Sob Story
Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Aug. 18 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein tells the sob story of people "forced from their homes" in Gaza through the disengagement and are "not sure where they will go" now that they have been removed from their homes. But Klein also tells why these people don't deserve much sympathy:

The Israeli government has rented thousands of hotel rooms throughout Israel to house about 800 families who defied an Israeli decree to evacuate before Tuesday evening and are instead being forcibly removed from their homes.

Pretty sweet deal for people who forced the Israeli army to come in and "forcibly remove" them.

Even as Klein quotes people saying that "There are families here who didn't get to pack much" and that "Next week, I will be lost and homeless," he mentions the "compensation and relocation packages" the Israeli government offered to residents: "The average family from Gush Katif was offered about $200,000 in compensation." In other words, they created this situation for themselves.

Even so, Klein writes, "Israel's Disengagement Authority is negotiating today with settlement leaders the possibility of re-offering monetary packages. The compensation is expected to be reduced by 30 percent."

While we don't want to get involved in a debate on the merits of the disengagement plan, presenting the Gaza holdouts as deprived people who were "forcibly removed" from their homes with only the clothes on their backs, as Klein halfheartedly does, is disingenuous since the Israeli government gave them plenty of opportunity to properly pack and (non-forcibly) leave.

We suspect that until now, Klein's writings on disengagement have not prominently featured the Israeli government's relocation and compensation plans, if they're mentioned at all.