers to use sound logic and remember that there’s a price for frenzied treason committed by those seeking to advance their own narrow self-interests, rather than listening to their conscience.
3.
It’s important to mention those people who spearheaded the disgraceful process of the Gush Katif expulsion, although this is not ch”v in order to take vengeance upon them. The public must know who was responsible for this colossal failure. It’s imperative that these people should not be permitted to guide the ship of state and that such a crime against the Jewish People should never be allowed to happen again.
For example, the incumbent prime minister of Israel did everything to ensure that the Knesset would approve the plan. He was a full partner in the whole process – supporting the withdrawal in the internal Likud referendum, voting for the disengagement plan in the Knesset, and then selling it to the public at-large. He was very concerned about being painted as “delusional,” walking lockstep behind the “irresponsible right-wingers.” Then, just a week before the scheduled expulsion, certain that the government would soon fall and pave the way for new elections, Netanyahu submitted his resignation as foreign minister in protest against the plan he had worked so hard to implement. At first, people were stunned, but they quickly got the message: Was this nothing more than a pre-election pronouncement leading up to the next round of Likud primaries? Yet, what reverberated in everyone’s ears was the roll call vote on disengagement, and when the clerk reached the name ‘Binyamin Netanyahu’, the response was clear – ‘Aye.’
Today, Bibi stands on every available platform to declare that he opposed the disengagement plan. If we allow him to deceive the public in this fashion, it will give him a renewed sense of confidence to go off on some other hare-brained scheme. The same applies to the other Likud ministers who supported the expulsion, such as Limor Livnat, Yisroel Katz, and Silvan Shalom. They too made their respective rounds and then conveniently resumed their lives as advocates of the cause for Greater Israel. They expected that we would forget their role in this crime – at least until the next time. It would be appropriate for them to realize that even if we wanted to forget – we can’t.
To this day, not a single politician has stood up to ask forgiveness. None of them has said, “I was wrong.” They continue to hold fast to the altar and ignore their part in this disgraceful affair. We’re not talking about a personal apology, rather an admission of guilt for their crime against the entire Jewish People. Anyone who deserts the residents of Gush Katif, allows for their cruel expulsion, turns a blind eye when their dearly departed are unnecessarily uprooted from their resting places and synagogues go up in flames will eventually cause grievous injury to millions of Jews living in southern Eretz Yisroel. Anyone who thought that opposition to the expulsion was a matter pertaining only to the settler community now understands that he is harming the security of the entire Jewish people, both in the Jewish homeland and across the globe.
4.
The reason why we remember the expulsion is not ch”v to convey a message of hate, but a message of cheshbon nefesh. It’s clear that the failure in stopping the Gush Katif withdrawal was a failure in perception. The citizens of Eretz Yisroel lacked adequate connection with the pioneers on the Gaza Strip, and the polls proved that the public relations machinery for the disengagement forces clearly won out over their hardline opponents. The efforts to connect with the general public by using the slogan “We will win through love” were too little, too late. There was no longer any room for such tactics. When love was needed, most people were totally unfamiliar with Gush Katif, and when love came instead of the battle, it represented a useless loss of momentum.
These two approaches must be applied at the proper time. Just as the Rebbe demanded protest, he also demanded love – and each has its right moment.
On the one hand, we must embrace the Israeli public and incorporate a sense of Jewish awareness, as this is the only answer for the ignorance that led to the estrangement and alienation preceding the actual withdrawal from Gush Katif. A well-known right-wing activist told me that during those days prior to the expulsion, even if the army would have fired upon the settlers with live ammunition, people would have accepted it with understanding. There has been a deep split within Israeli society, and this is something that we must correct. On the other hand, we must not neglect the use of public protest. This is the only way to send a signal to the country’s politicians that they must come to their senses and put a halt to the absolute madness of abandoning Eretz HaKodesh to the terrorists.
Seven years later, the self-examination is ours to make. Are we doing everything we possibly can to make certain that this won’t happen again? Are our actions truly engraved with the declaration of “Never Again”?
Each and every one of us bears a personal responsibility – to act with true Ahavas Yisroel and put these difficult seven years behind us, once and for all. From this moment on, we should hear only good news – until the announcement of the True and Complete Redemption.