Over the past few weeks, Israel marked twenty years since the \u201cGaza Disengagement\u201d: the 2005 operation that uprooted 8,500 settlers and pulled out its troops. Presented as a way to ease Israel\u2019s military burden and redraw its borders, the move bypassed the Palestinian Authority and left Israel in control of Gaza\u2019s borders, airspace, and resources. Abroad, however, the withdrawal was seen as a bold step toward the two-state solution. As the EU\u2019s foreign policy chief at the time, Javier Solana, put it, \u201cThe successful outcome of Disengagement will offer a momentous step for a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians, living side-by-side and enjoying security, economic prosperity and social well-being.\u201d The EU, alongside its fellow members of the Quartet \u2013 the US, Russia, and the UN \u2013 placed disengagement at the centre of its roadmap diplomacy, effectively endorsing then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon\u2019s unilateralism as progress.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Images_of_war_23-25_from_Gaza_by_Jaber_Badwen_IMG_4953-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGaza, February 2025. Author: Jaber Jehad Badwan \/ Source: Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Two decades on, however, the promise celebrated abroad has soured at home. Israeli television marked the anniversary with dramas and documentaries that cast the evacuation as national trauma, inviting viewers to grieve with settler families and to see the October 7 attacks as its inevitable consequence. What such commemorations omitted, however, was the political logic of the time, which sought not resolution but deadlock: burying the two-state solution rather than advancing it.<\/p>\n Indeed, the move itself was strategic misdirection disguised as peacemaking. By tacking on the evacuation of four isolated outposts in the northern West Bank, Sharon could claim it was not \u201cGaza only\u201d, even as he used the gesture as a shield against mounting diplomatic pressure. Shedding territory that had become a liability gave him the political space to tighten Israel\u2019s grip on the West Bank. As his confidant Dov Weisglass admitted, the plan was meant to pour \u201cformaldehyde\u201d over the peace process \u2013 preserving a stalemate while bulldozers pushed new roads and housing deeper into the ridge-top towns.<\/p>\n Palestinians quickly understood what Israeli officials openly admitted: Gaza was being discarded as a token of flexibility even as settlement expansion in the West Bank accelerated. Israel still controlled Gaza\u2019s skies, seas, and borders \u2013 and, with devastating effect, held a veto over every bag of cement required to rebuild homes, schools, and infrastructure after each wave of destruction.<\/p>\n The disillusionment with unilateral exit was not confined to Gaza. Israel\u2019s retreat from southern Lebanon in 2000 had already shown how withdrawal without agreement risked drawing Israel back in with greater force. The fear seemed confirmed in 2006, when Hezbollah\u2019s abduction of two soldiers triggered a war, thousands of rockets fell on Israel, the ground campaign faltered, and a state inquiry faulted the government for unclear objectives. The lesson many Israelis drew was blunt: further withdrawals, including from the West Bank, were off the table.<\/p>\n For Palestinians, the lesson was the opposite: militancy, not negotiation, could force change. Israel had withdrawn without consulting Mahmoud Abbas \u2013 or the Palestinian Authority \u2013 suggesting that diplomacy yielded nothing while Hamas\u2019s rockets forced concessions. If settlers left only when violence made occupation untenable, militancy, not negotiation, appeared to be the lever of impact.<\/p>\n That belief helped Hamas win the January 2006 elections and seize control a year later. In response, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade. Factories rusted, while Gaza\u2019s university graduates found their degrees useless beyond the fence. For a generation raised without opportunity, ballots came to seem futile while tunnels and rockets delivered results. For hawks in Jerusalem, every rocket justified the siege; for militants in Gaza, every new restriction confirmed that only force registered.<\/p>\n The siege, however, was not Israel\u2019s doing alone \u2013 or Israel and Egypt\u2019s for that matter; instead, it soon hardened into an international policy. The United States and Europe cut direct aid to the Hamas-led Authority and confined their involvement to humanitarian relief. The EU\u2019s civilian Border Assistance Mission at Rafah, launched in 2005, was suspended in 2007. What began as a regional standoff hardened into a policy of containment.