What's up on Planet Bushinsky?

In his Shrinking Planet column (InterMountain Jewish News - 8/26/05), Jay Bushinsky proclaims that, “Israel’s cardinal error was that it did not have a political program for the civilian (Palestinian) population”, resulting in the necessity to ultimately abandon the Gaza. Mr. Bushinsky goes on to blame Zionism for its obsession with maintaining the Jewish majority and character of Israel.

One wonders what planet Bushinsky has been living on? It must be the one where memories of the Holocaust, Pogroms and Spanish Inquisition have been forgotten.
In his land of denial (not a river in Egypt), Bushinsky absolves the surrounding Arab countries of any responsibility for their Palestinian brothers. He ignores the Arab-Israeli Wars, reoccurring Intifadas and vows of Israel’s destruction by Hamas, Jihad and the PLO. On planet Bushinsky, gentle Gazans would be “grow’in large” in downtown Tel Aviv while Israel’s Jews would be shrinking into oblivion.

Israel withdrew, one-tenth of one percent of its population from the Gaza, for economic & security reasons. Just like a small business, that opens too many remote outlets for the owner to effectively oversee, Israel re-evaluated its bottom line and decided to close their Strip locations. Without Jewish settlements strung-out along the length and breadth of the Gaza, the number and frequency of humiliating, security checks will be reduced, tensions will ease and then both Israelis and Palestinians can get back to the business of “opening more stores.”

Israel’s security wall has dramatically reduced the number of terrorist attacks and it’s not even completed yet. For every terror incident stopped, a retaliatory Israeli strike never occurred and the anger, on both sides, appears to be lessening. In the end, fences do make good neighbors and offer the best hope for a more peaceful future. And as long as each side takes care of its own business, neither will find itself the odd nation out.