Who Remembers Israel’s Gift to Gaza: Its Freedom in 2005.
No One Seems to Remember Israel’s Gift to Gaza: Its Freedom in 2005.
By
David Gottfried
One Fact, among so many other facts, forgotten by Israel bashers:
Prior to 1967, the Gaza Strip was ruled by Egypt. (When the Gaza strip was ruled by Egypt, no one said that the so-called Palestinians who lived there were being denied their “Palestinian” national rights.)
In 1967, three Arab Nations, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, waged war against Israel. They boasted that they would drown the Jews in the Mediterranean Sea. By the conclusion of 1967’s Six Day war, Israel had taken the entire Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip from Egypt. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Israel gave the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt; this was an attempt, on the part of Israel, to show its interest in peace. It was an expression of goodwill. (Which deprived Israel of its only domestic source of oil)
In the Spring of 2000, Israel withdrew its forces from Southern Lebanon. This also was a gesture of goodwill. What happened: In the autumn of 2000, the so-called Palestinians launched another bloody intifada in the West Bank, and Southern Lebanon, recently vacated by Israel, filled up with Hezbollah and rockets which periodically rained terror on Israel.
In 2005, Ariel Sharon, who was portrayed by the Western media, and much of the Israeli media, as a warlike Ogre ala John Wayne, decided to abandon Jewish settlements in Gaza, give all of Gaza back to the Arabs, and withdraw all Israeli Civilians and soldiers from Gaza.
But Israel did not just evacuate from Gaza. They gave the people of Gaza a going away present: They constructed facilities and workplaces from which the people of Gaza could produce goods and enhance their economy. And the people of Gaza responded by making bombs to blow up Israelis. Israel was compelled to regulate trade into Gaza (which she didn’t do with sufficient stringency as Gaza has made tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of rockets), and these impositions have made life in Gaza hard and rough and mean. But Gaza has only itself to blame: In 2005, Israeli withdrew from Gaza and gave the Arabs brand new factories for a new national economy. And this past Saturday, the Arabs crossed the border and hacked the heads off of toddlers and infants.
And as for the spoiled, effete, la di dah “radical” children in Harvard singing the praises of Hamas: Drag them out of college and put them on a chain gang in Alabama and make them sleep in the mud and feed them nothing but cornbread and fat-back.