Israel hopes the pain is West Bank gain

[Violet_Crumble]

By Stephen Farrell
August 17, 2005

FEEL our pain. (And don’t ask us to do it again.) Reduced to its starkest, that is the message that the Israeli Government is intent on delivering to the world through images of weeping soldiers evacuating weeping settlers that will be filling the airwaves and front pages for days to come.
“The real heroes,” screamed the headline in one tabloid below a picture of olive-uniformed soldiers arm in arm with a crying settler. “The quiet pain in the eyes of the soldiers suffocated our throats, much more than the screaming pain of the messianics in orange,” wrote Yediot Ahronoth’s Rafi Ginat. Fully aware that he is dividing his country, Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, has made a virtue of it, highlighting the misery of the settlers whom he called “pioneers” in his television address on Monday. “Your pain and your tears are an inseparable part of the history of this country. Whatever disagreements we have, we will not abandon you.”



Much of the weeping is not really about Gaza — a small sliver of land with little historical association with the Jewish people compared with the ancient towns of Hebron, Shilo and Beit El in what the world calls the West Bank and the Israelis Judaea and Samaria.

The West Bank settlers descending on the Gaza Strip to fight for a place where they do not live are intent on pre-empting Disengagement: the Sequel in the West Bank, under some future government that will have Gaza as a precedent.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-1738568,00.html

[Malikshah]

1. Wow...shades of the Sinai

Hmmm who was in charge of getting settlers out of that area after Camp David....

Could it be....

Sharon??!??


1.3 million Palestinians.... >10K Israeli Settlers... oh, OK.