Ex-Gaza settlers; and the nature of revenge

Ex-Gaza settlers feel abandoned on the roadside, according to a story by Joshua Mitnick in Wednesday’s RNS report: The row of tents is a roadside blur to those driving north of the Gaza Strip. The tent city’s 80 inhabitants were among 8,200 Jewish settlers removed from the Gaza Strip last August. That they have been […]

Ex-Gaza settlers feel abandoned on the roadside, according to a story by Joshua Mitnick in Wednesday’s RNS report: The row of tents is a roadside blur to those driving north of the Gaza Strip. The tent city’s 80 inhabitants were among 8,200 Jewish settlers removed from the Gaza Strip last August. That they have been almost forgotten serves as an important lesson ahead of Israel’s March 28 parliamentary elections. There have been two important shifts in Israeli public opinion: an unprecedented demand for a unilateral divorce from the Palestinians, and a growing acceptance that settlements must be sacrificed so the break can be made as cleanly as possible. Residents of the tent city say they feel betrayed by politicians and settler leaders, so they aren’t expecting much on election day. “People are too hurt by the government to talk about elections,” says one. “It’s hard for someone in this situation to decide to give their vote to a party.”

Nancy Haught discusses the nature of revenge, as shown in world events and films like “Munich“: In the movie “Munich,” Steven Spielberg tells the story of five covert hit men, recruited to avenge the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists during the Olympic Games in 1972. Its theme is revenge, a human impulse so deep-seated that not only nations engage in it, but almost all of us feel it, think about it and sometimes act on it. For the moment, set aside “Munich” and the violence that separates Israelis and Palestinians, and consider how revenge plays out in each of our lives. In our everyday lives, revenge goes by many names: getting even, paying back, settling a score or restoring justice. Rarely does it involve claiming one life for another, or even an eye for an eye, but it can preoccupy us in school, at play, at home, at work, even when we’re driving a car. If we’re honest with ourselves, we wrestle with revenge even when we cannot admit to it in public.

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