Disengagement

Two things are ever clearer about the current situation in Sderot. The first is that it is intolerable; the second, that nobody has any clear idea of what to do about it.

Israeli society will be judged by its treatment of the Gush Katif evacuees. On that score, we are failing at present.

The Gaza withdrawal laid bare some very deep divisions in Israeli society. In the wake of the withdrawal, the impulse of most Israelis has been to seek some sort of national reconciliation and to reaffirm that which is held in common.

Not everyone, however, is so eager to mend the tear in Israeli society. Yossi Sarid for one seems disappointed that the feared civil war with the settlers did not take place.

The national religious community in Israel is poised, in the wake of the Gaza withdrawal, for at least the third major directional shift since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Those whose world has been devastated, and whose long-cherished verities have been called into question, deserve from us an outstretched hand, a friendly smile, a shared tear.

Talk of the “chareidization” of the national religious world in the wake of the Gaza withdrawal is much in the air.

The refugees have lost everything, and their entire worldview has been shaken to the core. Who knows what effect have an outstretched hand, a warm embrace, a friendly smile, a shared tear could have at this point.

The first casualty of the Gaza withdrawal has been the sundering of the relationship between secular Israel and the national religious camp.

Nothing could be more dangerous for our long-range survival, than for Sarid’s narrative of Jews as having stolen the Land to become the dominant Israel one

The repercussions of the uprooting of 8,000 Jews from Gaza are likely to be felt on Israeli society for years to come

there is one other aspect of the disengagement that should particularly concern us, as we approach Tisha B'Av. "Hashem is taking back the Land," in the words of one of our generation's leading ba'alei hashkafa.

Well, the Team Orange and Team Blue are tied 2-2 on the playing field of the Rosenblum family

THE NON-DEBATE over the Gaza withdrawal mirrors our national conversation habits. The various tribes of Israel prefer pointing out the failures of other communities to confronting their own internal problems.

The impending removal of 8,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip constitutes a trauma of unprecedented magnitude for the national religious world in Israel.

Is there no choice between religious messianism and entering into an uncharted unknown fraught with great danger?

. OF LATE, the Gaza withdrawal has begun to transmute in the public mind into an end in itself, much as Oslo did. Under Oslo, the "peace process" required a continuous stream of new signed agreements to preserve the illusion of forward momentum.

One of the most striking aspects of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal initiative is how little time and energy he has spent explaining and selling his plan to the Israeli public.