From: Center for Policy Research <cpr> Subject: Gaza and separation from Israel   Gaza and the idea of separation  The Israeli Left's inability to cope with the challenges it is presented with by reality becomes obvious at those moments when the reality does not line up with the expectations of the left. We were able to see this clearly during the Gulf War.  Because of the Palestinian's popular solidarity with Iraq, Yossi Sarid - currently Minister of the Environment - made his infamous statement: "You look for me !", i.e., I'am not making any more efforts to speak with you. From Yossi Sarid's point of view, Palestinian reality during the Gulf War was not the lengthy curfew or the danger of hunger it brought with it, but whether or not the Palestinians accepted what was acceptable to the party. Similarly MERETZ, MK Deddi Tzuker, recently faced with criticism from residents of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour over his government's and his party's lack of action for human rights and peace, responded by asking those present at the discussion whether they would rather have a Likud government. From the Leftists' perspective this is the best government because it is THEIR government, regardless of what it does.  These members of the Israeli Left have already decided how the future of the Occupied Territories will look, and they want to dictate to the Palestinians how to get there. An essential step towards this future is their participation in Yitzhak Rabin's government, and from their point of view the expulsions were a marginal byproduct of this "government of peace", which need not disturb the routine course of events. Likewise the "Rabinic" policies in Gaza - the blowing up of houses with anti-tank rockets and the significant increases in the number of persons injured in the suppression of demonstrations - need not disturb it.  But the fact that reality is not as they would have it forces itself upon them when a mob in Gaza falls upon a settler who has lost his way, when a settler is stabbed by his Palestinian workers, or when a Palestinian knifes people in the streets of Tel Aviv. Then all hell breaks loose and the Israeli Left has nothing to propose except separation: Let's cut ourselves off from the Palestinians, let's build a fence so high that they won't be able to harm us - this is the cry of the Israeli Left. Let us erect a fence between us and the reality whith is the occupation.  Meron Benvenisti writes about this in Ha'aretz (4-3-93): "...The liberal Left. which does not differentiate between physical separation and 'the future of the territories', must come to understand that the regime of magnetic cards, exclusion of Arab workers, closure, and curfew are instruments of enforcement designed for the suppression of a population in revolt, and that their ideological support for separation only provides 'humanitarian' arguments for the legitimization of the <status quo>.  Enforced separation is carried out only to meet the need of the ruling community, but it is only the ruled population which bears its burden. [.....].  "Whoover thinks that 'out of Gaza first' is a liberal, humanitarian idea had best contemplate the question of whether this position is also moral. It is very easy to shake off responsibility for this concentration of human suffering, and to thus also disregard responsibility for it's creation. It is very easy to erect a fence between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, when this fence has a gate - the keys to which are at the disposal of one hand - which opens to allow the Jews to pursue all their interests, but is barred to the Arabs...".