Tears and scuffles, Wednesday, August 17, 2005

But as of noon today, the authorities appeared determined to avoid the kind of full-front clash that the protestors have been promising was inevitable if the troops moved in to remove them from the settlements. Thus, for every minor clash with protestors trying to block troops from reaching the homes of Neve Dekalim, considered the ‘capital’ of Gush Katif, there was a scene of cloyingly bathetic weeping by protestors embracing obviously embarrassed policemen or soldiers who were under strict orders to be empathetic, even if only moments before the protestor had been haranguing the trooper as doomed for God’s wrath for all eternity for daring to replicate what ‘the goyim did to Jews, not what Jews do to Jews.’

By noon, northern Gaza’s settlements were empty, southern Gush Katif was almost empty as it was being voluntarily evacuated by its residents, and the main focus was on Neve Dekalim, Kfar Darom, and Netzarim, the three main settlements of Gaza, and Shirat Hayam, where Kahanist-style radicals have been building a ‘tent city’ and preparing for a showdown with the authorities. Netzarim and Kfar Darom were apparently being held for last – they are inhabited by the most hardcore of the settler extremists. So, Neve Dekalim, as the capital, was the strategic goal for the security forces. If it could ‘fall,’ as the military analysts said, the rest of the Gush will fall. According to Uri Bar Lev, the Southern Police District Commander, all the illegal infiltrators who had roamed Neve Dekalim in a cat and mouse game with the authorities, had been rounded up and put on buses for expulsion to the detention centers set up for the purpose. Now, he told the press, ‘we are going from house to house, speaking to the residents. True, the images are difficult, people having to leave their homes of 20 or 30 years, but that is the mission and we must do it.’ As each settlement empties, the army occupied it to make sure none of the protestors slip in to resume resistance and to prevent looting.

It is evident that the evacuation will be, after all, much easier than predicted. The army is already talking about finishing the work in Gaza by the weekend, and early next week moving in on Sa-Nur and Homesh, the two remaining settlements south of Jenin that over the last few months were occupied by some of the most radical elements in the settlement movement. That accelerated schedule means that the entire operation, including the demolition of the buildings, could be over by mid-September, instead of October-November, as originally scheduled.

While the Israelis focused on the scenes from Gush Katif, with cameras seeming to take part in the ‘dialogue’ between the commanding officers on the ground and the local leadership, whether of the teenage gangs from the West Bank or the local residents, the Palestinians meanwhile were under pressure to maintain the quiet that has so far prevailed since the evacuation began on Monday. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met yesterday with Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch and Lt. Gen William Ward, and overnight, Abbas was said to have received phone calls from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a messages from British Prime Minister Tony Blair. At least according to the Israeli reports, the message to Abbas was that if the Palestinians keep the quiet, they can expect more progress down the road.

But the Israelis of course are very skeptical about the Palestinians. Military Intelligence Commander Aharon Zeevi Farkash told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday afternoon that if the Palestinians don’t see progress in the West Bank and Jerusalem by next spring, a new wave of terror against Israel can be expected. Perhaps. It is however certain that the international community will be pressing the sides to turn the Gaza withdrawal into Israeli-Palestinian dialogue after the withdrawal is over. Trouble is, the conventional wisdom nowadays in Israel, from Labor on the Left to Likud on the Right, is that despite all his good intentions, Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority is no partner for political dialogue.

Indeed, for all the optimism about the pace of the evacuation, and even if Neve Dekalim ‘falls’ today, Netzarim and Kfar Darom remain as hotbeds of determined opposition to the withdrawal – so much so that even today, settlers in both places were refusing to pack their belongings, watering their gardens, going through the motions of their routines. The authorities will indeed need sensitivity – but also a lot of determination – to deal with the clearly deluded people of those two settlements, where the residents are still saying they have no intention of leaving their homes.

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