Israeli independence celebrated, debated

It was 3 a.m. on an August night in Israel when the first wave
of settlers arrived at the religious school in Old Jerusalem.

Michael Snoyman, a UCLA student who was at the school, woke up
to see the buses arrive. They dropped off nearly 100 settlers,
looking tired and bedraggled.

The administrators were so unprepared for them that many had to
sleep on mattresses scattered on the floors.

“When you got up in the morning, you had to walk around
people lying down and wearing torn shirts,” recalled Snoyman,
a fourth-year math and applied sciences student.

What Snoyman witnessed was among the first of countless similar
scenes that would play out across Israel that week as the country
dismantled 25 Jewish settlements and relocated their residents out
of the Gaza Strip and some of the West Bank ““ land that,
until then, was controlled by Israel but claimed by
Palestinians.

It marked the first time the Israeli government dismantled
settlements in a land to which it claims a historic right. And it
brought the government into conflict with the Jewish settlers who
had long been viewed as national symbols of pioneerism and the
determination to claim the Biblical land of Israel.

Today, students and supporters of Israel plan to gather in Bruin
Plaza to celebrate the 58th anniversary of Israel’s founding.
But against the backdrop of blue and white pageantry, some
inevitable questions linger about the direction the country is
headed after a year of dramatic change.

Israel’s disengagement was “a move of considerable
seismic significance,” said David Myers, a UCLA professor of
history and the director of the Center for Jewish Studies.

“Within Israel, what took place last year is something
observers had been expecting for some time, namely, the “˜Big
Bang’ in Israeli politics, the materialization of a party or
movement that gave voice to a new and large center position to
bring an end to the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West
Bank,” Myers said.

The pullout was not the only event of historical significance
that happened in the region in the past year. Israel lost one of
its guiding statesmen in former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who
suffered a stroke in early January and has been in a coma ever
since. Barely three weeks later, Palestinians then elected Hamas, a
militant Islamic group that does not recognize the state of
Israel’s right to exist, as their majority party.

But it was Israel’s pullout, students and analysts agree,
that will have the greatest effect upon Israel’s national
psyche as the state enters its 59th year.

“It’s a Jewish trait of using these high and low
points in the annual cycle for soul-searching and
reassessment,” said Aharon Klieman, a visiting professor of
international relations at UCLA from Tel Aviv University, referring
to Israel’s independence day.

“This is a time to attempt to heal wounds because the
unilateral disengagement involving the relocation of thousands of
Israelis has caused fissures in the Israeli body
politic.”

Snoyman witnessed some of those fissures firsthand this past
summer when he visited cousins in Shalavim, a town of about 300
families just outside the disputed territory.

It was after the six days in August when the pullout occurred,
and some of the 10,000 settlers who were ultimately evacuated had
found their way to Shalavim.

Residents of Shalavim have much in common with the settlers,
including a strong sense of nationalism, Snoyman said.

Before dinner, the residents would normally stand and say a
prayer for the state of Israel. But when Snoyman was there, only
half of them stood up. The rest sat in protest of Israel’s
actions.

It reflected, Snoyman said, a sense of betrayal among settlers
and their supporters, especially since Sharon had been an ardent
supporter of the settlements before he embraced the pullout.

“The fact that it was the government doing this, that hurt
a lot,” Snoyman said. “The feeling was that “˜If
any government in Israel can do this thing, I want no part of the
state of Israel.’ It’s a sentiment I can appreciate,
even if I don’t agree with it.”

Wherever he went in Israel, Snoyman said he saw people sporting
orange ribbons tied to their arms or belts, displaying solidarity
with the settlers.

“Even if they weren’t wearing it on the outside, it
was the sentiment on the inside,” said Snoyman, who still
wears an orange ribbon tied to his backpack.

Politically, the pullout reflects a growing sense among Israelis
that unilateralism ““ actions taken without consulting the
Palestinian Authority ““ is the only way for Israel to, as
Klieman puts it, have a “grudging coexistence” with the
Palestinians.

Though unilateralism might get results, both Klieman and Myers
questioned whether it will be a viable basis for a lasting peace
process.

“One has to acknowledge that for Israelis, (the pullout)
is a tremendous step forward in terms of the audacity of the act,
but it doesn’t necessarily advance the ball quite as much in
terms of bilateral Israeli-Palestinian relations,” Myers
said.

Organizers of Israel Independence Day celebrations this year
insist the event is divorced from politics. Instead of focusing on
the conflict and questions about their country’s future, they
want to focus purely on celebrating. “It’s a birthday
party,” said Leeron Morad, vice president of Bruins for
Israel and one of the day’s principal organizers.

But Snoyman, while he said Israel Independence Day is and will
always be about “the fact that we are able to go back to our
land, something we didn’t have for 2,000 years,” also
plans to keep the orange ribbon tied to his backpack to remind
people that not everyone in Israel is celebrating today.

“I know why I’m wearing it,” he said. “I
know some people will take it as a political statement. But I wear
it in solidarity with the people.”