Return of the Jews to Exile – Gaza Settler Expulsion

The Jewish settler, gun at his hip, broke down as he thought of what would happen when Israeli police arrive on his doorstep to remove his family from their Gaza Strip home.

"It's like asking me 'If someone comes to rape your wife, what will you do?'," he sobbed.

This original British map of Israel (called Palestine by the British) shows the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel. This is what was intended by the Balfour declaration as making the boundaries of Israel. The West Bank (or Judea and Samaria to give it the original name and the Gaza Strip rightfully belong to Israel.) So can the present Sharon Government have the resolve to evacuate Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza as it is trying to do to Jewish settlers?

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At least he thinks he won't.

"Nobody knows how it will develop, where heightened emotions might lead to," said Haim, who is on trial accused of having beaten Palestinian motorists.

"Someone who is a moderate could suddenly find himself doing something extreme," he said, sitting on a bench outside a synagogue in the Gaza settlement of Neve Dekalim.

Israeli security forces fear militant settlers and supporters might use guns and explosives to try to prevent the pullout from Gaza and the northern West Bank.

Many of the 235,000 settlers living on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war believe the territory is part of a religious birthright and the fulfillment of a biblical prophesy that will pave the way for the coming of the messiah.

"For them it's a dream of the redemption of the people of Israel. Leaving Gaza smashes that dream and is a complete disaster for these people," said Menachem Friedman, a professor at Bar-Ilan University and an expert on Jewish extremists.

"They might react in a very harsh way."

Security forces are preparing for every eventuality, including attempts to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and attacks on Palestinians and Islamic holy sites.

Activists from the outlawed anti-Arab Kach group are high on the security watch list.

"We will do anything we can to stop this disaster to the Jewish state. It is a danger to the survival of the Jewish people," said Baruch Marzel, a Kach leader. "We are going to fight it (the Gaza withdrawal) in any way we can."

When Israel evacuated the settlement of Yamit in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 as part of a peace treaty with Egypt, dozens of Kach activists holed themselves up in a bunker and threatened to commit suicide, at one point dousing the walls with petrol.

The stand-off ended after they were persuaded to back down by their charismatic leader Rabbi Meir Kahane. U.S.-born Kahane was assassinated by an Egyptian gunman in New York in 1990.

Security officials fear die-hards will blockade themselves in Gaza settlements, raising the specter of carnage reminiscent of an FBI siege of the Branch Davidian apocalyptic sect in Waco, Texas in 1993 that ended in the deaths of some 80 people.

One nightmare scenario cited by officials has militant settlers planting mines and explosives around buildings and troops having to use force to remove them.

STOCKPILING FOOD

Settlers in Gaza referred to the story of Masada in which 1,000 besieged Jewish rebels held off Roman legions for three years at a desert fortress before committing suicide to avoid capture in AD 73.

Militants have set up an organization called "Gamla Will Not Fall Again," named for the Jewish village where another group of Jewish rebels jumped from cliffs to their deaths when they faced defeat by the Romans in the first century.

The group is attempting to stockpile food and water as well as electrical generators for what they believe will be a protracted siege in Gaza if the army cuts off supplies to the settlers.

"Yamit was very minor compared to what is going to happen at Gush Katif," said Boaz Haetzni, one of the organizers

Like many settlers, Haetzni insists he won't use violence to resist the evacuation -- which he calls "a second Holocaust."

Such comparisons with the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II have caused concern about what militant settlers might do to stop the withdrawal.

For many settlers, it is the end of a dream and the beginning of what they fear will be more handovers of biblical land Palestinians want for a state.

The government hopes to entice most to leave peacefully in return for compensation of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"It's clear to everyone on the right today that if Gush Katif falls, the flood gates will open," said Haetzni, who lives in the West Bank but intends to move to Gaza to resist the pull-out.

His plan is to send tens of thousands of supporters to Gaza, blocking traffic on busy intersections so that police will be too busy restoring order to be able to carry out the evacuation.

Israel itself could become volatile as the July 20 kick-off of the withdrawal approaches.

Security forces, fearing attacks by Jewish extremists, have stepped up protection around public officials involved with the withdrawal as well as holy sites such as Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a Kach activist, says he is ready to die to prevent the evacuation. He like other many other militant Jews views his fellow Israelis involved in the withdrawal, especially Sharon, as traitors.

"I hope it won't happen, but I think the path Sharon is taking will lead to a bloodbath," said Ben-Gvir.

In one phrase Sharon’s action is leading to the “Return of the Jews to Exile”, as against Moses who in biblical times led to the return of the Jews from exile.