The Sharon Evacuation Horror Show
By Lev Grinberg
December 28, 2003
"If you want to shoot, shoot, don't talk", recommends the bad guy in the Western movie after killing his innocent victim. The lesson is clear: if you want to take action against the other, you don't need to waste your time on talks that might eventually prevent your action.
In Israel, everybody is talking about dismantling settlements in the Occupied Territories, but no one has yet removed even one settler. This intensive talking has replaced the need to take action. These clearly contradictory policies were initiated by Yitzchak Rabin's administration and continued by Ehud Barak, and we all know the sad and violent end of both these administrations. Now the over-talking about evacuation has spread to the Likud party, and even though we have no idea where Sharon might end up, it is obvious that over-talking about removing settlements is the substitute for actually evacuating them.
I am not arguing that there will never be a showcase attempt to remove a settlement, as promised. Instead, I argue that a sincere intention to remove the settlements needs not talking about it, but above all, planning and effective implementation. That approach has never been tried in Israel.
Why does the government need thousands of soldiers in order to dismantle a settlement? Why should the government invite the resistance to the evacuation to organize and entrench themselves in advance? Sharon has been the producer and director of the evacuation horror show of Yamit in 1982, and now he is producing a rerun in the West Bank. The political purpose of such a horror show is obvious: it is designed to preclude any further evacuations. It is planned in such a way that the international media would show the entire world just how difficult and impossible the task of evacuation really is.
The fundamental problem of the Israeli government is that the reality is exactly the opposite: dismantling settlements is very easy. That is why they don't really promote the evacuation of settlements. This is why they talk instead of acting. They wish to hide the easiness of removing settlements from international public opinion, from the Palestinians, and also from the Israelis. How can the government of Israel legitimize the claim to annex occupied lands (as Barak did in Camp David and Sharon does now in his "unilateral withdrawal plan"), if there are no Jewish settlers that are "impossible to remove from there"? That is why Sharon is currently producing a "grand spectacle" of a violent evacuation event: this is why he has announced in advance where and when it will take place, giving the fanatic settlers ample time to mobilize all the zealots willing "to kill and be killed" in the struggle against any intention to remove settlements. This group is not only a meager percentile of the citizens of Israel; they are also a small minority among West Bank settlers.
So what must be done in order to remove the settlements? First of all, voluntary evacuation should be promoted. Rabin has rejected a legislative initiative to offer compensation to any Israeli citizen living beyond the Green Line who would be willing to return to the boundaries of Israel. Such an act, even today, could prevent the violent confrontations with most of the settlers. It could be supported by international funding, and it could even help to relieve Israeli economy from its current stagnation.
So why hasn't such a law been enacted yet by all the governments that kept talking about evacuation? Because it would clearly expose the entire settlement enterprise for what it really is: a state-sponsored project, not a free voluntary initiative of fanatical citizens whose sole objective is to occupy Palestinians lands, and who vehemently refuse to evacuate them.
A generous bill that would compensate the settlers for the value of their property and offer a fair sum of money for the years they have spent serving the colonizing state, in addition to the material incentives offered to every Israeli returnee to the country, would bring most of the settlers back to Israel voluntarily, quickly and without the use of force. The majority of the settlers are still in the Occupied Territories because the government of Israel wants them there, and without them, there will be no legitimacy to the continuation of military presence in the Occupied Territories. In other words, the settlers are needed by the colonizing state to justify the occupation.
The state of Israel beyond the Green Line is not a state of law, but rather a colonizing state apparatus that constantly violates international law. The state sends its citizens there by means of huge financial incentives, and those who wish to return to the recognized state of Israel within the Green Line voluntarily are prevented from doing so by economic constrains.
In the areas ruled by the colonizing state there is no law. It is a wild west, where naked violence is the only rule. The goal of the colonizing state is to rob the lands of the Palestinians. Under these circumstances, the fanatic fervor of a tiny minority of messianic zealots is encouraged, and they are constructed as the "pioneers of the nation".
The colonizing state apparatus thoroughly backs its settlers, not only ideologically, financially and militarily, but also by providing them with all the services the state can provide, satisfying all their needs, from water supply, electrical power and phone services, to housing, transportation, education and health care.
Evacuating a settlement is no problem, and it isn't necessary for the military to take part in it. What must be done is the dismantling of the colonizing state apparatus. The state of Israel must recognize international law, declare all settlements illegal, and stop supplying their needs. No one would be able to live there without the support of the state. Declaring a specific area a closed military territory, a regular practice used against Israeli leftwing demonstrators or Palestinians, would make it impossible to organize the big horror show of fanatic messianic settlers struggling against evacuation.
Unfortunately, none of this will happen in the near future. Sharon will continue over-talking evacuations, producing horror shows of fanatic messianic resistance. His goal is to demonstrate to the entire world the impossibility of dismantling the colonizing state, thus legitimizing the ongoing military occupation and annexation of Palestinian Lands.
