Historical account of Israeli political dynamics surrounding Gaza withdrawal (2003‑2005)

/ BARAK / 111 Brigade” — struck wherever they could inflict the most terror, and death: at bus stations, on buses, in shopping centers, restaurants and cafés. Over a 12-month period, beginning with a bombing of Tel Aviv’s main bus station at the beginning of January 2003, they murdered 145 men, women and children. It would not be until two years’ later, with the West Bank fence in place and a range of other security measures, that the attacks, and the deaths, were finally brought down dramatically. The Labor Party had finally left Arik Sharon’s coalition in late 2002. But in Israel’s 2003 election — reverting to the old rules again, with a single vote for party and Prime Minister — Arik and the Likud won resoundingly. They doubled their Knesset seats, to 38. Labor, now with only 19 seats, against turned to Shimon Peres, as interim party leader. I didn’t miss the political limelight. But by mid-2004, with the first sign of a major change in policy toward the Palestinians, I felt I had a contribution to make. What first prompted me to dip my toes back into politics were the ever more obvious signs throughout 2004 that Arik’s coalition, and his hold on the Likud, were unraveling. Part of his problem was a steady drumbeat of corruption allegations around what had become a kind of family political operation: Arik and his two sons, Omri and Gilad. But Arik also seemed to be undergoing a welcome political conversion, to the need for the more profound political “disengagement” with the Palestinians which I’d long been advocating. He had endorsed the Bush Administration’s “road map” for resuming the peace process. Yet with Yasir Arafat ageing, ailing and even less inclined to consider the difficult decisions he had shirked at Camp David, Arik went one, dramatic step further. He raised the idea of unilaterally withdrawing Israeli forces and settlements from Gaza — ensuring a showdown with the rank and file of the Likud, and other parties on the right. His main Likud rival, very much back in front-line Israeli politics, was his Finance Minister: Bibi Netanyahu. Though Bibi remained on board until the last moment, he dramatically resigned for the cabinet in August 2005, a week before the Gaza withdrawal, declaring: “I am not prepared to be a partner to a move which ignores reality, and proceeds blindly toward turning the Gaza Strip into a base for Islamic terrorism which will threaten the state.” To this day, Bibi, along with many Israelis across the political spectrum, draws a direct line between our pullout from Gaza, Hamas’s takeover and its violent purging of Fatah’s old guard there, and the periodic wars we’ve had to fight since 397 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011868