Gaza withdrawal: Shimon Klein

The BBC News website and BBCArabic.com spoke to four Israelis and four Palestinians for their thoughts after Israel completed its withdrawal of settlers from Gaza and some parts of the West Bank.

MEET THE PANEL Name:Shimon Klein Age:58 Lives:Bat Hefer, Israel Works:Pharmacist

I said before that I doubted the pullout would be violent, apart from occasional pockets of resistance and that's exactly how it happened.

I thought it was handled very well. It's a great credit to the police and army, who handled it with a lot of empathy.

Sharon, too, has done a tremendous job. I'm not a supporter but I believe he did an excellent job despite the opposition that he had from some members of the party.

GAZA PANEL: FINAL REACTION Hakeem Abu Samra Lama Hourani Ashraf Abualarab Abdullah Algazawi Ayelet Goldman Shimon Klein Anita Tucker Arlene Kushner

It was touching to see scenes of soldiers hugging settles and comforting them.

The only thing that upset me was the cynical use of children. Many settlers thrust their kids at the soldiers telling them they were Nazis which was just disturbing and disgusting.

Now, I think that much is to be done in the way of rehousing these people. It's a lot of work to get them resettled and finding them jobs.

I think a lot of settlers acted very irresponsibly in not preparing for the evacuation. The authorities will have to use psychologists and social worker to give them support.

In the future, I don't have much optimism regarding the PA. I see a lot of infighting, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will probably gain the upper hand in the coming elections.

They are totally intransigent and make no bones about it. Hamas leaders now speak of the whole thing as a victory and while Gaza will remain reasonably quiet they may move their activities to the West Bank.

I see Gaza becoming a huge jail unless they decide on a corridor to the West Bank between the two sites and this may encourage militants to move between the two.

Unless Mahmoud Abbas gets his act right and disarms the terror groups I don't think Palestinians will enjoy their independence.

The militant groups have a strong influence on the PA. If they win elections in January, there will be no Palestinian state, certainly not in our time and not under these circumstances.

Israel will not give territory to those who do not recognise that it should exist.

I personally think that we are going to have a very bumpy ride in the future, unless a miracle occurs where Hamas gains power and becomes more pragmatic.

Then I think the establishment of a state could become a reality. But we'll have to wait and see if the Gaza experiment is successful.

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