April 02, 2008

Memorialising Gaza's Jews

Now what's all this? It's Israel playing the victim again, according to this article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
Knesset members proposed a law to establish a center to memorialize Gaza's destroyed Jewish communities.

The bill, introduced with the support of 27 center-right Knesset members, passed a preliminary reading in Israel's Parliament on Thursday. The bill must pass through the Knesset Education Committee before being subject to final approval.

The state-funded center would be comprised of a research institute, memorial, archive and museum. The bill would require all material connected with the establishment and subsequent destruction of the Gush Katif communities in the Gaza Strip to be transferred from state archives to the new center.

The center would run educational programs, hold seminars, provide school curricula, display exhibits and sponsor educational activities for schools and IDF soldiers. The research institute would invite researchers to write masters' and doctoral theses on issues such as Gush Katif's agriculture, daily life, security challenges and response to the expulsion, Arutz-7 reported.
I just pasted from the JTA and then I thought, let's have a look at Arutz-7, see what they actually said.

Well there's an interesting addition to the story there. See this:
The proposed bill calls for the establishment of an institute to operate along the lines of the Yitzchak Rabin Center, which was established by Knesset decree to commemorate Rabin's life, values, and legacy. The Gush Katif Center will have a research institute, an archives section, and memorial sections for the 21 communities that comprised Gush Katif and were destroyed in Ariel Sharon's Disengagement plan in 2005.
Didn't Rabin get assassinated for the policies that led to the Gaza "withdrawal"?

What the hell? Who cares? But this playing the victim over the Gaza withdrawal suggests to me that there is a strong movement within the Israeli government that has not given up on the idea of annexing Gaza one day. In fact who knows if they didn't remove the settlers and ground soldiers for a final onslaught against the Arab population of Gaza?

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