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BBC Monitoring Quotes From Israel's Hebrew Press 22 Aug 05

Posted on: Monday, 22 August 2005, 06:00 CDT

The following is a selection of quotes from editorials published in 22 Aug editions of Hebrew-language Israeli newspapers available to BBCM.

Disengagement

Yediot Aharonot [from commentary by Elyakim Haetzni]:

On 18 August the state looked in the mirror and could not recognize itself. Dr Jekyll saw Mr Hyde there and anxiously asked: Is this me? Also, the children of 2005 said: You promised a land and you are handing it over to us in shreds. You promised a defence army and you are passing on to us an army that has occupied and destroyed 25 Jewish settlements and intends to destroy 100 more. You promised a war on terror and you are leaving us a triumphant terrorism to which you have surrendered "unilaterally"... The "day after", Israel will live in the shadow of a Palestinian terror state... This will be a bitter land with a society that has lost its optimism... It will be a body without a spirit and a stock exchange without a soul. Cry, the beloved country!

Yediot Aharonot [from commentary by Nahum Barnea]:

The evacuees who have been temporarily settled in hotels, holiday villages and settlements in the West Bank are saying: "We are refugees." These are not statements to be bargained over. They are truly uprooted people. They are really refugees. Their hardship is real, even if it is lined with compensation... For years the Jewish residents of Gush Katif lived a stone's throw from the refugee camps in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Dayr Al-Balah. Their hardship was visible but distant from the heart. I assume it is stupid to hope that the right will now understand better the Palestinians' suffering and that the left will understand better the hardship of the right.

Ma'ariv [from commentary by Gadi Taob]:

It will be possible to begin real reconciliation between the settlers and secular Zionism only after the Zionist enterprise passes away. It is important to tell the settlers that they will have somewhere to return to. It is also right to see the pain of people whose political dream has been shattered and whose religious belief has gone through a difficult shock. However, the settlement movement remains un-Zionist, if not anti-Zionist... It is a movement of those who were not wise enough to understand that the essence of Zionism is Jewish sovereignty... The settlers were about to turn us into a minority in Israel. That is to say, the main vision of political Zionism - creating one place on earth in which Jews constitute the majority - was about to go down the drain.

Ha'aretz [from editorial]:

The rabbis of the extreme right used all the means at their disposal... They, not the state, have transformed the struggle over Gush Katif from a legitimate political dispute into an all-out war between the state and religion... They said blood would be spilled, promised that the evacuation would be violent - and, worst of all, assured the public as a whole that their pure prayers would stop the government and the army... The revelation of the emptiness and the lies of the radical messianic vision leaves other religious leaders - more realistic and more moderate - to make their voices heard bravely and to lead this important constituency back to the bosom of Zionist sanity.

Hatzofe [from commentary by Eliezer Greenold]:

I should not like to be in the shoes of Knesset members from Agudat Yisrael and Yahdut Hatorah [Hassidic parties], or their rabbis and leaders, when their turn comes to justify before God their motives for joining and remaining in the government headed by Ariel Sharon, who marked as a target the removal of Jewish settlements from the face of the land of Israel, where upright people who observe the Torah and the commandments had settled, motivated by the will to obey the commandment to settle the land of Israel out of love for the Torah and the land... Do they at least acknowledge their sin now, as they see Jewish families being ejected forcibly from their homes in Gush Katif?... Are they ready at least to atone for this and resign from the government at this late hour?

Ma'ariv [from commentary by Amos Gilboa]:

It is wrong to think that many of the skullcap-wearers - who believed their rabbis were right in saying that the disengagement would not take place, that a miracle would happen, that God would not let it be, and that the hearts of thousands of soldiers and policemen would melt before the yelling and cries of "Look me in the eye" - will stop believing and realize that their rabbis are false prophets. The belief of all those people will be strengthened, and their positions and deeds will become more extreme... The latent potential in the post-disengagement Israeli social reality will move, in my assessment, in the direction of further extremism and a deepening of the cleft between the secular and the religious - and, following this, towards a deepening of the cleft with the Arab population. It is necessary to deploy against this.

Sources: as listed

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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