Aryeh's Israel Outlook

[An email written to Katie, my wife, on August 17, from Gush Katif] KT - It's about 1pm on Wednesday, I have a few minutes between assignments, thought I'd put a few thoughts and observations down in writing, about my activities and feelings. From a personal perspective, my overwhelming feeling is one of pure helplessness and despair. Not, mind you, from the same sources of the many residents being evicted or those protesting the expulsion locally or elsewhere - not because I believe we should be here permanently. But because I just don't see the point, not now, not with the way things are in this region - no peace, no security, no Palestinian democracy or reform in the Pal Authority. Hamas and even Qurei in the PA say "first Gaza, then Jerusalem & the West Bank" (Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the others say "all of Palestine" of course). The timing is terrible and wrong - they killed enough of us and now we're running away. Hence my despair. ...

“Fragmented beyond repair,” wrote Gershon Baskin in the Jerusalem Post July 26 about Israeli society. He may be right; he is dreadfully wrong as to the nature of the problem. Saying his worldview is “different” from the settlers’, Baskin purports to represent true Zionism. In fact, he betrays the very essence of our Zionist principles. He represents, in effect if not intention, the “post-Zionist” anti-Jewish ideology preferred by Israel’s enemies. Baskin decries the settling of thousands of Israelis – observant and non-observant – in the areas Israel has administered since June 1967. He writes of “saving Zionism from those who have tainted the noble aspects of its cause since 1967” with no recognition of two critical facts: That cause, in all its “aspects”, is the same as it was in Herzl and Ben Gurion’s days; and the vast majority of “those” settlers were sent by their Zionist leaders, Left and Right, to fulfill the Zionist mission: settling the land and claiming sovereignty over it. ...