Crocodile tears

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While watching Jewish settlers, and even senior Israeli officials, wailing and rending their clothes over Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza it is important to remember they are not tearing away bits of their own flesh but withdrawing from a stretch of Arab land occupied illegally for 38 years.

At one level, though, the public displays of anguish are sincere. Since the inception of their state Israelis have come to expect that when their country bites off a chunk of Arab land, that chunk will be digested by the enzyme of de facto reality and be incorporated into Israel's growing body. This applied to Gaza, which the Israelis occupied in June 1967 and which, after nearly four decades of control and settlement, many in Israel had begun to view as theirs by right. Thus, when time came to withdraw, they felt as though they were giving up a valued possession of their own rather than returning stolen property to its rightful owners.

For many Israelis the sense of loss is compounded by an ideological component. Arab weakness has encouraged increasing numbers of Israelis to subscribe to the notion of "Greater Israel". To them the withdrawal from Gaza marks the first reversal in what they regard as a divine mission to expand Israel to the Nile and Euphrates. It is a reversal that has occasioned copious tears.

On another level, however, the anguish is anything but sincere. When senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, author of the disengagement plan, join the dirge it is not difficult to discern their motives. They want to emotionally blackmail the world into compensating Israel for its enormous "sacrifice" of withdrawing from Gaza whereas justice would be better served by Israel compensating Gazans for the long and brutal occupation.

As solace for its grief, Israel fully expects its outstanding obligations to be written off. Surely, after this "painful concession", the international community could not be so cruel as to make Tel Aviv cough up what it owes on the West Bank, Jerusalem and other final status matters.

At best, the tears mask the deception thinly yet many in the Arab world and elsewhere have been taken in. Whether they are simply gullible, or deliberately playing along, they have joined the queue to pay condolences to the Israelis over their withdrawal from Gaza, and this in spite of the fact that Israel continues to control Gazan airspace, territorial waters and all ports of entry.