Quotes of the Day

The youngster at the corner of Dizengoff St. and King George St., handing out organic lettuce, could not have chosen a better position. Standing on the junction of two of the most crowded streets in the centre of Tel Aviv, near a popular mall, no pedestrian there could avoid him. He wasn't selling the lettuce, he was giving it away. But he did have something to sell: the idea that settlers in Gaza must not be removed from their homes, fields and greenhouses. The lettuce was a symbol of the life — and livelihood — of 7,000 Jewish settlers.

I came across the youth a week or so after Ariel Sharon's announcement that the future of the Disengagement Plan — his initiative, based on the idea of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip — would be decided by a referendum among the registered members of his right wing Likud party. The settlers and their supporters organized, almost immediately, a campaign to defeat the Prime Minister's plan.

During the month since Sharon's decision to poll his party, the plan's opponents approached almost every one of the 195,000 men and women allowed to vote. At the same time, they tried to create a public atmosphere of sympathy for their cause. Israel was covered with billboards, ads and bumper-stickers condemning the removal of the settlements in Gaza. The strategy was to make Israelis feel sorry for all those people who would be displaced from their homes.

That was the objective of the young man handing out lettuce in the heart of Tel Aviv. Most of the people just ignored him. Others took the gift, but did not really stay to hear him out. But I could not resist the temptation of a political debate. I rejected the lettuce, and then asked the man: "Isn't it really sad when people are being forced to leave their homes?"

"Yes," he answered, with enthusiasm, "certainly".

"Why then did you do it to the Arabs in Gaza Strip?" I asked. After all, in order to provide a convenient living space for the 7,000 settlers in the Gaza Strip, they took over third of its land, leaving 1.3 million Arabs to crowd on the remaining two-thirds.

It was clear that this question had never crossed the young man's mind. He hesitated for a moment. Then he gave me a generic answer; a reply frequently used by settlers and their supporters. "The Arabs have 27 states. We have only one," he said.

I did not want to go down that road — an argument of empty slogans — so I just asked him to think it over when back at his home in Gaza Strip. He again offered me some lettuce. I refused as politely as I could, and went away.

Now, a month later, I'm sorry I did not engage him in further discussion.

The campaign against the Disengagement Plan was a big success. Likud members voted heartily against the plan, leaving Sharon embarrassed in front of President George W. Bush, who had confidently said that the plan would be approved by the Likudniks. But worse, it left Sharon speechless in front of the Israeli public, the same public that gave him a huge victory in the last election, believing that if there's any Israeli leader who can remove the settlements, it's him.

Don't feel sorry for Sharon: He brought this on himself. For decades he has encouraged the very ideology that the settlers are struggling to keep now. He planted the seeds, watered the plants, and now the situation has got out of hand.

The results of the Likud referendum are much harder to digest for the Israeli public, who now, more then ever, feel their fate is decided by a small minority of extremists. A survey on May 2 — the day of the Likud poll — showed that if the referendum had been made among the general public instead of Likud members, Sharon's plan would have got the support of at least 60%.

How is it, one wonders, that the Israeli majority was — and is — so impassive? How come it did not show its distaste for the settlers' campaign, or, at least, fill the streets with spontaneous protest as soon as the poll's results were published?

The answer is unpleasant: after almost four years of terror, a deteriorating economy and leaders who prefer talking to doing, most Israelis are too tired, too desperate, too cynical and simply too busy coping with the heavy burden of daily life here, to fight for their beliefs. The streets are being left, then, to the enthusiastic lettuce-givers, to extremists.

• MICHAL LEVERTOV
• Columnist Michal Levertov explains why Sharon's Gaza plan failed to pass muster