<\/p>\n Even as Gaza was sealed off, the West Bank was being remade. The separation barrier crept far east of the 1949 Armistice Line (\u201cGreen Line\u201d), enclosing settlement blocs. By 2020, the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cPeace to Prosperity\u201d blueprint merely codified what expansion had already established on the ground.<\/p>\n The siege was punctuated by wars \u2013 in 2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2022 \u2013 each framed as an \u201coperation\u201d meant to restore deterrence. Planners called it \u201cmowing the grass,\u201d treating militancy as a recurring task rather than the predictable result of statelessness. This rhythm hardened into doctrine. Each round left Gaza weaker but never quiet. By 2023, Hamas\u2019s assault was less a rupture than a culmination.<\/p>\n On 7 October 2023, Hamas militants breached Gaza\u2019s perimeter, attacked southern Israeli communities, killed roughly 1200 people, and took 250 hostages. Israel vowed to \u201cdestroy Hamas\u201d. After almost two years of bombardment and incursions, Gaza lies in ruins: vast areas reduced to rubble, most of the population displaced, and Palestinian deaths surpassing 60000. Israel frames the campaign as existential self-defence; critics call it collective punishment, war crimes, and calculated starvation. An overwhelming majority of experts claims Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza amount to genocide<\/a>: a moral catastrophe that recalls atrocities Europe once pledged never to permit again. In bitter irony, Israel has now authorised a full military takeover of Gaza \u2013 framed as temporary \u2013 exactly twenty years after declaring it had \u201cleft\u201d the Strip.<\/p>\n Disengagement failed because it was never designed to succeed \u2013 least of all on Palestinian terms. A genuine withdrawal would have transferred sovereignty together with responsibility. Instead, Israel retained levers of control while disclaiming duty for Gaza\u2019s welfare. Unilateralism destroyed reciprocity, weakened moderates, and empowered extremists. Siege generated resistance, not submission \u2013 and security lacking legitimacy proved hollow. On 7 October, neither walls nor surveillance technology could erase proximity or quell resentment.<\/p>\n External actors helped entrench the deadlock. Washington and Brussels, once fluent in two-state diplomacy, reduced Gaza to a humanitarian crisis to be managed, not a political conflict to be resolved. Ceasefires displaced negotiations, and aid displaced political will. By accepting Israel\u2019s self-justification, outsiders lulled themselves into believing the conflict could be quarantined.<\/p>\n The temptation to substitute recognition for responsibility has now returned in Europe\u2019s new diplomatic choreography.<\/p>\n As Gaza burns, Europe again reaches for policy gestures. France has said it will formally recognise Palestine at September\u2019s UN General Assembly, joined by the UK, Australia, Malta, and Belgium. In parallel, France and Saudi Arabia co-chaired a UN high-level conference that produced the \u201cNew York Declaration\u201d, a time-bound roadmap promising \u201ctangible, time-limited, irreversible steps\u201d toward two states. Yet for now, much of this momentum remains declarative.<\/p>\n The timing crystallises the tragedy. Exactly twenty years after Sharon\u2019s \u201cdisengagement\u201d, as Israeli operations continue in Gaza, European capitals prepare to recognise Palestinian statehood. Recognition, absent de-occupation, risks becoming mere ceremony in the shadow of devastation \u2013 the same logic that once traded withdrawal without sovereignty for the stability of a siege. The symmetry is unmistakable: where Israel once withdrew settlers while preserving control, Europe now offers recognition while acquiescing to control.<\/p>\n If recognition is to be more than theatre, it must come as recognition-plus: a binding UN Security Council resolution mandating time-bound settlement evacuation and land transfers; enforceable restrictions linked to settlement growth; transfer of borders, airspace and resources to Palestinian sovereignty; and robust support for Palestinian institutional renewal under a unified, legitimate leadership.<\/p>\n Disengagement was intended as respite; instead, it deepened despair. Two decades on, the warning is clear: a crisis merely managed will eventually manage us \u2013 and Europe, which once championed a two-state solution, cannot afford to stand aside. Recognition, on its own, will not arrest the drift. To matter, it must be anchored to concrete steps that deliver sovereignty and reciprocity rather than theatre. Otherwise, Europe will have rehearsed disengagement twice: first in Israel\u2019s name, then in its own.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nDisengagement\u2019s false promise<\/h2>\n
