Monday, August 22, 2005

The Gaza withdrawal has been seen in diferent lights by different people on different sides in the Middle East. Some see it as a cover for the Israelis to hold on to their settlements in the more precious land of the West Bank whilst seeming cooperative towards the Palestinians getting their own state but really just throwing a bone to the Palestinians in the form of barren Gaza, others see it as a great victory for the Palestinians. So one opinion is an Israeli victory while the other is a Palestinian victory. This spiked-online.com article says, it is neither.

From the troubles the Israeli army has been enduring in forcing out the settlers and dealing with anti-withdrawal protestors plus the heat that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has been receiving from politicians and some of his people, it's clear this is not an easy or desirable measure in pulling out from Gaza.
At the same time, the Palestinians seem to be unclear in who exactly will be running things, whether it's the PA, the official authority, or those other organisations like Hamas for instance.

Gwynne Dyer writes of how
basically the Israelis had to withdraw for their own safety.

Certainly when looking at scenes of the Israeli withdrawal, one sees and hears so much of the pain and anguish of many of the settlers and yes, one understands that they are losing their homes, yet compared to the suffering their Palestinian neighbors endure, the settlers' sadness seem like nothing. I mean, those settlers did get compensated by their government, plus they will move into new homes, they will not be homeless.
Here's a good article from the Guardian. The writer contrasts the circumstances of the settlers withdrawal with that of the Palestinians in Rafah when their homes were demolished by Israelis for "security reasons".