Pullout plan tears rift in Israeli society

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip -- For the first time in its 57-year history, Israel plans to unilaterally remove Jewish settlements from occupied territory and hand over the land to Palestinians. The prospect has sparked an all-out political war among Israelis, pitting those who believe it will destroy the country against those who call it not just a step toward peace, but Israel's only chance to remain a democratic, majority-Jewish state.

In 10 days, the Israeli army is scheduled to begin removing any settlers who remain in the 21 Gaza settlements that house 8,500 Israelis. Israel is also dismantling four small settlements, home to another 675 people, in the northern West Bank.

Thirty-seven years after Israeli forces swept into Gaza and the West Bank during the lightning war of 1967, the pullout marks a turning point in Israeli history after decades in which the settler population has grown each year. It is the first forcible removal of a large settlement bloc since 1982, when Israel evicted Jewish settlers from the Sinai Peninsula and handed it back to Egypt under the 1979 peace treaty.

An emotional debate is playing out across the country. Signs erected in the settlements and at bus stops along the Israel's main highways attempt to shame soldiers. ''A Jew does not expel a Jew," read posters plastered from Neve Dekalim, the largest Gaza settlement, to Jerusalem.

From the thinly populated Negev Desert to sprawling Tel Aviv, Israelis display their opinions on their cars, flying orange ribbons from their radio antennas to signal opposition to the pullout; blue and white ones to show support.

The pullout is controversial because for decades Israeli governments across the political spectrum have supported and subsidized settlements in the lands that many Israelis considered theirs, either as a biblical destiny or because they defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War.

The Gaza evacuation is charged with suspense because not even its architects know how it will turn out. For the first time, Israel is handing over land unilaterally, without an accompanying peace deal. Opponents say pulling out of areas such as Gush Katif, the largest Gaza settlement bloc, creates a precedent that would allow Palestinians to claim all Israeli lands, even within pre-1967 borders.

''This is not just a fight for Gush Katif," said Rachel Klein, who lives in a West Bank settlement but came to Neve Dekalim to protest the pullout. ''This is a fight for the continuation of Israel."

Even proponents of the withdrawal worry that it could increase Palestinian militants' ability to strike Israel or rupture the social compact that unites secular and religious Jews, who have increasingly divergent visions of the Jewish state. More than 220,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and more than 157,000 in areas of East Jerusalem annexed by Israel but considered occupied territory by the United Nations.

Promised land
Some settlers contend Jews have a historical right to the land and a religious duty to settle areas promised them by God; others were attracted to the inexpensive real estate and tax breaks that successive Israeli governments offered.

But many Israelis do not share those beliefs and are tired of supporting settlements with their taxes and with the army, in which all Israelis, male and female, are required to serve. Polls indicate that a majority support the pullout.

''The entire Israeli society -- the political, military, legal, and religious establishment -- has been serving them," said Akiva Eldar, an Israeli journalist who recently coauthored a 640-page book on settlements with historian Idith Zertal. ''We have been the servants, and they have been the masters. . . . This is the first time that the Israeli society is saying, 'Enough is enough.' "

The book, ''Lords of the Land," contends that the 1993 Oslo peace accord failed mainly because the number of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza have doubled since then, even as Palestinians were supposed to take control of those areas under the agreement.

Soldiers prepare
The army has erected a series of checkpoints and concrete-and-wire barriers to prevent opponents of the pullout from traveling to the Gaza settlements, where they vow to remain until they are forced to leave. But many have filtered in anyway -- thousands, according to the Yesha Council, which is organizing the protesters; perhaps 1,000, according to the army.

Klein, like many West Bank settlers, says the pullout could set a precedent for removing settlers from more religiously central areas such as Hebron, where a tiny Jewish settlement has been established inside the Arab old city near the tomb of Abraham, a site holy to Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

''If they succeed here, it's a fight for life, and I'll fight tooth and nail," said Klein, the public relations officer for Kiryat Arba, a larger Jewish settlement bordering Hebron. She said she has permission to be in Gaza and has moved into a family home in Neve Dekalim, the central settlement of Gush Katif, to wait for the army.

More than 15,000 soldiers and police are training for the operation in Gaza, a 28-mile-long, 5- to 10-mile-wide rectangle along the Mediterranean Sea, where the suburban-looking settlements divide crowded Palestinian cities. Gaza is home to 1.3 million Palestinians, making it one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

Many settlers are expected to leave voluntarily at the last minute, but the army is gearing up to prevent potential violence and provocations from extremists. Security officials are also worried about attacks by Palestinian militants who want to claim credit for the withdrawal.

The Israeli army will hand over the land to the Palestinian Authority, whose president, Mahmoud Abbas, will face a fight against the militant group Hamas and other rival groups that say they will challenge him to share the spoils of disengagement. The authority, they allege, will distribute the benefits only to its loyalists.

Israel is building a tighter security barrier around Gaza, and Palestinians fear the territorial gain could be a hollow victory if Israel does not allow the movement of goods and workers needed to make Gaza economically viable.

US credibility is also riding on the pullout. President Bush has supported the plan enthusiastically, sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Israel last month to push for more coordination between the Israeli and Palestinian sides. A US military advisory team is in place.

Fears of extremist violence aimed at disrupting the plan have come true in recent weeks. On July 23, Palestinian gunmen fatally shot two Israeli visitors from Jerusalem driving on the main road out of Gush Katif. On Thursday, a Jewish soldier who had deserted the army to avoid participating in the pullout opened fire on a bus in northern Israel, killing four Arab Israelis.

A sense of duty
The emotional pitch of the debate has been heightened by the symbolism of the army -- viewed by many Israelis as the country's most unifying institution -- pulling Jews out of their homes.

Rabbis are crisscrossing the country, offering dueling arguments to soldiers. Some who oppose the pullout have urged soldiers to refuse orders to participate, while others use religion to justify serving.

The plan has divided families and communities. Silvia Amar, a settler in Neve Dekalim, says she and her husband, a police officer, are leaving this week to obey the law, while neighbors plan to defy the order, as does her son, who is training to be an army officer. ''I'm respecting his decision," she said.

Defense officials have condemned the efforts to persuade soldiers to refuse the assignment, arguing that any attempt to thwart the decision of a democratic government undermines the institutions of the Jewish state. But even the government released a statement last week, ''The Human Cost of Disengagement," outlining the numbers of homes, synagogues, and graves that must be left behind in what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon describes as a sacrifice for Israel's survival.

Israel's future
Sharon is an unlikely architect of the policy he calls ''disengagement" from Gaza. A longtime hard-liner, he pushed for the founding of the settlements. But after the collapse of the Oslo accords, infighting marked by a campaign of Palestinian suicide bombs and culminating in the Israeli incursion into the territories that smashed much of the Palestinian armed forces, he determined there's no future for Jews in Gaza.

Sharon has presented the pullout to his right-wing base as a necessary concession if Israel is to hold onto the larger West Bank settlements.

Meanwhile a dispute is brewing over the kind of state Israel should be. About 1.2 million of Israel's 6.9 million citizens are Arabs. They and the 3.9 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have higher birth rates than Israeli Jews, who are projected to become a minority within Israel and the occupied territories.

Many Israelis, including many on the secular right, contend the country faces a stark choice: jettison the territories to retain Israel's character as a Jewish state or indefinitely deny political rights to Palestinians and lose its claim to being a democracy. But the religious right rejects that argument, saying it's unfair to make them bear the brunt of the decision.

Eldar, the author, said his dream is for Gaza settlers to view themselves as ''the real heroes of peace," declaring as they depart, ''We are willing to sacrifice our own houses, and we are going back to our homeland."