Yesterday’s biggest news got buried under the D-Day anniversary and Reagan Remembrances. Maybe they did it that way on purpose.
Anyway, since you probably missed it, here it is:
Israeli cabinet approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s revised disengagement plan by a 14 to 7 majority on Sunday evening.
Sharon said Sunday evening that the cabinet’s approval of the plan shows that Israel is “taking its future in its own hands.”
“The government decided today that by the end of 2005 Israel will leave (all 21 Jewish settlements in) Gaza and four settlements (in the West Bank),” he said shortly after the vote.
In about 18 months, Israel will have moved completely — completely, including settlers — out of the Gaza Strip. 100% gone. No more nasty Jews living among the ummah. Furthermore, four of the biggest West Bank settlements will be dismantled. And you can bet those will be followed by even more, as Israel attempts to disengage themselves from the Palestinian problem.
Hard-headed realists know that, short of mass expulsion of every Arab from the West Bank and Gaza, pulling back and building a security fence is almost certainly the best way to keep Israeli citizens safe from attack. Or at least safer, safety being a relative thing in the Middle East, and a third cousin twice removed in Israel.
Your typical muddlehead thinks two things, in contradiction. First, that the Israeli settlements provoke the Palestinians into loading up teenage boys with fancy vest bombs, then walking them into bus stops or crowded markets. Second, that pulling out of the settlements will provoke the Palestinians into loading up teenage boys with fancy vest bombs, then walking them into bus stops or crowded markets.
The argument, near as I can reason it out, deconstructs like so: The Israelis should never have moved into the West Bank (hello, have you forgotten why they moved in?), but when they did, those silly Jews brought jobs and money with them. If they leave, so will the jobs and the money. And since everyone has a right to jobs and money, even if they do blow up their employers from time to time. . .
Just how does a muddlehead get so twisted as to think that the ending of a provocation is too provocative? But, such as it is, that’s their read on Israel’s predicament.
Oh, brother. I need a martini just thinking about it.
UPDATE: NightHawk notes that “when I used Google to search for news stories on this important event, I didn’t find a single instance of its mention in any US paper.”
And Big Media wonders why it’s held in such low esteem.
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