Thirty-three years ago on Passover eve the effort to establish a foothold in Sebastia began. The media and the government sowed fear and claimed that a putsch was afoot. A generation passed and we live in a democratic country, much more democratic than it was in 1974. If there is a threat to democracy after the moderate, responsible and dignified response of the orange camp to the unfortunate and infuriating uprooting from Gush Katif and northern Samaria - and in the long term it exists - it will not come from the settlers' camp.

Sebastia started at a time of national gloom and despair that afflicted the public after the Yom Kippur War. Even though the war ended with an unprecedented victory, there were some who felt, as many feel after the Second Lebanon War, that there is an existential threat to the state. But while most individuals and movements focused on deepening the despair, one group, Gush Emunim, stood up and declared that the war actually proved how strong the country and its people are.

This group stated that the main reasons for the despair were psychological and not essential. To cure the systems of national shell shock (which in many respects continues to this day) Gush Emunim chose an optimistic course. The only resource available to it was an enthusiastic core of people who were willing to enlist "in the aid of the people": settling in the heart of the Land of Israel. This is the means, they felt, to restore the country's confidence in the justness of its ways and in the IDF. The settlement effort, after all, had always been the jewel in the crown of Zionism.

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However, to denigrate the process in the public's eyes, it had to be described as a revolt. The media led the assault and did not merely collaborate with the government in leading the spin. One of the main sources of the motivation, determination and adherence to the cause of the activists of those days, and of the youth of Gush Katif, Amona and Homesh today, is the anger against the unrestrained distortion of their pure intentions.

The initiators of the return to Homesh feel that a return to it will correct, if only slightly, the Zionist judgment, as well as the strategic error in uprooting settlement blocs. In their opinion, such a correction will help raise national morale which is not at a low because of the failure of the disengagement, the failure in Lebanon and the corruption in the government and police leadership.

Even if this is a naive thought, it should not be mocked. Only dreamers and the determined bring about a turning point at historic junctures. Not the cynics, not the ones who protect the citrons and raise them up, and certainly not those entering the political fray out of a lust for power or financial gain.

Will Homesh be the second Sebastia and power a significant national endeavor? It depends on the core group, its supporters (most of whom remained at home this week) and the government's actions. But more than anything else, success is dependent on public support.

In 1974, most of the public supported the Sebastia settlers, even though the media and the government described the settlers as enemies of Israel. The popular support and not the episodic reasons that opponents of the settlement enterprise still cling to prompted Yitzhak Rabin to agree, with clenched teeth, to the Kadum compromise.

It seems that today as well most of the public, even if it is not convinced that the settlement is the answer to the government's malaise and the people's weakness, is with this innocent and devoted youth. This support, which the shapers of the "right opinions" will do everything to eliminate, should be taken into account in the next attempts to gain a foothold in Homesh. It is important to note. Only after eight attempts that ended in despair and continued for an entire year did the government have to say to itself: "My children have defeated me."