We're pleased to introduce The Jewish News Book Service to our readers. Israelis Want To Abandon Gaza 11•4.0 —C:a. TH E D ETRO IT J E W IS H N E WS INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT uture historians look- ing for watershed dates important to the shift now showing up in Israeli public opinion on the future of the occupied ter- ritories should consider Dec. 8, 1992 — at least as far as the Gaza Strip is concerned. At 5 a.m. that day, three Israeli reservists patrolling a main road in Gaza — the one that bypasses Gaza city and its adjacent cluster of refugee camps — were gunned down by terrorists from the Az-a-Din el- Kassem group, an armed wing of Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Move- ment). Dec. 8 was the day prior to the fifth anniversary of the intifada, and Israel was nat- urally braced for acts of violence. In fact there had been intermittent rioting in the Gaza Strip — and atten- dant deaths, injuries, and curfews — for much of the previous two weeks. There had also been 20 unsuc- cessful attempts at armed attacks on soldiers during the preVious weeks. Yet when the news of the shooting in Gaza was an- nounced, something changed in Israel. For the rest of the week, the media was filled with talk of the intifada and specifinslly the situation in Gaza. Experts analyzed the situation on television. On one radio talk show after the next, young men — and their parents — poured out their hearts about the humiliation of serving in Gaza, the endless chasing of children down alleyways, of being subjected to stones and in- sults while under orders to exercise restraint, of the lim- itations imposed by the orders on opening fire. Judging by the weekend papers, every second Israeli journalist was in Gaza last week talking to Palestin- ians, to "military sources," and above all to the soldiers themselves. It must have been the umpteenth time that the Israel TV's Friday night news magazine broad- cast a long piece showing soldiers patrolling in a refu- gee camp and then sharing their ambivalence, confu- sion, revulsion, and fear with the whole State of Israel — and, of course, with any Palestinians who might be tuned in. Yet this time their talk had a new overtone: it was painfully reminiscent of the days, almost a decade back, when the Israeli army was stuck in the quagmire of Lebanon and the death toll of its soldiers rose steadily, as public feeling ran strong- ly toward pulling out as quickly and abruptly as possible. Now Gaza had the the "smell of Lebanon about it," as one journalist wrote after spending a day there, and the soldiers echoed that sensation. "I sit in a jeep feeling like a moving target," one mem- ber of a reserve unit told an interviewer from the news- paper Hadashot. "This is go- ing to get even worse be- cause when a convoy pa- trolled in Lebanon, civilians were prohibited from travelling on the road with it. Here you can't bring the life of an entire population to a halt." But the change emerging in Israel was not just the re- introduction of the dread word "Lebanon" into the lexicon of the Israeli mood. The real turnabout was the suggestion — raised by polit- ical figures and journalists alike — that Israel should simply pull up stakes and "Sarajevo in Gaza? If (Palestinians) chose to murder themselves, that's their problem." Dan Margalit unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip. "In other times, such a reaction would have been considered madness," wrote columnist Uzi Benziman in Ha'aretz. "Who would have imagined six or seven years ago demanding a total withdrawal from ad- ministered territory, that was captured in a just war, because three IDF soldiers had fallen there?" Yet the idea has been seri- ously placed on the public, Whether you're looking to start your own library, add to an existing collection or give a mean- ingful gift to a friend or family member, The Jewish News Book Service Israelis check a Palestinian's ID. and this week's kidnapping of an Israeli border policeman in Lod, near Tel Aviv, by Hamas militants, which capped a weekend in which Gaza was rocked by repeated clashes, and three more Palestinians and an- other Israeli soldier were killed, is sure to fuel the discussion. The idea was first broach- ed this time around by former Likud Defense Min- ister Moshe Arens (an inter- esting point in itself). Soon it was picked up by Labor poli- ticians and the press. The New York Times re- ported that Health Minister Haim Ramon, a Laborite who also raised this possibil- ity five years ago when Labor and Likud were in a coalition government together — said "there is room to consider" a unilateral pullout from Gaza within "a year or two," and that four other ministers at the Rabin government's weekly cabinet meeting supported the idea. A scenario published by veteran columnist and former Ma'ariv editor Dan Margalit — who has never been suspected of "defeatist" sentiments —calls for the government to announce that Israel will pull out of Gaza in 18 months without asking for anything in return. "Essentially (Israel) is in- terested in leaving the Strip immediately," he wrote, "but it's prepared to wait until the organization of a self-ruling authority that, with the aid of the Arab world and the International Monetary Fund, will find an economic solution for the area." Other aspects to the plan are to put up an electric fence around the Strip to keep Gazans out of Israel, at least until the achievement of a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian prob- lem. Gazans would be able to travel overland to Egypt, westward by sea, and through a corridor directly to Jordan. But Israel would be strictly out of bounds. As to the Arab reaction, Mr. Margalit reasons that the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world would have a hard time publicly ob- jecting to Israel's freely relinquishing land con- quered in 1967. It's also natural to expect that the moderate elements in the PLO and members of the Gazan commercial and in- tellectual establishment would be eager to accept responsibility for ruling the area. Yet even if the qualms of many Israelis (and no few Palestinians) that under such circumstances Gaza would become a "slaugh- terhouse in a civil war between the PLO and Hamas" were borne out, Mr. Margalit does not regard that as Israel's affair. "Sarajevo in Gaza?" he writes. "If they chose to murder themselves, that's their problem." Not that there wouldn't be security problems for Israel. Mr. Margalit takes into ac- count continued terrorism, despite the fence. Don't expect action on that any time soon. Still, it's worthy of note.D offers a range of titles, from hot bestsellers and classics to reference texts and dictionaries... at competitive prices. All orders placed with The Jewish News Book Service are processed by 1-800-JUDAISM, America's Jewish Bookstore. The Jewish News Book Service continually updates its offerings, assuring you a wide choice from which to select. It's like having a Book Fair every week!