He kept the key to his house in Gush Katif. And also the door that goes with it. “When we were expelled from our village, Ganeï Tal, my boys dismantled the front door to reassemble it in the villa where we live. And when we return to live there, we will bring the door back with us.” In a calm and serious voice, Shlomo Wasserteil dreams out loud of the big night, that of the return to Gush Katif, the group of colonies dismantled by Ariel Sharon in the summer of 2005. He and his family were among the approximately 7,000 Jews settled in the heart of the Gaza Strip since the 1980s. Israelis, often practicing, mostly farmers or teachers, viscerally attached to this strip of sandy land which stretched between Khan Younes and Rafah. “When we arrived, the region was not the terrorist den that Hamas made it out to be. We got along wonderfully with our Arab neighbors. Everything deteriorated with the Oslo Accords [NDLR : en 1993] and the arrival of Arafat and his band of assassins,” laments Shlomo Wasserteil.
Since the withdrawal in 2005, this young grandfather has regularly met with the elders of Gush Katif to talk about the good old days and pray for a miracle that would bring them back there. “Before October 7, the prospect of return seemed vague, unreal. Today it takes a much more concrete turn, we feel that the time is getting closer,” assures Shlomo.
Before October 7, 2023, Shlomo Wasserteil belonged to a tiny minority of enlightened messianists, disconnected from reality. Today, he can undeniably claim the support of a significant part of Israeli opinion. According to a recent poll, the recolonization of Gaza would receive the support of a quarter to a third of the electorate. Among right-wing supporters, this figure reaches 44%. “We are now supported by senior Likud officials,” enthuses Boaz Haetzni, one of the leaders of the movement for the recolonization of Gaza. They sense a powerful movement of opinion in our favor and are jumping on the bandwagon. rejoices us and gives us great hope.”
Repairing a historical error
On January 28, Haetzni helped organize a large conference at the Palace of Nations in Jerusalem around the slogan: “Only settlements bring peace. Return to the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.” In a charged atmosphere, a good thousand participants listened to leaders from the right and the far right promising them the return of Israeli colonies in the Gaza Strip. Among them, the leading figures of Israeli ultranationalism, such as Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of Internal Security or Yossi Dagan, the ebullient head of the settlement council, very influential within of Likud. But also good-natured leaders of this party, like the Minister of Tourism Haïm Katz.
For its supporters, the recolonization of Gaza means the repair of a historical error, but above all the guarantee of Israel’s security in the future. In their reading of the events, the massacres of October 7 resulted directly from the withdrawal of 2005. If the settlers had remained living in Gaza, the IDF would have been forced to maintain a massive presence in the Palestinian enclave – one soldier for every three settlers at the time. era – and Hamas could never have built such a military infrastructure. “Civilian settlements force the army to protect them and penetrate terrorist strongholds to prevent attacks,” argues Boaz Haetzni. When we were in Gaza, the south of the country lived in relative security. By leaving Gaza, we lost security control and we allowed Hamas to commit these appalling massacres.”
This lean and energetic sixty-year-old lives in Kiryat Arba, a historic settlement located on the edge of Hebron, in the south of the West Bank. In this territory where Israelis now represent a quarter of the total population, Palestinian attacks remain contained and very rarely spill over inside the green line. “We are surrounded by several hundred thousand Arabs from Hebron and its surrounding area,” says Haetzni, pointing to the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank which adjoins his colony. “We are not separated by any wall. We sometimes suffer attacks, but we have never experienced an attack on a scale comparable to that of October 7.”
“This crisis is an opportunity for supporters of colonization”
Colonization, bulwark of Israel from the inside? The thesis is not new, but the massacres of October 7 gave it new life. Supporters of colonization everywhere insist that each Israeli territorial withdrawal (in Gaza in 2005, but also in South Lebanon in 2000) has left the field open to terrorist militias advocating the destruction of Israel. “Settlement supporters see this crisis as an opportunity,” laments Yehuda Shaul, a figure in the anti-colonization movement. “They are going further and further and aggravating the conflict. Developing settlements in Gaza or the West Bank will not contribute to our security “It will simply force us to further strengthen our control over the Palestinians.”
A prospect which does not seem to particularly frighten Benyamin Netanyahu. On February 18, the Prime Minister had his ministerial cabinet vote on a motion signifying the categorical refusal of the creation of a Palestinian state, demanded by the United States. At the same time, it is intensifying colonization in the West Bank. A territorial expansionism now fully accepted.
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