itself apart as much as possible from the Palestinians, their internal strife, and the sui-
cide bombers and others opposed to Israel or the military occupation. Sharon trans-
formed his thoughts into a plan, approved by his cabinet in April 2004 and again in
June 2004, for withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. According to the plan, all twenty-one
civilian settlements and all Israeli military installations would be evacuated in Gaza,
and new housing would be provided for the settlers in Israel or in the West Bank.
Four small isolated settlements in the West Bank also would be closed because their
exposed location had made them difficult to defend. The Knesset approved Sharon’s
plan during an exceptionally raucous debate in October 2004, and the cabinet gave
its final approval on February 20, 2005.
Sharon’s decision to close down the settlements had been surprising because he,
more than any other figure, long had been considered the father of settling Jews on
lands captured from Arab states in the June 1967 War. A former general who had
held several cabinet posts since the late 1970s, Sharon had used his influence and his
government positions to promote the settlements and to advance the idea that Israel
had legitimate historic and strategic reasons for occupying all of what he and others
called “Greater Israel” (Israeli Settlement of the Occupied Territories, p. 178).
Sharon decided on disengagement after concluding that practical reasons made an
evacuation of Gaza necessary. One reason was the sizable cost, in blood and money,
of protecting a tiny number of settlers in the midst of so many Palestinians. Demo-
graphic forces proved to be equally compelling, he said. Israel had about 5 million
Jewish and 1 million Arab citizens, while about 3 million Palestinian Arabs lived under
Israel’s ultimate control in Gaza and the West Bank. Because the birth rate was so
much higher among Palestinians than among Jews, the Jewish state of Israel faced the
prospect, in a few years, of ruling over more Palestinians than Jews. Leaving Gaza
would subtract 1 million Arabs from the equation.
Regardless, many in the settler movement, particularly conservative religious lead-
ers, bitterly opposed Sharon’s decision. Settler groups fought the government on legal
grounds, ultimately losing their case in the High Court of Justice. Several leading rab-
bis openly encouraged Israeli police officers and soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate
the settlers by force, if necessary, and settler groups staged several mass demonstrations
protesting the withdrawal.
On August 15, 2005, the day set by the government for the beginning of the pull-
out from Gaza, Sharon went on national television with an emotional defense of dis-
engagement and a plea for calm. He used this speech to emphasize the demographic
imperative of ending Israel’s occupation of Gaza. “Over 1 million Palestinians live
there, and they double their numbers with every generation,” he said. “They live in
incredibly cramped refugee camps, in poverty and squalor, in hotbeds of ever-increas-
ing hatred, with no hope whatsoever on the horizon.” Leaving Gaza “is the Israeli
answer to this reality,” he said.
Despite the tense atmosphere leading up to the event and the presence in the set-
tlements of several thousand outside protesters, the evacuation of Gaza went remark-
ably smoothly. Most settlers left the area before the August 15 deadline. The only seri-
ous confrontations occurred on August 17 in the largest settlement, Neve Dekalim,
where protesters threw eggs and paint at police, and the following day in the Kfar
Darom, where about 100 protesters gathered on the roof of a synagogue and clashed
with police. Under an agreement with the Palestinians, the Israeli army demolished all
314 ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS