"The Orange Camp Has Won"

As many commentators including myself have also pointed out, this summer's agony was never really about the Gaza Strip. Had the settler movement and its supporters on the Right been offered a quid pro quo by the government, containing an ironclad pledge that, in return for giving up the Gaza settlements, not one settlement in the West Bank would ever be moved, their leaders would have gladly signed on the dotted line.

But there was and could be no such pledge. The settlers knew that after Gaza would come the turn of the West Bank - and their entire protest campaign this summer was designed to convince the Israeli public that a Gaza-style disengagement from the West Bank is not possible.

In this they have succeeded. They have shown us what it takes to move 8,000 Jewish settlers out of a far corner of the land of Israel having no great strategic value or Jewish historical significance. Does anyone care to imagine what it would take to move 60,000 or 70,000 settlers out the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, which sits smack in the middle of this country, scant kilometers from Jerusalem?

Just the physical logistics of it would be mind-boggling. Although the Gaza Strip was easily isolable, thousands of protesters have slipped through the army's cordon. Even with its security fence, this is not true of the West Bank. An attempted evacuation of settlements from it could easily result in tens of thousands of protesters flowing to any one of them. The entire Israeli army couldn't handle this, not even if reinforced by the navy and the air force - and if military insubordination has been relatively minor this summer, it could swell to malignant proportions in such a situation.

In a word, it's not going to happen. The settlers can wipe the tears from their eyes and start smiling. The Palestinians giddily celebrating our departure from Gaza might as well make it as big a bash as they can, because they won't have an opportunity for another one soon.