Second Thought; Second Chance

The disengagement was an error.

It erred in the simple task it was supposed to do and created a huge humanitarian crisis among thousands of Jews who have been suffereing financially, psychologcially and spirtitually and now, with the inadequate protection at places like Nitzan, physically, as well.It erred by creating a precedent of forced expulsion of Jews from their land without an agreement of either security or peace.

It erred in that it did not provide Israel a respite from terror.

It erred in permitting Hamas to rule.

And now what?

This development:

'We lost our homes for nothing,' says reservist from former Gaza settlement

Three years after being evacuated from settlements in the Gaza Strip, some of the evacuees are now returning - in uniform. Aharon Cruz, a paratroops officer, lived in Netzarim for two years before the disengagement. On Sunday, he and his unit, to which he had been recalled a mere day after his wedding last Thursday, were back at the settlement's ruins in central Gaza.

"On one hand, there's a feeling of 'what did we leave for?'" said his father, Rabbi Ze'ev Cruz. "On the other hand, there's joy that he is returning to a place he knows."

..."It's a very difficult feeling," said Ami Shaked, former chief security officer of the Gush Katif settlement bloc, whose son is a paratrooper. "This is the first war in which my son is defending me instead of me, him."

But beyond that, "everything we said then has come true. What is happening today reopens the wounds. The thought arises that perhaps we shouldn't have given in; perhaps we should have been more insistent, ratcheted up the struggle another notch. But that's history."

Yossi Neuman, a reserve officer in Southern Command who once lived in Neve Dekalim...His son Itai, a tank commander, called him yesterday from the ruins of Netzarim.

"It's a destructive feeling," Neuman said. "I'm here on an emergency call-up and my son is fighting for what we once had. We said missiles would haunt Ashkelon and they said we were delusional. We lost our homes and our lives for nothing...

...the son of Zvika Bar-Hai - a West Bank settler who was one of the leaders of the fight against disengagement - was seriously wounded on the first day of the ground operation.

...Itzik Vazana..."We've made a big circle, and in the end, we're returning to Netzarim. Tomorrow morning we won't return to the settlement, but it's a process that will ripen slowly."

"It's a stab in the heart," added another, Eliyahu Ozen. "Today it is clear that when I lived in Netzarim, I was the country's flak jacket. Today, I live with the feeling that I did my job. Too bad they didn't want it any more."