BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE - I

At the height of the election campaign in 1977, the Labour Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, visited the first moshav (Netzer Hazani) to be set up in Gush Katif.  In a symbolic gesture, Rabin affixed a mezuzah at the entrance to the home of the Yefet family and declared: “This is a big day for the State and the settlement movement, a day which symbolizes the foundation of our attachment to the region which, since the Six-day War, has become an inseparable part of the State and its security.”

Nine years later, when Rabin was Minister of Defense in the National United Government Peres-Shamir, he made a return visit to Netzer Hazani and declared, almost word-for-word, the same speech he had made in 1977.

When the Herut party won the 1977 elections for the first time, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, had to uproot close to twenty young settlements in the framework of the Camp David Accords. However he strongly opposed the proposal to return Gaza to Egypt. He promised that the precedent which was determined in Yamit would not be repeated in Gush Katif. “There is no chance of evacuating the settlements in Judah and Samaria, the Gaza Strip and the Golan” (1981).

Gaza again reared its ugly head with the first eruption (Intifada) by the Arabs in Gaza in 1987. After six years of fighting, Israelis were war-weary and longed for normalcy and an end to the conflict. In 1992 the Labour Party was re-elected, headed by Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres. A year later, the Oslo Accords, initiated by Shimon Peres. was signed which enabled the formation of a fully armed Palestinian Authority (PLO).

As stipulated in the Oslo Accords, the IDF began the withdrawal from Gaza in 1994. During a fiery debate in the Knesset, Shimon Peres declared: “Our people are breathing a sigh of relief when they witness the historic reality of IDF soldiers leaving the Gaza Strip. Member of Parliament Benjamin Netanyhu said that we are only making a contractual peace. A contractual peace is preferable to  idle chatter“.

Yitzhak Rabin, joined with Peres in the same debate: “I watch with satisfaction the withdrawal of soldiers of the IDF from Gaza, Jabalia, Han Yunis…….. They have no reason to be there, and no-one has the right to endanger their lives in order to stay there. No-one.”

Unlike Peres and Rabin, the previous Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, presented a grim scenario: “I believe that a day will come and the sensible and wise people of Israel will wake up from their slumbers and put an end to the foolish and dangerous policies of the left. We have no idea of the price we’ll have to pay for the terrible mistakes made today by the Government, against the vital interests of its people and its country.”

Member of Parliament, Pinni Barash from the right wing Tsomet Party had suggested  earlier  a re-evaluation of the logic in withdrawing from Gaza: “There are many members of the Knesset, mainly from the left, who are burying their heads in the sand, and are not prepared to see the terrible dangers in giving Gaza and the surrounding area to the “Palestinian Liberation Organisation”. Not one of the Knesset members is willing to acknowledge the massive stockpiles of weapons which the Gaza Arabs have accumulated and which will endanger the whole area - from Ashkelon to Nahal Oz.”                

In 1995 Yitzhak Rabin declared: “The horror stories of the Likud are well known. They also predicted missiles from Gaza. For a whole year there hasn’t been one missile  fired from Gaza and there never will be missiles. The Likud has a fear of peace”.

From the beginning of the second Intifada (armed uprising) in 2000 through the end of 2017, Arab Palestinians killed 813 Israeli citizens, including 135 minors. The incidents in which these civilians were killed included suicide bombings, shooting and stabbing attack perpetrated by Palestinians in populated areas and buses; stoning people and cars; and firing of rockets and mortar shells by Palestinian organisations in the Gaza Strip at civilian communities in Israel.

Rocket attacks began in the Gaza Strip in 2001. Initially, the rockets (and also mortars) were launched primarily at Israeli settlements in Gush Katif and in the southern borders, and military installations. These attacks grew over time, especially in and around the town of Sderot, located near the border with Gaza.