PARIS, August 17, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The cherished dream by Israelis and extremist Jews of a “Greater Israel” from the Nile to the Euphrates is over after the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip, a famed Israeli historian and researcher has said.

“It is quite obvious that the Jewish settlers who went to dwell in Gaza or West Bank settlements, whether due to biblical claims or cheap land prices, have waken up to the harsh reality that the Greater Israel dream ended in a fiasco,” Paris-based Esther Benbassa told IslamOnline.net Wednesday, August 17.

Benbassa, also director of the Sorbonne’s High Institute for Jewish Studies, said the West Bank settlements will meet the same fate of those in the Gaza Strip.

But she ruled out that the West Bank pullout would take place in the foreseeable future.

“Bear in mind the large population of Jewish settlers (some 230,000) in the West Bank as well as Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who will strongly oppose future pullouts as they unshakably believe that Judea and Samaria (West Bank) was biblical land,” the Peace Now activist said.

She said Jews should come to terms with the fact that maintaining and protecting settlements in the West Bank cost the Israeli government dearly and scuppers the peace process.

“I, to my way of thinking, believe that West Bank settlements should be also uprooted even if it takes place according to a long-term timetable,” Benbassa said.

Following 38 years of occupation, Israel officially launched its Gaza Strip pullout Monday, August 15, to evacuate and dismantle all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank.

Israeli troops began the forced evacuation Wednesday of thousands of defiant settlers.

Israel once occupied some Palestinian territories from its wars with the Arabs in 1967 and 1973. It controlled part of the Sinai in Egypt, the Golan Heights in Syria, the Gaza strip and the West Bank.

In 1982, it invaded southern Lebanon but was forced to withdraw in 2000 after years of unabated resistance from the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

Jewish settlers defy evacuation from a rooftop. (Reuters)

Benbassa, the author of “Imaginary Israel” and “Transmission and passages in Jewish World”, said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had to do something in the face of mounting international pressure to revive a stalled peace process especially after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas assumed office.

“Though it has created a political crisis in Israel, I’m sure that the pullout will live up to peace expectations of many Israelis,” she said.

She added that Sharon, who created and nurtured the settlements, has convinced a broad section of the Israelis of the importance of the pullout.

“Many Israelis have called for immediate settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians, which helped Sharon sell his disengagement plan,” she said.

Benbassa said if the Gaza pullout is called a victory by the Palestinians, it is then a victory for both sides and thanks to late Egyptian president Mohammad Anwar El-Sadat, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and the Israeli left wing.

The withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from the Gaza Strip is hailed by Palestinians as a victory and decried by Israeli opponents as a surrender to the Intifada and resistance.

But the Palestinians fear Sharon devised the Gaza plan as a ruse to cement Israel's hold on most of the West Bank, where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live.

Benbassa further said that Sharon’s Likud career has become increasingly vulnerable after the pullout.

“Sharon will likely form a new party because he lost his stature inside his Likud party,” she said. “He has been dreaming of making history whether he was a wartime leader or now as a prime minister.”

Most Likud members voted against Sharon's withdrawal in a party referendum in 2004 and were outraged when he went ahead with his plans in spite of the vote.

Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resigned last week over the cabinet's final rubber stamp vote on the Gaza withdrawal.

Benbassa said Sharon has fully understood how the Israelis think.

“He is fully aware that the Israelis are fed up with bombings, watertight security and restricted freedoms for the sake of the settlers,” she added.

Benbassa said that this new reality could make coexistence with the Palestinians as a fait accompli.

Of the world’s 13 million to 14 million Jews, a minority—5.26 million—make their home in Israel, and immigration has largely dried up due to the Palestinian resistance attacks.

According to 2004 estimates by the Palestine Bureau of Statistics, Palestinians are projected to outnumber the Jewish population in the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories by 2010.

On April 18, 1948, Palestinian Tiberius was captured by Zionist gangs, putting its 5,500 Palestinian residents in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Zionist mobs and 70,000 Palestinians fled.

On April 25, the Zionists began bombarding civilian sectors of the Palestinian city of Jaffa - the largest city in Palestine at the time, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight.