Posted on 01/10/2005 2:08:55 PM PST by anotherview
Expensive, but necessary
By Avraham Tal
The Finance Ministry budgets director, Kobi Haber, estimates that the total cost of disengagement will reach NIS 5 billion, of which about NIS 2 billion will be security sector spending (the Israel Defense Forces and the police), and NIS 3 billion, civilian compensation for residents and business owners in the in Erez industrial zone. Some NIS 2.2 billion will be allocated this year in the hopes that it will suffice; if not, the hole will have to be filled from the current budget. The budgetary cost of disengagement is far from the whole bill, most of which is immeasurable, and Israeli society will have to pay it for many years. The first and heaviest item on the bill is the damage to social cohesion as a result of the opposition of a minority of the public. Israeli society has already endured this sort of damage - for instance, during the Lebanon War - but never this seriously. Its dangerous manifestation is refusal, which has exposed not just ideological differences, but the enormous rift that has always existed between the public subservient to the rabbis, and the free public.
Right-wing refusal, unlike the limited examples of refusal on the left, threatens the wholeness of the army for the first time since 1948. One senior officer went so far as to tell Haaretz last Friday: "We are on the edge of the abyss. When a central camp calls for refusal, there is substantial danger to the IDF, even to the existence of the state." It is also worrying that people from the veteran settlement movements, known as "the salt of the earth," are joining the settler protest. They grant secular validity to a minority almost entirely motivated by compliance with rabbinical decrees.
Another item on the bill stems from the need for the prime minister to bring the ultra-Orthodox back into the coalition to create a pro-disengagement majority. The last elections created the first serious chance for a secular-civilian government, and a few steps were taken to weaken the hold of religion on a few matters of state. All this was nipped in the bud when Shinui was unceremoniously dumped from the coalition, and were crushed altogether with United Torah Judaism being ushered back into the coalition.
The coalition agreement between UTJ and the Likud makes it clear that Israel is marching again into the darkness of ultra-Orthodox control. Another harbinger of former decrees that befell the free public in the past is the veto power granted the ultra-Orthodox minority over private-member legislation aimed at changing the religious status quo or at raising the electoral threshold, necessary to stabilize the regime. The NIS 290 million dowry being paid to the ultra-Orthodox for marrying into the coalition is marginal compared to the real cost.
Another item on the bill that society will pay for disengagement is the cessation of structural reforms. Educational reform is the main one that will be hurt. The agreement between the Likud and UTJ grants the ultra-Orthodox an exemption from the Dovrat Commission recommendations, primarily from the requirement of a core curriculum. This contravenes a High Court of Justice ruling and will inevitably lead to demands from other entities - mostly the national-religious education system - for similar exemptions. It is thus possible that one small item in the coalition agreement has suspended education reform until further notice.
Two other important reforms - concerning the financial markets and the ports - are not directly impacted by the political events, but it is unlikely the government will have the determination and strength to cope with resolute opponents of reform when it is up to its neck in disengagement and its composition doesn't ensure broad support (in light of Labor reservations about port reform and its position in the struggle the banking sector workers will wage against financial market reform).
Although there is no direct connection, there is really another item on the bill: the final discarding of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's campaign promise to reinstate primaries in the Likud. This ends the chance to root out the corruption inherent in the party central committee's selection of its Knesset candidates - a corrupt method implemented in Labor and, also likely, in Yahad-Meretz. If Sharon had directed his determination toward implementing this reform, he might have succeeded. But in the current political situation, when the supreme goal is disengagement - who can expect Sharon to wage an uncompromising battle on this party matter, and against the central committee no less?
Disengagement costs and will keep costing Israeli society, and the risks are great. But according to the long-term historical view, there can be no doubt that the risk is worth taking. It holds the key to Israel's survival as a democratic Jewish state. That dwarfs everything.
"Disengagement costs and will keep costing Israeli society,"
... more like the American taxpayer. :rolleyes:
I hope some Freepers that either are from Israel, or have relatives or a strong opinion about the pullout from GAZA, would join this thread. I am none of the above, but I am a fan of Israels and totally believe in the STATE of Israel.
When Sharon first brought up the unilateral pull out I thought it was good because the GAZA strip was a defined area that would be easy to keep the two nations separate. Of course since then, some of the Jewish residents are upset about beening forced to move and "giving in" to the Palestinians.
I am going to defer my opinion on this until I hear some more thoughts on the matter....
Israel's Disengagement from Gaza: Making a closer place to launch the missiles from.
if it weren't for the evacuation at dunquirk, the brits might have lost.
That didnt win the war that almost lost the war. After the evacuation they regrouped and came back in something I believe called D-Day.
Since you ask. Most of the people I know are wholly in favour of the disengagement. We are as likely to be wrong as anyone else and you can of course point out instructive parallels as to why we are likely to be wrong, but to put the whole country in the balance to support a relatively few stalwarts seems wrong.
We are tired of warmaking. We are tired of battling for small portions of land. We don't want to spend the huge amounts of manpower, of young people's lives and of money in defending a few individuals, no matter how much they might sincerely believe in their cause.
I don't think that this could be legitimately called "giving in" to the Palestinians. We see it as pragmatic and practical.
People who incite soldiers to rebel against the army are endangering the state in my own view. We live in a democracy and the majority opinion rules.
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