In the months that preceded the forcible eviction of all Israelis from their homes and communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, and during last month's expulsions themselves, the commanders of the Israel Defense Force and police responsible for the operation defined "preventing" or "not exacerbating" the "schism in the nation" as one of their principal goals.

This was all well and good, but it was beside the point. At the end of the day, the fact of the matter is that there was never any schism between the security forces and the residents of Gaza and northern Samaria. This truth was laid bare by the love that the soldiers and policemen and residents showered on one another throughout most of the operation.

If anything, the confrontation which pitted the army and the police against the residents served to strengthen rather than weaken the bonds between those who settle the land and those that carry arms to defend it. And the long-term impact that this engagement will have on both sides is something that no one today can foresee.

And yet, there is a huge and gaping schism that fragments Israeli society. And those fomenting this schism are responsible for bringing about the ill-advised and immoral decision to expel these patriots from their homes and communities, turning them over to the Palestinian terrorists who Wednesday transformed the destroyed synagogue in Netzarim into a Hamas terror museum.

In the wake of the expulsions, the fomenters of the schism were beside themselves with rage at the fact that their plan to "disengage" the nation of Israel from the settlers by destroying these comunities went up in smoke.

Ruminating on this state of affairs immediately after the completion of the expulsions, Haaretz newspaper columnist Orit Shochat cautioned angrily, "Soldiers who experienced the evacuation won't travel to an ashram in India because they discovered that there is an ashram next door. The same Jewish religion that they hadn't seen up close for a long time embraces them into its fold with song and a tear and a common fate.

"They have now sat arm-in-arm at the synagogues in Gush Katif, they have now felt the holiness mixed with sweat, they have now moved rhythmically and sung songs, they have stood in line to kiss the Torah scrolls, they are now half-inside [Judaism]." She continued, "The army may have planned for months for the evacuation and conducted simulations of every possible scenario, but it didn't think about this scenario."

If she had replaced the word "army" with "our side," her point would have been more accurate. And what is Shochat's side? What is the side that wished so desperately for the destruction of the Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, in order to destroy the connection between those who settle the land and the rest of the country? If the sides of the schism dividing the country are not the security forces and the settlers, then who are they?

This week, the identities of the two sides of the divide were exposed to all who care to see them when on Sunday the Justice Ministry announced its decision not to indict any policemen for their actions during the Arab riots in October 2000. Twelve Arab Israelis and one Palestinian were killed during those riots, which engulfed the entire Arab sector of the country. The decision sent a shock wave through Israeli society with a force that on its face is difficult to comprehend given that the events occurred five years ago.

The shock of the decision fomented two separate discussions in the Israeli public. The most glaring aspect of those discussions is that apart from the fact that they both were carried out in Hebrew, no common thread connected them. It is in these separate conversations that we find the root of the rift in Israeli society and can identify the two sides of the societal divide.

To understand the significance of the discussions, it is necessary to first recall what happened five years ago. Following months of increased violence and extremism in the Arab-Israeli sector incited directly by the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli Islamic Movement and the Arab members of Knesset, violent riots seized the Arab sector of Israel in October 2000 immediately after the PA launched its terror war against Israel. During the week of riots, Arab Israelis threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli civilian cars throughout the country. Israeli motorists were dragged out of their cars on Highway 65 along Wadi Ara and beaten. An Israeli motorist was murdered when Arabs from Jasser a-Zarka threw a rock at his windshield as he drove down the coastal highway.

In the wake of the riots, the Labor party's government of then-prime minister Ehud Barak went into a state of panic, concerned that Labor would lose its support base among Arab Israelis. And so, rather than arresting the Arab leaders who incited the riots, banning the Islamic Movement and ending PA infiltration into the Arab sector, Barak sought to appease the very leaders who had fomented the violence. This he did by offering to establish an independent commission led by a retired judge that would investigate the police behavior towards the rioters. That commission, led by retired justice Theodore Or, was given the perverse job of focusing their investigation on the police, as if the officers had simply been firing at ducks in a shooting gallery rather than trying to contend with a violent, heavily incited mob that was paralyzing and terrorizing the country.

Once the Or Commission was established, discussion of the actual events was silenced and replaced by a surrealistic parade of policemen and politicians summoned before a tribunal to defend their actions as if they had taken place in a vacuum. And so, this week's announcement of the decision not to indict any officers in the 13 deaths was the first opportunity that the public has had in five years to actually discuss what happened in October 2000.

The first discussion of the events was the popular discussion. It could be heard mainly in radio call in shows and on Internet news sites. Regular citizens concentrated on the context of the riots, questioning the Arab claim of discrimination. Continued...