In the summer of 2005, the media was shameless

The story of the "disengagement" and the obliteration of the Jewish communities in the "Negev Beach" (the accurate Hebrew name for the Gaza Strip. During the disengagement we were no longer in Gaza), contains several key historical moments. Over the last few days I have been digging through newspaper archives, trying to re-experience those days of more than a decade ago.

I read mounds of material, but I gave particular focus to the events of early May, 2004. On May 2, registered Likud members voted in a referendum. The vote was meant to permanently close the breach used by the opponents of the disengagement within Likud -- then the party of disengagement architect Ariel Sharon. They argued that the party had been voted into power on a platform that ran entirely contrary to the destruction of Jewish settlements, "supporting terrorism" and "increasing the terrorists' appetite," as then-IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon remarked.

The vote, Sharon's people believed, would obviate the dilemma -- they would go back to the party members and ask to change the platform. We will accept whatever they decide, Sharon declared. As always, the polls predicted a victory for Sharon and the supporters of the disengagement. As always, the polls were wrong.

This frustrating phenomenon, which we experienced in the most recent election as well, is a product of the total (not to say totalitarian) recruitment of the media in support of one side only. Once the die was cast, and Sharon was defeated in the vote, the systematic pounding and delegitimization of the referendum itself began. As a result, the media pushed Sharon to go ahead with the disengagement plan despite his promises to the contrary and despite the plan having been democratically defeated.

In those days, the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth had a choke hold on public opinion. But its competitors Maariv and Haaretz, of course, the three commercial television stations and the major radio stations also took part in silencing the Gush Katif agricultural community and making its members look silly and crazy, while paving the way for Sharon to trample the will of his constituents.

2.

The following are a few of the voices heard in May 2004, courtesy of what used to be the most powerful newspaper in the country, before they decided to destroy it. On the day of the referendum vote, Yedioth Ahronoth took it upon itself to sway Likud members to vote in favor of the disengagement.

In an editorial, Yedioth Ahronoth columnist Sever Plocker wrote emotionally about Sharon as David Ben-Gurion (or Lenin-): "At an old age, with his hair white, consumed with anxiety, Sharon -- one of the last great men of the establishment of the state -- arrived at the conclusion that he had been wrong. ... One can only guess the torment Sharon experienced before realizing the damage that occupation can cause, and that withdrawal is the only option."

Plocker wrote further that "in voting against Sharon's plan ... they salvage only their own illusions -- illusions that have become outdated, and that are fated to shatter to pieces against the rock of reality. It is this rock that Ariel Sharon, with the trembling hands of an ancient farmer, is trying to remove from Israel's path."

He concluded with the masterful epigram: "In order for Zionism to win, the disengagement must win." That evening, it emerged that the referendum had decided against the plan. The final tally was 60% against and only 40% in favor.

The following day, senior Yedioth Ahronth columnist Nahum Barnea wrote on the front page about the tail and the dog: "When the majority fails to go to the polls, the minority has a field day. The tail wags the dog. ... The settlers ... have decided instead of the Likud members."

Remember that? The age-old leftist excuse. All the members of the Likud are extremists. Settlers. Feiglinim (a term, named for former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, used to describe people who hold extreme right-wing views and register for the Likud party to pull the party rightward).

Alongside Barnea on the front page, Sima Kadmon amazed the readers with the headline "Likud against the people."

"Ariel Sharon is waking up this morning to a new reality. He is a prime minister without a party."

After Kadmon came Nechama Duek, who rushed to explain to us mentally challenged folks that "the Likud Party has disengaged from Sharon ... the rightist, extremist, religious Likud. The ones who defeated him were the Feiglinim -- the Likud members who set the vocal tone for the central committee -- and the residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. ... Though they represent only 4% of the registered Likud members."

Duek was clearly basing her writing on her own and her paper's fantasies, because among those "radicals" voting against the disengagement plan was, for example, Reuven Rivlin, today the president of Israel, and many like him.

The following day, May 4, Yedioth Ahronoth launched a comprehensive campaign to legitimize Sharon's violation of the democratic vote against the plan. They did this despite the fact that Sharon had initially pledged to honor the result of the vote. The top headline was "Yedioth poll: Most of the public wants the disengagement. Sharon's plan: a mini-disengagement."

On May 5, this was the paper's main headline: "Sharon: Any minister who doesn't back the plan will be replaced" followed by "I am determined to pass the disengagement plan in the cabinet."

Eitan Haber then wrote in a Yedioth Ahronoth editorial that "Rabinovich from Sderot or Buskilla from Dimona, who cast a yellowish slip into the ballot box as part of the referendum vote at their local chapter, apparently did not assess correctly the impact that little piece of paper would have."

They don't know how to "assess correctly" in those far flung poor cities. Apparently they need Haber to explain that "the Likud vote distorted the reality." We can't fault leftists for making infuriating remarks about the Left's loss in the recent election. They learned from the best, apparently.

Haber went a step further and wrote about a "ticking time bomb" in Israeli politics: "A minority -- a mere 1% of the Israeli population -- is forcing its will on millions."

This is exactly how to delegitimize voters and justify political fraud. Remember Kadima? A big balloon that deflated recently to no fanfare? After that Likud referendum, Yedioth Ahronoth called for the establishment of such a party in an effort to sway the public's opinion. Take note: "This, perhaps, is the time to establish new political powers, that would rise from the ashes of the current parties: Much of the Likud Party, all of the Labor Party, all of Shinui, a large part of Meretz-Yahad -- all these versus the extremists. ... A political agenda that pulls toward the center." These texts include all the misleading terms that massively resurfaced in the last election: "Center," "extremists," "Feiglinim," "messianic Right," etc.

3.

With the exception of the niche publications, during that entire time there was not a single major media outlet that supported the opponents of the disengagement. After the first day of the expulsion from Gaza, when the crying residents of Gush Katif, dressed in orange to protest the expulsion, dominated the news coverage, then-Yedioth Ahronoth Editor-In-Chief Rafi Ginat wrote on the front cover: "I did not see any courage in the settlers who translated their pain into ugly words. ... Theatrical and phony to a large extent. ... A performance aimed at the television cameras, even their pain looks like an act, not at all credible."

He wrote further that "the quiet pain emanating from the eyes of the soldiers choked us up with tears much more than the screaming pain of the messianic orange."

This is only one example of the demonization of the settlers, whose image was butchered to the point that they became unrecognizable. All the while, the media sowed fear among the public over the horrors that would surely occur during the disengagement. None of the doomsday scenarios actually occurred.

The media discourse did not focus on the fateful security implications of the disengagement, nor did they focus anymore on democracy and its ability, or inability, to enact decisions. Instead the media focused on burning the settlers at the stake in an attempt to expunge their pioneering contribution to the state. But even though the communities were destroyed, it didn't work. The settlers emerged as far more responsible than their persecutors.

Today, on the eve of Tisha B'Av, Israeli society needs pioneers more than ever. Hardworking, idealistic people who cling to the land of Israel. Over the last decade -- with the failure of the disengagement and the many wars that followed that failure, and the geopolitical upheaval in our region -- we have learned that the communities on the back of the mountain serve as a moral and physical defensive shield that protects us.

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