The uprooting of Israelis in Gaza has a precedent in the Sinai
Reader comment on item: The Forcible Removal of Israelis from Gaza

Submitted by Jason Jungreis (United States), Apr 11, 2005 at 19:11

I believe the uprooting of Israelis in Gaza does indeed have a precedent: the uprooting of Israelis in the Sinai. Aside from the mere existence of this precedent, I also believe this is a valuable example of how good can come from such a drastic measure, as Israel gained an honored peace treaty with Egypt through the Sinai evacuation.

Yet there is a marked dissimilarity between the Gaza and Sinai evacuations: Gaza is being undertaken unilaterally and without benefit of a peace treaty "trade." I believe that while this is extremely unfortunate, it does not necessarily undermine the wisdom of the Gaza evacuation: first, Gaza's Israelis are either militarily indefensible or only defensible at tremendous cost; second, after the Israelis are evacuated Israel is no longer under any obligation to treat Gaza's Arab residents with any deference -- if Gaza Arabs undertake any offense against Israel, Gaza may now fairly be treated as foreign enemy territory and its resident combatants can be appropriately addressed through severe military response.

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