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Israeli withdrawal process far from over

After a week of seeing Jews drag Jews from their homes, Israel is waking up to a new reality. Evacuating settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is no longer a "peacenik`s dream", but an inevitable, if painful, possibility. While coaxing and carrying nearly 8,500 Israeli settlers in Gaza from their homes, no Israeli fired a shot against another. Despite reports that significant numbers of Israeli soldiers would refuse orders, only two did.

Still, disengagement is hardly over, and formidable challenges lie ahead. And even though the withdrawal is moving ahead of plan, Israel says it does not want the world in general - and the Palestinians in particular - to get the wrong impression. By no longer having citizens in Gaza, Israel decreases soldiers` and settlers` vulnerability to attacks by Palestinians. But if Israel is attacked from Gaza in the future, it will likely respond with more firepower than before, because it will no longer be facing the complication of fighting people living under Israel",s military rule. Palestinian militants, in turn, will find it harder to argue that they are simply struggling against an occupation.

Another important consideration is calculated purely in terms of demographics, which have always been an important factor in the conflict, but have recently become more pressing. Palestinians have a higher rate of population increase than Israelis. And when the entire population of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip is calculated, non-Jews now outnumber Jews. But according to a new study published in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper, after the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip Israel can be assured of a Jewish majority for the next 20 years. In the Israeli discourse, that math adds up to a country that can maintain both a Jewish and democratic nature into the next generation.