Good riddance to Gaza, many Israelis sayWith settlers already gone and the army following on their heels early next week, many Israelis are as glad to say good riddance to the tiny coastal territory as the Palestinians are to see them leave after 38 years of occupation.
It's a sentiment that resonates especially among Israeli army veterans with bitter memories of dangerous duty in the Gaza Strip guarding a few thousand Jews isolated from a hostile population of 1.4 million Palestinians.
"Thank God another generation of soldiers won't have to risk their lives for so little reason," said Avi, 46, a former army reservist who served in Gaza in the late 1980s when it was a hotbed of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
He recalls long stints when his unit, sweating in heavy flak jackets, patrolled crowded refugee camps or chased stone throwing youths through rutted streets flowing with sewage.
Israel's presence in Gaza is now ending only after a second, bloodier cycle of violence, this one erupting in 2000. Palestinian fighters traded their rocks for bombs and bullets and the army responded with tanks and helicopter-fired missiles.
To many Israelis, Gaza -- one of the most densely populated places on earth -- had long been a costly liability, with polls consistently showing a majority willing to part with it despite religious Jews' claims of a biblical birthright.
As military casualties mounted, public pressure grew, helping to give Prime Minister Ariel Sharon momentum to uproot Gaza's 21 settlements in a plan he billed as a disengagement from conflict with the Palestinians.
Jerusalem Diary.com
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