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The proliferation of crises around the globe has, for the most part, been met with a yawn from the political class. Americans, they say, are tired of being the world’s policeman. Most media and political elite believe Americans are happy to let the world can sort out it affairs for now. They are not entirely wrong. “Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington,” an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in April found. “In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the nation and answered reporters' questions Sunday evening during the prime time newscasts after 8:00 p.m., and spelled out relatively modest aims for Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, which completes its 13th day Sunday night. In response to a question, Netanyahu said that Israel has embarked on a gradual process of undoing the harm done by the 2005 unilateral Gaza withdrawal known as the Disengagement, which ended up allowing Hamas to take over Gaza. At the time, he noted, he had warned that the vacuum left behind by Israel would be filled by Hamas, which...

Due to the initiative of Coalition Chairman Yariv Levin the Knesset will mark Gush Katif Day every year starting Tuesday, "To always remember to never repeat the mistake of the Disengagement, and to keep in mind the fact that we must take responsibility for the many families still waiting to be resettled in permanent housing...

"It is a scar, and it's part of my responsibility, but I still think it was the right move," stated Tzipi Livni, referring to the disengagement from Gaza. In 2006 the government forcibly removal of almost 8,000 Jewish civilians from the areas of Gush Katif. Livni is head of the HaTenua Party, and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs. She made the comments during a tour of the Gush Etzion region in Judea. ..."the goal is to leave the maximum number of people in their homes but not all will remain."

Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman toured the Gaza Belt Thursday along with ministers and Knesset Members from Yisrael Beitenu. They visited Ein HaBsor, Shlomit, Avshalom, and Naveh, where families evicted from Gush Katif reside. They also visited Kissufim Base and received a security briefing. "When one sees the community of Naveh, which was built in two years on barren sands, one is heartened," Lieberman said. "This community is a proper Zionist response to the historic mistake made in the Disengagement when the government of Israel tore down 21 flourishing communities with no agreement, in return for nothing...

During these days of continuous missile attacks from the Gaza strip towards southern Israel, it is most suitable to take a look back at the way some related to the warnings that this will be the situation if Israel were to retreat from Gaza, as it did in the expulsion program in August 2005. Two years ago, during the previous upheaval in the south that was met with the Cast Lead anti-terror operation, Channel 2's Amit Segal presented a montage of comments by MKs regarding the security related opinions against the disengagement plan.

How could a disengagement be done? Israel would inform the international community that it is abandoning all responsibility for Gaza residents and their welfare. The Israel-Gaza border would be completely sealed, and Gaza would have to obtain supplies and medical services via the Egyptian border, or by sea. A target date would be set for severing Gaza's water and electricity systems from those of Israel. The customs union with Israel would end, and the shekel would cease to be Gaza's legal tender. Let them print their own Palestinian currency, featuring portraits of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Israel would also make it...

The Second Disengagement by Ari Bussel "According to the Hebrew calendar, today is the fourth anniversary of the disengagement. Israel uprooted approximately 10,000 Israelis – men, women and children – from their homes. To our regret, Gaza has become a base for Hamas-led, Iranian-sponsored terrorism; thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired at us. Therefore, today, I would like to emphasize … Peace will go back to being based on reciprocity, not unilateralism. In the framework of the peace agreements, Israel expects that the Palestinians will recognize the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish People,...

Sunday's confrontation between an armed Hamas cell and Palestinian Authority policemen in Kalkilya shows that the Islamic movement still has a military presence in the West Bank - one that it is hoping to use to topple Mahmoud Abbas's regime there. PA security officials said the two Hamas operatives who were killed in the clash, Muhammad Samman and Muhammad Yassin, headed a cell that possessed large amounts of weapons, including explosives and automatic rifles, some of which had been hidden in a basement of a mosque in the city. The weapons, according to the officials, were supposed to be used...

President Shimon Peres said Wednesday that he erred in supporting Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

(IsraelNN.com) Hevron activist Baruch Marzel, interviewed on Kuwait's television station, explained why the Disengagement was good and why a PA state won't be formed. Marzel, a leading member of the currently-outlawed Kach organization, and the Kuwaiti TV station recently came to a surprising agreement to speak to one another. A resident of Jewish Hevron with his wife and nine children for over two decades, Marzel explained to the NRG-Maariv website why he agreed to the interview: "I don't see that BBC has any fewer anti-Semites than the Kuwaiti television - and even on the Israeli channels there is great anti-Semitism..."...

