Why Gush Katif Stills Mattersby Moshe Dann

The expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes five years ago was not a localized event in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria. It was a national implosion, a national disgrace. It caused enormous physical, psychological, social, cultural, military and strategic damage to the entire nation – and still does. Like an ecological disaster, its foulness still seeps through our foundations, and continues to poison us.

Undermined by enforcing a political agenda, the entire political system, the media and judicial institutions refused to act responsibly. Basic civil and human rights of Jews were abandoned. Those responsible for welfare and proper compensation misled and lied; led by Sela, the Disengagement Authority, our country was in denial. Our own political and many spiritual leaders – those for whom we voted, in whom we trusted – failed to organize and prevent this catastrophe. Ministers who disagreed were fired; public debate was suppressed.

The Knesset was impotent and negligent; it did not insist on proper procedures, to which all citizens are entitled; and no one was held accountable.

Our IDF, of which we are part, in which we believed, was brainwashed and turned into zombies; those who refused to participate were heavily punished – a misuse of the IDF which was illegal and immoral.

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