A Lingering Wound

Fifteen years ago, on August 15, 2005 (the 10th of Av), the residents of Gush Katif were uprooted and expelled from their homes. Twenty-one settlements were vacated under the order of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. Even today, a decade and a half later, it is not clear why Sharon ordered the expulsion, seemingly eschewing the values he had held dear for years as a public figure.

A storied general who had supported the settlement enterprise, Sharon has gone down in history as the man who tore the nation apart while contributing nothing to the state’s security. Even the Oslo Accords, signed by Labor leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin, did not bring about the eviction of one Jew from his home.

Those responsible for drafting the plan cannot deny two facts. The first, that the IDF withdrawal from Gaza led to Hamas control of Gaza and a never-ending barrage of rocket fire on Israeli cities. Worse still is the pledge that Sharon made at the time: to re-capture the Strip if even one missile from Gaza landed on Israeli soil. Since that time, there have been three major Israeli military operations in Gaza, the capture and hostage taking of Gilad Shalit, and the transformation of the enclave from an impoverished territory to a veritable military bunker from which Hamas builds tunnels to invade Israel.

Oh, and there’s another fact: At the time, Ariel Sharon traveled to Washington to canvass the support of President George W. Bush. Upon his return, he brought with him a letter, which his aides called “historic.” The letter stated that the administration favored resettling Palestinian refugees “in a Palestinian state” and not in Israel, and reassured Jerusalem that the 1949 armistice lines would not constitute the final borders in any future peace deal. Using this letter, Sharon attempted to sell the disengagement with both the government and the public. Some of the ministers at the time were convinced. With the test of time, it turned out that the opponents to disengagement were right: the Obama administration disregarded the Bush-Sharon letters and pursued its own policy in the Middle East.