Conventional wisdom was wrong
Despite Israeli media hype nothing like what was predicted occurred during pullout
The latest example of that: the media, activist, army, police and political predictions of what would happen during the Gaza pullout (withdrawal, expulsion, evacuation, disengagement - take your pick).
Despite the media hype (and here I am taking primarily domestic Israeli media to task - the global media, as usual, are a different story), nothing like what was predicted occurred. The pullout did not take four weeks, or even three.
It did not erupt into civil war; no one committed suicide in a Masada-type incident (Media reports of a woman who self-immolated were offbase. The woman was not a resident of the Gaza town in which this occurred, she had a history of mental ailments, and certainly made no big media show of it, the way even Buddhist monks did in the Vietnam War era.).
You could say part of the blame for the media hype belongs with the police and military; but it appears now - and probably could have been discerned during the events - that the police leaks, hints, rumors, winks and nods were deliberate disinformation designed to put the settlers and their supporters on the defensive, and to give the police more room to maneuver when crunch time came.
Happy to comply
Israel's generally left-wing and sensationalist media were only too happy to be complicit in these obvious leaks, and did little to counter their drumbeat.
Army fantasies about using hovercrafts and landing craft in an upside down version of the D-Day landing never came true; nor did police leaks that suggested some settlers were heavily armed and might come out shooting.
Settler threats that Tel Aviv stores would be looted during the pullout because of the absence of police and that soldiers would act brutally toward them also failed to come true. No complaints of police brutality - a regular occurrence here from attendees of soccer games and anti-security-barrier protests - have been filed in regards to the pullout.
Perhaps most hyped were dire predictions by the left and the right of mass refusals by soldiers to participate in the actions. The settlers were reported to be preparing heavy-duty, Vietnam-era psychological tactics to get soldiers to crack.
Bassi was right
About the only prediction that did come true was the widely scorned comment by Disengagement Authority head Yonatan Bassi. In an interview with Ynetnews (to be fair, he said it to anyone who asked), he predicted 80 percent of settlers would leave without fuss. He may have been off by a few percent, but he was the only one who got it right.
There was a disturbing willingness, perhaps even a will, to see the most dire predictions come through. Sage, experienced journalists were convinced there would be extensive bloodshed.
It's certainly possible some even wanted that: some on the left would have liked to see the orange blood of the right spilled in a further effort to discredit them. Some on the extreme right would have liked to see blood in order to show how bad the government is.
Thankfully, the extremists on both sides did not get what they wanted.
In the end, the country got what it was seeking, apparently, a cathartic event in which all of the overheated emotions of the previous months came pouring out. It was the one part of the story that had not been predicted.