6 Elul 5767, August 20, '07 Published: 08/20/07, 2:10 PM Israeli Society Debates Draft Dodging by Gil Ronen (IsraelNN.com) The hot topics in Israel's debate fora this summer are "sarbanut" and "hishtamtut" – words that refer to, respectively, conscientious objection and draft evasion. Most, but not all, Israeli men and women are drafted into the military at age 18. Exceptions are made with regard to religious women, married women, many full time Torah students, Arabs, and people with medical problems Earlier this month, the IDF published statistics which showed a rise in the relative number of draft evaders – people...

3 Av 5767, July 18, '07 Published: 07/18/07, 5:06 PM Knesset Passes Indictment-Erasure Proposal by Hillel Fendel (IsraelNN.com) The government has agreed to legislation proposed by several Knesset Members to pardon indicted anti-Disengagement protestors. It may include policemen as well. The Knesset approved a preliminary reading of the proposed bill early Wednesday evening by the comfortable margin of 37-10. The bill now passes to the Knesset Law Committee for final formulation, from where it will return to the Knesset for additional votes. The bill has been exempted from the necessary 45-day waiting period, but is not expected to be passed...

God's revenge on pullout leaders insignificant compared to suffering of settlers B. Michael Published: 02.21.07, 11:13 / Israel Opinion Even before the celebration over former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz's resignation ended, the settler pagans found time to celebrate the resignation of Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi. As far as they are concerned, this is another targeted assassination of a member of the disengagement gang carried out by an avenging and begrudging God. As an aside, it is worthwhile mentioning why these revelers are deserving of the term "pagans." A religious Jew knows that he worships God. A pagan Jew is...

Follow up on disengagement shows no progress in development, infrastructure. Land owner describes difficulties in rebuilding, cultivating, urges changes, ‘I'm asking governments on both sides to allow simple people from both nations to live’ Ali Waked Published: 11.14.06, 15:39 GAZA STRIP – On the eve of the disengagement in August 2005, Hashem al-Ara, also known as Abu Muhammad, told Ynet of his hope for a better future for Gaza, and of the use of his land after dozens of years since it was taken. “We had 70 dunams of land. On the day that Neve Dekalim was built, bulldozers came...

Nationalist Camp Loyalists Arrested, Detained, and More Hillel Fendel by Hillel Fendel Ehud Olmert spoke often of the need for post-Disengagement "internal reconciliation" with the pro-Land of Israel public. His gov't is now busy arresting many of that public's most active members. A large ad published in Haaretz in early August 2005, just before the Disengagement from Gush Katif and northern Shomron, proclaimed that a campaign had begun to promote "mending the rift within our people" the day after the expulsion. In July of 2005, it was Ehud Olmert - then a Likud minister and front-man for Ariel Sharon -...

Human rights group: Contempt for human life in Gaza Physicians for Human Rights link dire medical services in Gaza to closure of border crossings into Gaza Ali Waked Latest Update: 09.03.06, 19:29 Members of the Physicians for Human Rights organization deplored on Sunday the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip where they visited a number of hospitals and met with Palestinian Health Minister Dr Basim Naeem of Hamas. Prof. Tzvi Bentwich of the group said he was impressed by the interest among members of the Palestinian medical services in cooperating with Israel to improve the situation in Gaza. "There...

At around 4 a.m. Saturday, Lt. Col. Emanuel Moreno, a senior commander in the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal), was killed in a fierce battle with Hizbullah fighters near Baalbek in the Bekaa valley not far from the Lebanese-Syrian border. From the details of the commando raid that have filtered into the media, we learned that Moreno and his men were airdropped into the area by helicopter along with their two Hummer vehicles, with the mission of attacking a Hizbullah base in the nearby village of Bodei used by the Iranian-sponsored guerrilla fighters for weapons smuggling.Iran is now working...

The open wound of Gush Katif By Nadav Shragai Last Friday when Makor Rishon's photographer, Miri Tzahi, saw the photo of First Lieutenant Amihai Merhavia, who was killed in the battle of Bint Jbail, it jogged something in her journalist's memory. She thought she had seen this face before. Tzahi, who is about publish the album, "Katif - Nine days in Av," featuring hundreds of photos of the "days of the expulsion," searched through her computer archive and found a series of photos from around four years ago, showing Merhavia during the violent evacuation of Havat Gilad (Gilad Farm) in...

Former Chief of Staff: Sharon's Disengagement a Disaster 15:56 Jul 06, '06 / 10 Tammuz 5766 by Ezra HaLevi Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Moshe Yaalon, IDF Chief of Staff until the implementation of the Gaza withdrawal, said Thursday that the entire Disengagement was conceived to save PM Sharon from legal troubles. “The Disengagement was not the result of thorough strategic analysis but the result of [then-prime minister, Ariel Sharon’s] political distress," Yaalon said in an interview to be published in full by Haaretz this weekend. “It was a disengagement from reality and a disengagement from the truth." Though such a claim...