MK Tzachi Hanegbi, who is poised to become a senior minister in the next government, spoke Thursday about his past resistance to Israeli withdrawals and the demolition of Israeli communities as he visited the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem.
The lesson of the 2005 “Disengagement” is that Israel must strengthen Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, he declared.
Hanegbi recalled his own participation in a physical battle against withdrawal. “I experienced first-hand the pain of the demolition of Yamit in 1982, when I went there to help the settlers fight expulsion,” he said.
He recalled the period of the Disengagement as well. “In Sharon’s government, 23 years later, I voted against the expulsion plan every one of the four times there was a vote on the matter – but I did not have the power to stop it,” he said.
“I am convinced that visitors to the museum will internalize the lesson, and will assist in strengthening the settlements,” he concluded.
Museum director Shlomo Verstil thanked Hanegbi for his visit and for his work on behalf of the Israelis forced from their homes in the Disengagement.
