Pullout (archives)
Photo: AFP
Evacuees deserve pardon
Op-ed: Courts right to erase criminal records of settlers who protested reckless disengagement
Speaking at the Knesset plenum during discussions ahead of the disengagement plan, Meir Sheetrit said many people claim that the Gaza pullout will create a threat to southern communities. “I never heard a bigger joke,” he declared at the time.
Gaza Pullout Opponents
Yehuda Nuriel
Op-ed: Sweeping pardon to disengagement offenders paves way for amnesty to any lawbreaker
Meanwhile, Knesset Member Ran Cohen said that we must understand that “should we fail to get out of the Gaza Strip within two or three years, Qassam rockets shall be reaching Ashdod, and possibly Ashkelon as well.”
During the same session, Knesset Member Shaul Mofaz said that the disengagement would undoubtedly “provide Israel with more security,” while Ophir Pines sought to express his gratitude to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, thanks to whom “my son will not have to serve in the Gaza Strip.
These are just mild samples of the mood that prevailed around here ahead of the disengagement: A public and media run amok and led like a herd without a shepherd, lacking any willingness to listen to settlers arguing that should they be evacuated, a Hamas state will be established in Gaza.
Nobody wanted to listen to them, and a highly frustrated minority within them broke the law in the course of their protest.
A step in the right direction
The disengagement brought with it so many ills, so much unjustified and incomprehensible suffering to the settlers, and so little in the way of fair treatment toward those expelled from home in an unprecedented manner, without anyone on the other side promising something in return.
Hence, the pardon to disengagement evacuees is like a drop in the ocean. The desirable law should have provided belated compensation to the many evacuees still residing in temporary homes, the farmers unable to set up a new farm, and all the older residents forced into early retirement and in fact forced to end their lives as working people and become homeless and jobless.
One cannot overstate the direct damage and the mental as well as financial harm done to the Gush Katif settlers as result of reckless, pointless move. However, it is a good thing that the courts decided to erase the criminal records of the people who broke the law in an effort to make their voices heard and protest against the personal tragedy that befell them so mercilessly.
The Gush Katif settlers are good and hurting people. Their wounds will take a long time to heal. The road is long, yet the pardon law is certainly a step in the right direction.
