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Last update - 11:48 07/03/2008
The curse of Gaza
By Yossi Sarid
Tags: IDF, Israel, Gaza 

After more than 40 years, "cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease," what good is one more "Warm Winter"? Even a thousand swallows from the rumpled sleeves of Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas will not make a spring. It happened in the winter of 1969: Ariel Sharon, then a major-general on active duty in the Israel Defense Forces, invited Pinhas Sapir, then finance minister and kingmaker, to tour the West Bank with him. Sapir asked me to come along, and I did. Sharon, for his part, tried to win us over with the marvels of occupation, the mirage of Greater Israel. We spent a whole day in the territories together, and at the end, the frightened guest told his excited host: Today we hold the territories, tomorrow they will hold us. And to me Sapir whispered in terror: This man is dangerous, he will be the end of us, causing us a great deal of trouble.

Decades later Sharon, too, began - only began - to understand: Israel may have disengaged from Gaza, but Gaza has not disengaged from Israel; it pursues and clings and refuses to let go. Yasser Arafat is long dead, but his curse lives on: We are still drinking the seawater of Gaza, cursed water, salty and dirty - you can neither swallow it nor vomit it out.

When Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and the Philistines laid siege to the house in order to kill him, he fled far away, carrying on his shoulders the gates of the city, and the two posts, bar and all. Samson was not the wisest of Israel's judges, but he was the burliest, a favorite of muscle-loving Judaism, and even when he had been blinded and his locks had been shorn, his courage did not disappear. We too are strong and blind and our hair is not what it used to be. But we, in our flight, did not carry away the gates; instead we locked them, leaving 1.5 million people behind bars. And so we will die with the Philistines every day anew.
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Now, in retrospect, some claim that the disengagement from Gaza was a bad deal. Regret is now the bon ton. But there is nothing to regret. It is easy to imagine what would have happened in the Land of Hamas had 8,000 Jewish settlers still been stuck there, in the crossfire. Thousands of soldiers would have had to protect them, every man as he went out, every woman as she went in, every grandmother and grandson on their way to yoga. As for Sderot, it was bombed by the bastards before and it is bombed now, and the settlers in their safe rooms would not have sheltered Gaza.

The disengagement was actually a step in the right direction, but it was a small, belated, crooked step. Belated, because we waited for the occupation to go bad and fall into the hands of Hamas like a rotten fruit; small, because you cannot separate those which are attached, the West Bank and Gaza; and crooked, because it was wrong to disengage into a situation of abandon, without any kind of agreement, without handing the territory over to an Arab, international or mixed trusteeship.

The feigned regret is meant to thwart the great withdrawal that Olmert promised and has already changed his mind about. Not only is there no such withdrawal on the horizon, but even the outposts are now being cleansed and legitimized. Ehud Barak and Haim Ramon are the chief purifiers: they beg the land robbers to evacuate the scene of one crime so that they will be allowed to commit legal crimes elsewhere. Any highway robber would leap at the chance.

Only a few weeks ago the prime minister said that without a Palestinian state, "the State of Israel is finished." One must hope that he is wrong, as he was wrong for 40 years while he dug tunnels into darkness. But there is more than one way to "finish" a state. The surrender of a government to ideological crimes is also something that "finishes." How foolish the negotiations now seem, those peace talks that are supposed to be done by the end of the year; how ludicrous are Olmert and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and George W. Bush and his Condoleezza Rice.

