As former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s situation is quickly deteriorating to its inevitable outcome—after a near-fatal stroke that put him in a coma on January 4, 2006, the most prominent leader of the Gush Katif deportations will meet his Maker.
The phrase Yesh Din v’Yesh Dayan—There is a law and there is a Judge, has been cited by Jews over the generations, pointing to the demise of this or that antisemitic tyrant as Divine punishment. Admittedly, in diaspora, we often didn’t have much more than that post-pogrom vindication to prove to us that a Divine Judge was, indeed, active in our history.
In Israel, those karmic events often appear faster and in more visible fashion, as villains who aren’t punished by a human court are still meted their punishment by, many believe, a Heavenly alternative.
In the case of the 2005 Gush Katif deportations, in which, for the first time in its history, the Jewish State rounded up by force some 8,600 Jews from their homes in the Gaza Strip and removed them, karma has been doing the Rumba. One by one, as if picked by a divine sniper, the architects of that evil campaign and their agents have met their downfall.
Here’s Ariel Zilber singeing “Yesh Din v’Yesh Dayan, listing the men responsible for the Gush Katif and north Samaria atrocities, and their fates that followed.
Ariel Sharon was the first to be punished. Following his second stroke, almost 8 years ago to the day, he has been in a vegetative state.
Next to be punished was MK Omri Sharon, the former prime minister’s son. He resigned from the Knesset effective January 5, 2006, and in February was sentenced to nine months in prison, a nine-month suspended sentence, and a fine of 300,000 shekel for corruption.
A month and a half before the expulsions, Chief of Staff Dan Halutz replaced Moshe Yaalon, who could not be trusted to carry out the mission. Halutz was the chief executioner of Gush katif. Halutz resigned from office in disgrace January 17, 2007, when it was discovered that he had sold off his investment portfolio three hours after two Israeli soldiers were captured by Hezbollah, leading to the second Lebanon war.
Moshe Karadi, general commissioner of Israel Police, was the other chief executioner of the Gush Katif deportations. His cops were documented as they beat brutally, often without provocation, unarmed Jews in their homes. He resigned from his position in disgrace February 18, 2007, following the Zeiler Commission’s demand that he be dismissed for his involvement in hiring out police officers to underworld figures, to execute rival underworld figures.
Niso Shacham, aka “the cursing policeman” was caught on video in 2005 when used the most vulgar language giving orders to his underlings to use excessive force on the non-violent, unarmed civilians who had gathered to protest the upcoming Gush Katif expulsions. He became the poster boy for Israel’s uneducated, violent and brutal riot police, a tool of repression if there ever was one. Shacham resigned from his job as commander of the Jerusalem district in October 2013, after being indicted for sexual harassment of his subordinates, indecent assault, fraud and breach of trust.
Next came former President Moshe Katzav, who was active in supporting the expulsion, warning the Jews of Gush Katif that obeying the law is part of our rabbinic tradition of “dina d’malchuta dina,” meaning one must obey the state. With that in mind, in December of 2010, a three-judge panel in the Tel Aviv District Court unanimously found him guilty of “rape, sexual harassment, committing an indecent act while using force, harassing a witness and obstruction of justice.” Katsav was sentenced to seven years in prison and two years, becoming the first President of Israel to be sentenced to prison. He was ordered to pay one of his victims 100,000 shekels and another 25,000 shekel.