The cycle of siege and war<\/h2>\n
Recognition without de-occupation<\/h2>\n
![Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nDisengagement\u2019s false promise<\/h2>\nTwo decades on, however, the promise celebrated abroad has soured at home. Israeli television marked the anniversary with dramas and documentaries that cast the evacuation as national trauma, inviting viewers to grieve with settler families and to see the October 7 attacks as its inevitable consequence. What such commemorations omitted, however, was the political logic of the time, which sought not resolution but deadlock: burying the two-state solution rather than advancing it.<\/p>\nIndeed, the move itself was strategic misdirection disguised as peacemaking. By tacking on the evacuation of four isolated outposts in the northern West Bank, Sharon could claim it was not \u201cGaza only\u201d, even as he used the gesture as a shield against mounting diplomatic pressure. Shedding territory that had become a liability gave him the political space to tighten Israel\u2019s grip on the West Bank. As his confidant Dov Weisglass admitted, the plan was meant to pour \u201cformaldehyde\u201d over the peace process \u2013 preserving a stalemate while bulldozers pushed new roads and housing deeper into the ridge-top towns.<\/p>\nPalestinians quickly understood what Israeli officials openly admitted: Gaza was being discarded as a token of flexibility even as settlement expansion in the West Bank accelerated. Israel still controlled Gaza\u2019s skies, seas, and borders \u2013 and, with devastating effect, held a veto over every bag of cement required to rebuild homes, schools, and infrastructure after each wave of destruction.<\/p>\nThe disillusionment with unilateral exit was not confined to Gaza. Israel\u2019s retreat from southern Lebanon in 2000 had already shown how withdrawal without agreement risked drawing Israel back in with greater force. The fear seemed confirmed in 2006, when Hezbollah\u2019s abduction of two soldiers triggered a war, thousands of rockets fell on Israel, the ground campaign faltered, and a state inquiry faulted the government for unclear objectives. The lesson many Israelis drew was blunt: further withdrawals, including from the West Bank, were off the table.<\/p>\nFor Palestinians, the lesson was the opposite: militancy, not negotiation, could force change. Israel had withdrawn without consulting Mahmoud Abbas \u2013 or the Palestinian Authority \u2013 suggesting that diplomacy yielded nothing while Hamas\u2019s rockets forced concessions. If settlers left only when violence made occupation untenable, militancy, not negotiation, appeared to be the lever of impact.<\/p>\nThat belief helped Hamas win the January 2006 elections and seize control a year later. In response, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade. Factories rusted, while Gaza\u2019s university graduates found their degrees useless beyond the fence. For a generation raised without opportunity, ballots came to seem futile while tunnels and rockets delivered results. For hawks in Jerusalem, every rocket justified the siege; for militants in Gaza, every new restriction confirmed that only force registered.<\/p>\nThe siege, however, was not Israel\u2019s doing alone \u2013 or Israel and Egypt\u2019s for that matter; instead, it soon hardened into an international policy. The United States and Europe cut direct aid to the Hamas-led Authority and confined their involvement to humanitarian relief. The EU\u2019s civilian Border Assistance Mission at Rafah, launched in 2005, was suspended in 2007. What began as a regional standoff hardened into a policy of containment.<\/p>\nEven as Gaza was sealed off, the West Bank was being remade. The separation barrier crept far east of the 1949 Armistice Line (\u201cGreen Line\u201d), enclosing settlement blocs. By 2020, the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cPeace to Prosperity\u201d blueprint merely codified what expansion had already established on the ground.<\/p>\nThe cycle of siege and war<\/h2>\nThe siege was punctuated by wars \u2013 in 2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2022 \u2013 each framed as an \u201coperation\u201d meant to restore deterrence. Planners called it \u201cmowing the grass,\u201d treating militancy as a recurring task rather than the predictable result of statelessness. This rhythm hardened into doctrine. Each round left Gaza weaker but never quiet. By 2023, Hamas\u2019s assault was less a rupture than a culmination.