The curse of Gaza is as powerful as death: if the entire occupation is a tragedy, the occupation of Gaza is its essence: 360 square kilometers, some 1.5 million people, 1 million refugees, and the responsibility is all ours. From the beginning there were those who warned us of the curse, and not only Sapir; even Moshe Dayan used words of caution. It did no good. The euphoria is contagious, the war rolls on, and a wise people is a foolish one. In the Zionist enterprise's march of folly, Gaza stands out as a major milestone, a signpost of weeping. The foundation stone of our tears.
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  1.   Sarid the Clever,but he stood with Arafat,Beilin and Tibi in Gaza 12:22  |  Absolute Sweden 07/03/08
  2.   Clash of civilisations 12:52  |  Sherlock Holmes 07/03/08
  3.   the ideological blindness of Yossi Sarid 13:04  |  eddie 07/03/08
  4.   THE CURSE OF GAZA ? 13:25  |  indrajaya 07/03/08
  5.   Islamic hysteria and the future of the Jews. 13:46  |  Akram Zekaria 07/03/08
  6.   YOSSI SARID if Sharon is dangerous what are you? 13:54  |  Gil 07/03/08
  7.   Great article 13:57  |  JJ Burke 07/03/08
  8.   The disengagement was the main cause for Hamas gaining control 14:05  |  Zev 07/03/08
  9.   Yossi Sarid, That`s the curse of the Israelis not Gazans 14:15  |  Dutch 07/03/08
  10.   Eddie of London Seems to Forget 14:41  |  Yaakov Sullivan 07/03/08
  11.   The author is profoundly correct - More appeasements are needed 14:51  |  Neville Chamberlain 07/03/08
  12.   AK-47s killed peace!! 14:54  |  Dr Eric 07/03/08
  13.   Sarid, liar, terror will continue until bogus "refugees" return 14:57  |  McQueen 07/03/08
  14.   Yossi you are right - we must learn from mistakes!! 14:57  |  Dr Eric 07/03/08
  15.   Peace = compromise and tolerance 14:59  |  dr eric 07/03/08
  16.   Tolerance equals...... 15:00  |  Dr Eric 07/03/08
  17.   To Mr. Sarid. 15:00  |  sandra chitayat 07/03/08
  18.   compromise equals..... 15:03  |  dr eric 07/03/08
  19.   #5 @AKram Zakaria 15:04  |  Creative 07/03/08
  20.   The Curse of Sarid lives on 15:18  |  Joe 07/03/08
  21.   The curse of the Left 15:20  |  Frank 07/03/08
  22.   This Guy gave Gaza the Guns to kill Jews 16:11  |  I.M. Knot Fooled 07/03/08
  23.   Yossi Sarid is finally catching on to Arafat 16:25  |  Johnny Weintraub 07/03/08
  24.   LEVERAGE WATER FOR PEACE from USMC (ret) 16:29  |  LtCol G Murray 07/03/08
  25.   Coulda woulda shoulda 16:30  |  John 07/03/08
  26.   Sarid - No Shame in Being Consistently Wrong, and Still Arrogant 16:30  |  Tod Zuckerman 07/03/08
  27.   Eddie our foolish london friend... 16:46  |  Ibrahim 07/03/08
  28.   Arafat`s Infection 16:53  |  Brod 07/03/08
  29.   Hamas and Fatah are the same 17:08  |  Bo 07/03/08
  30.   yossi the wise... 17:13  |  ravi 07/03/08
  31.   Israel could have chosen open borders, trade .. 17:39  |  Chanalau, Tova 07/03/08
  32.   Terrible paper. 17:41  |  Vital 07/03/08
  33.   #19 another theorist bites the dust with ignorance 18:03  |  v hardman 07/03/08
  34.   No Truer Words Were Spoken 18:15  |  Yaakov Sullivan 07/03/08
  35.   SARID, THE PROBLEM, AFTER RABIN, 18:25  |  Robert 07/03/08
  36.   It is too late to muse over chances lost.. 18:27  |  Kris 07/03/08
  37.   #8 Dutch-Doris Cadigan;You are full of it .Israel is at war.US is 18:28  |  Max Zinger P.Chimist 07/03/08
  38.   Sarid and his spectacles! 18:54  |  Lenny 07/03/08
  39.   hypocrites like Sarid are the curse not Arafat 19:06  |  zionist forever 07/03/08
  40.   Sarid aided and abetted Arafat and company 19:07  |  Gee 07/03/08
  41.   Samson learned from his mistake Sarid blames everybody but enemy 19:28  |  zionist forever 07/03/08
  42.   40 years of occupation. Curse or blessing? 19:44  |  Yuval 07/03/08
  43.   Whose Curse??? 20:01  |  Jack Olson 07/03/08
  44.   And now the settlements have destroyed the 2 state solution 20:23  |  ELIAS KHOURY 07/03/08
  45.   A WISE ZIONIST VOICE? 20:25  |  JACKAL 07/03/08
  46.   To John # 13 How did you know ? 20:36  |  David 07/03/08
  47.   To Eddie: It`s All Fluff 20:47  |  Dave Levy 07/03/08
  48.   Sarid himself is the living curse that brought Arafat & henchmen 20:49  |  Genuine Tosefta 07/03/08
  49.   The Allon Plan is Israel`s Least Problem 20:54  |  Dave Levy 07/03/08
  50.   #35 Levy says mistake to build Jewish state in Arab region 22:17  |  Pablo B 07/03/08
  51.   David #32 22:42  |  John 07/03/08
  52.   Dave Levy where do you live 22:46  |  Truth 07/03/08
  53.   Imperial angst 22:49  |  Truth 07/03/08
  54.   Are you on crack? 23:34  |  David 07/03/08
  55.   Indrajaya #4 23:38  |  Avrum 07/03/08
  56.   It is Gaza`s ground that is cursed - Genesis 4:10 01:37  |  Rick Gross 08/03/08
  57.   Yossi Sarid you are a weakling who has been worn down 01:40  |  Doc Holliday 08/03/08
  58.   You really are blind 01:43  |  Raphael 08/03/08
  59.   Yossi Sarid states many truths in this article, but must continue 02:06  |  Smadar 08/03/08
  60.   12 LtColl Hamas does not want water, it wants Israel Dead. 03:00  |  I 08/03/08
  61.   Arafat was good at stealing money from his own people 03:22  |  Joseph David 08/03/08
  62.   Gaza and the world 08:49  |  Joachim 08/03/08
  63.   The curse of gaza 09:03  |  Joachim 08/03/08
  64.   peace is not so difficult to reach 10:20  |  bensassi 08/03/08
  65.   yossi believes in `agreements` from the pals -what a joke 11:41  |  don 08/03/08
  66.   Gaza is but a mindset not a cusrse 14:26  |  Sabra 08/03/08
  67.   you Israelis just don`t get it till now 15:05  |  Egypt 08/03/08
  68.   To Tod #26-----Less Rant and More Respect, Please 15:58  |  Brian Freund 08/03/08
  69.   Great article from MrYS. that the RW cannot bear. 16:56  |  Avi 08/03/08
  70.   49#D.Levy.Please take your dark glasses off. 17:22  |  Abu Sa`d 08/03/08
  71.