Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Knesset Honors Extremist Gaza Settlers With Statue

The Knesset dedicated a statue commemorating the Jewish communities evacuated from Gush Katif in Gaza in 2005.

The statue, which is more than a foot high, and Monday evening’s ceremony were protested by Peace Now.

Some 8,000 Israelis were evacuated from 21 settlements in Gush Katif, and from four West Bank settlements under the unilateral disengagement.

“I believe that with all due respect to the pain of the evacuees, placing a permanent memorial to mark one specific political and controversial event (which included no loss of life) is not appropriate, and raises suspicions that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein is treating the legislative house as his own house,” Yariv Oppenheimer, the head of Peace Now, wrote in a letter to the Knesset.

Oppenheimer pointed out that there are no memorials in the same part of the Knesset for the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the Yom Kippur War, the evacuation of Yamit in the Sinai Peninsula or the massacre at Kafr Kassem.

The statue is not permanent and thus does not violate any Knesset rules, the Knesset’s legal adviser, Eyal Yinon, said in response.

Edelstein opted for a small, removable memorial to avoid any installation difficulties.

“I had no political intentions in putting up the piece, and as long as I am Knesset speaker, it will remain here,” Edelstein said.

Edelstein opposed the disengagement and is a resident of the Neve Daniel settlement in the Etzion bloc in the West Bank.

The statue, a model of a sculpture that was located in the Nitzan settlement, features a six-pointed star split open by a palm tree and includes the names of evacuated settlements.

SPONSORED: Search 155+ camps to find your perfect Jewish camp, and you may be eligible for $1000 off! Visit OneHappyCamper.org today!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.