Gaza Gaza Gaza

The news from Gaza has me riveted. It is historic, amazing, emotional, astounding. People who have lived in one place -- at the encouragement of their government -- for their entire lives are being forcibly removed, kicking and screaming, praying and mourning.

To put that in perspective, imagine if the US decided to remove Americans from Hawaii and give the state back to the native Hawaiians. It would be a war, and most people would be firmly on the side of the American people living in Hawaii -- after all, we could be next! All in all, with no reported deaths, the Gaza withdrawal is going incredibly smoothly.

But Gaza is not Hawaii. First of all, the whole area has been basically a refugee camp for the past 55 years. It's surrounded by walls and barbed wire and Palestinians can only leave - for the day - with a special permit from the Israelis which is not easy to get. The tiny percentage of Jews living there take up 1/3 of the land. That is not right. Under these crappy conditions, the non-Jewish unemployment rate is incredibly high, as is the birthrate and level of Palestinian terrorism.

That is all disillusioning, particularly the terrorism - primarily because it's been so effective. Israel would not leave Gaza if it wasn't such a hassle to guard the settlements, if their soldiers weren't being attacked left and right, if bombs weren't going off in checkpoints. Terrorism made Gaza too expensive in human and monetary terms and Israel decided that, with 8,000 Israelis and 1.37 million Palestinians in the area, the numbers didn't add up.

(Interestingly, I read a book about the civil rights movement lately that convincingly hypothesized that violent rioting and action by blacks in the heavy duty segregationist South is eventually what forced integration. When the natives get restless, the empire reacts.)

Will the pullout make Israel safer? Probably not. Most quotes from Palestinians and Arabs I've read issue approval in backhanded ways, saying things like "this is only a small step in the reconquest of Palestine" or "they should have done this years ago, those Godless sources of evil." I wouldn't expect a flood of gratitude from the Palestinians, but I would expect a few measured responses (a la the general Israeli public). But then again I probably overestimate the levels of education and prevalence of rationed discussion in the Arab world.

For some incredible pictures of the Gaza withdrawal, click here. For an incisive editorial on Gaza, click here.