The Gaza disengagement

MOST COMPELLING about the stories and pictures emanating from the Gaza Strip in recent days has been the obvious intensity of feeling. Hundreds of Israeli settlers refused to leave voluntarily. Many were led away yesterday -- some carried -- by Israeli troops assigned to the planned disengagement.

Some of the settlers were stoic, some screamed at the troops, some sobbed.

A great many, it was clear, believed fervently that they were being uprooted not only from their homes but from land guaranteed to them by God.

For more than two decades, these people have seen the Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank as crucial territorial outposts. To be forced from those in Gaza by their own government -- and by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, once a leading advocate for establishing and enlarging settlements -- has been heartbreaking.

But this, of course, is one of the many issues in the Middle East for which there can be no satisfying compromise. Most Palestinians view Gaza and the West Bank as the territory on which they will establish a state. They, and much of the world community, believe that the settlers moved in improperly, if not illegally, and often as a provocation. The cheers heard from Palestinians in Gaza City also demonstrated feelings of great intensity.

Such passions are to be expected. Jews, after all, had no homeland for centuries before 1948. And Palestinians still have none.

What kind of role the Gaza disengagement will have in the long effort to bring peace to the Mideast cannot be known now, but one likely answer is: necessary but not sufficient.

Defending the Gaza settlements had become increasingly difficult and dangerous for Israel. Apart from the grief of those evicted, the move is in the best interests of Israelis as well as Palestinians. But far more needs to be done to get the two sides following the US-backed road map to peace.

The disengagement itself also creates problems, on both sides. Ultranationalist Israelis resist eviction partly because they want Gaza, but also because a relatively smooth process might be seen as a precedent for the abandonment of West Bank settlements. And Palestinians may cause disruptions in Gaza even after the settlers are gone in an effort to push Israeli security forces back into conflict with Palestinians, derailing peace efforts. Both sides have ample incentive to make trouble, and ample opportunity, as yesterday's killings in Shiloh on the West Bank illustrate.

Leaders on both sides now have the task of keeping disruptions to a minimum and keeping their eyes on the prize of peace. The passion of the peacemakers must prevail over those with narrower interests, no matter how intensely felt.