<\/p>\nOn 7 October 2023, Hamas militants breached Gaza\u2019s perimeter, attacked southern Israeli communities, killed roughly 1200 people, and took 250 hostages. Israel vowed to \u201cdestroy Hamas\u201d. After almost two years of bombardment and incursions, Gaza lies in ruins: vast areas reduced to rubble, most of the population displaced, and Palestinian deaths surpassing 60000. Israel frames the campaign as existential self-defence; critics call it collective punishment, war crimes, and calculated starvation. An overwhelming majority of experts claims Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza amount to genocide<\/a>: a moral catastrophe that recalls atrocities Europe once pledged never to permit again. In bitter irony, Israel has now authorised a full military takeover of Gaza \u2013 framed as temporary \u2013 exactly twenty years after declaring it had \u201cleft\u201d the Strip.<\/p>\nDisengagement failed because it was never designed to succeed \u2013 least of all on Palestinian terms. A genuine withdrawal would have transferred sovereignty together with responsibility. Instead, Israel retained levers of control while disclaiming duty for Gaza\u2019s welfare. Unilateralism destroyed reciprocity, weakened moderates, and empowered extremists. Siege generated resistance, not submission \u2013 and security lacking legitimacy proved hollow. On 7 October, neither walls nor surveillance technology could erase proximity or quell resentment.<\/p>\nExternal actors helped entrench the deadlock. Washington and Brussels, once fluent in two-state diplomacy, reduced Gaza to a humanitarian crisis to be managed, not a political conflict to be resolved. Ceasefires displaced negotiations, and aid displaced political will. By accepting Israel\u2019s self-justification, outsiders lulled themselves into believing the conflict could be quarantined.<\/p>\nThe temptation to substitute recognition for responsibility has now returned in Europe\u2019s new diplomatic choreography.<\/p>\nRecognition without de-occupation<\/h2>\nAs Gaza burns, Europe again reaches for policy gestures. France has said it will formally recognise Palestine at September\u2019s UN General Assembly, joined by the UK, Australia, Malta, and Belgium. In parallel, France and Saudi Arabia co-chaired a UN high-level conference that produced the \u201cNew York Declaration\u201d, a time-bound roadmap promising \u201ctangible, time-limited, irreversible steps\u201d toward two states. Yet for now, much of this momentum remains declarative.<\/p>\nThe timing crystallises the tragedy. Exactly twenty years after Sharon\u2019s \u201cdisengagement\u201d, as Israeli operations continue in Gaza, European capitals prepare to recognise Palestinian statehood. Recognition, absent de-occupation, risks becoming mere ceremony in the shadow of devastation \u2013 the same logic that once traded withdrawal without sovereignty for the stability of a siege. The symmetry is unmistakable: where Israel once withdrew settlers while preserving control, Europe now offers recognition while acquiescing to control.<\/p>\nIf recognition is to be more than theatre, it must come as recognition-plus: a binding UN Security Council resolution mandating time-bound settlement evacuation and land transfers; enforceable restrictions linked to settlement growth; transfer of borders, airspace and resources to Palestinian sovereignty; and robust support for Palestinian institutional renewal under a unified, legitimate leadership.<\/p>\nDisengagement was intended as respite; instead, it deepened despair. Two decades on, the warning is clear: a crisis merely managed will eventually manage us \u2013 and Europe, which once championed a two-state solution, cannot afford to stand aside. Recognition, on its own, will not arrest the drift. To matter, it must be anchored to concrete steps that deliver sovereignty and reciprocity rather than theatre. Otherwise, Europe will have rehearsed disengagement twice: first in Israel\u2019s name, then in its own.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n[ad_2]\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] Over the past few weeks, Israel marked twenty years since the \u201cGaza Disengagement\u201d: the 2005 operation that uprooted 8,500 settlers and pulled out its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":348182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Images_of_war_23-25_from_Gaza,_by_Jaber_Badwen,_IMG_4953.jpg\"){kind=link}