20 years after Gaza disengagement, Haaretz shows how wrong its writers are - but doesn't learn a thing from it ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Thursday, August 07, 2025

20 years after Gaza disengagement, Haaretz shows how wrong its writers are - but doesn't learn a thing from it

Pro-disengagement demonstration in Tel Aviv

Two Decades After Gaza Pullout: What Haaretz Writers Saw Coming – and What We Missed Entirely

A 'hotbed of terrorism' or a place for rehabilitation and development? In August 2005, then–Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a move that reshaped history for Palestinians and Israelis. A fierce debate unfolded in Haaretz. Who was right?

Unfortunately, while the article consistently shows how incredibly wrong Haaretz' writers are (with the exception of their token right wing writer at the time) there is no introspection whatsoever. The failure of disengagement is placed on the feet of the Palestinians as if no one knew ahead of time how they were likely to act. And this misplaced optimism of a Gaza paradise is part of what led to October 7.

Their spectacularly wrong predictions are worth revisiting to show how irrelevant Haaretz was then, and remains now with largely the same writers.

In late August 2005, after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was completed, Haaretz columnist Nehemia Shtrasler published an article brimming with optimism.
In its first part he assailed then-resigning finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the "intimidation campaign" he had been waging since the disengagement began – a campaign filled with "horror-filled scenarios" warning that "an Islamic terror base was being built in Gaza, with Hamas growing in strength," and that "missiles would be launched at all Israeli cities from terror bases we were allowing Islamist terrorists to build in Gaza."
Shtrasler dismissed these warnings. "Fear is one of the most important components in elections. When 'the expert' on terrorism says missiles will be launched, who can argue? Once the public is sufficiently frightened, it will search for a person who can stop terrorism, wipe out Hamas and save us from the missile threat. Netanyahu doesn't want missiles to fall on Israel, God forbid. He just wants power through the ballot box to deal with the danger."

To counter the former and future prime minister's doomsday prophecies, Shtrasler turned to the Palestinians. "Here the Palestinians have an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: they can totally belie Netanyahu's prophecy and also teach Israel an important lesson," he wrote, continuing with an optimistic vision for Gaza's future.
"If the Palestinian Authority and Hamas understand the Israeli public's heart, they must turn Gaza into the most peaceful place in the world, the most hospitable. No more threats, snipers, terror attacks, suicide bombings, and, obviously, no missiles launched at Israel's cities."
"Instead, they should rush to fill Gaza's beaches with a row of hummus and fish restaurants, allowing easy, welcoming access to Israelis visiting Gaza. If they do this, they'll quickly discover the wanderlust and purchasing power of the ordinary Israeli, including Likud members," he wrote.

He goes on from there to paint a utopia where trade flourishes between Israel and Gaza, where Gulf Arabs invest in Gaza and everything but rainbows and unicorns are seen throughout Gaza.

But he wasn't the only one:

Analyst Danny Rubinstein also saw the situation with rose-tinted glasses. In an article he wrote at the time, he said: "There are definitely chances for calm in the Gaza Strip," adding that "Hamas spokespeople are making every effort to reassure the public in Gaza, as well as assuring Fatah and the Palestinian Authority leadership that they have no intention of provoking them, and certainly not to try to replace Mahmoud Abbas' regime and his people.
"It seems that in Hamas – as in among the Palestinian public – there is a wish to begin rehabilitating and rebuilding Gaza… the impression is that Palestinian leaders are trying to prove that the Palestinian people can build an orderly and effective government, and that Gaza can serve as a model."

And:

Analyst Ari Shavit: "Never before have the Palestinians ruled their own bit of land. Never before have the Palestinians not lived under occupation. Thus now, following the end of the disengagement, they have attained what they never had before. After hundreds of years of subservience to Turkish foreign rule and British foreign rule and Egyptian and Jordanian and Israeli foreign rule, some 1.5 million Palestinians have finally gained self-rule… Ironically, it was Sharon who gave so many of them what Haj Amin al-Husseini and Gamal Abdel Nasser and Yasser Arafat did not give them: liberty. These days of September 2005 are foundational moments in the history of the Palestinian people."

Haaretz' token right wing fanatic employed purely for the fiction that the newspaper is balanced was eerily accurate:

On the other side of the divide were the doomsayers. Among the most prominent was former defense minister Moshe Arens. In July, before the withdrawal, he warned that "Gaza will be a hotbed of terror. Ashkelon will be within range of Qassam rockets…a terrorist enclave outside our control will place Israel under daily threat…it appears we're heading in the wrong direction," he wrote.
In September, after the withdrawal, Arens wrote: "Sharon's plan is hailed around the world as a bold and daring move. The Nobel Prize committee is probably preparing the relevant awards for next year. However, if – and this is the case currently – the Palestinian mini-state turns out to be a nest of terror…then Israel, after being disappointed for the thousandth time, will have to yet again contend with the challenge of delivering a decisive blow to Palestinian terrorism, recognizing that this is the essential condition for moving toward peace in the region."

Instead of pointing out its egregious misreading of the situation, the article returns to Ari Shavit as being the most clearheaded:

Shavit went on to heap criticism on the neighboring nation. "The Palestinians are trying to blur this decisive fact. They are behaving as if nothing has happened. They continue to use the old, anachronistic rhetoric that has become so nauseatingly familiar. They continue to claim that the Israeli withdrawal is incomplete and insufficient. They continue to declare that the struggle will continue until every bit of Palestinian land has been liberated. And even worse: by torching the synagogues and storming the Philadelphi route, they are signaling that they do not intend to behave as a responsible state.

But that was written in September, after the disengagement, after Hamas resumed rocket fire. This was not an accurate prediction but an early realization that the rosy predictions were all wrong.

This article should have been an opportunity for Haaretz to admit its mistakes and apologize for them. It doesn't spell out what its headline promises - "what we missed entirely."

By refusing to acknowledge that their naïveté helped pave the road to October 7, Haaretz confirms what we've all known for a long time: it hasn't learned a thing in twenty years – and doesn’t want to.