Several polls were published last week about the public view of the disengagement plan, and showed a drastic decline in public support for it.
According to a Dahaf poll published in Yedioth Ahronoth, only 53 percent of the Israeli public currently support the plan, as opposed to 70 percent in February.
But does the poll really show public support has worn down?
Even without doubting the professional standards of the pollsters, there is a definite need to question their results. Because for the majority of Israelis, the disengagement plan is no longer a political plan - with attendant advantages and faults - but merely a political and public nuisance.
Even if the approval rate is declining, one must ask just what the public hears when asked about the disengagement plan.
Gaza plan turned into 'public harassment'
The plan has come a long way since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced it in December 2003. Since then, it has survived the political bumps of the last 18 months, from a defeat in a Likud party poll, revisions, rebellious party members, the Labor Party joining the government, the demand for a national referendum and the drama surrounding the budget.
The plan has metamorphosed from a solid political plan to public harassment.
Note not only the daily disorder courtesy of the plan's law-breaking opponents, but all the side-effects that created a “disengagement effect": the plans's complete domination of the daily agenda; nonstop chatter in the media; loud talks about compensation; babble about imminent civil war, withdrawal under fire, third intifada – all of course "under the shadow of disengagement."
In a reality where the pullout created an “effect” stronger than the plan itself, it is easy to mistakenly assume the approval rating had declined.
Because the success of every political plan is dependent upon a lack of resistance rather then its approval, the prime minister now faces a problem. But even if the revulsion from the plan is higher than its approval, it does not mean the approval itself is down.
Feelings vs. intellect
This distinction between revulsion and disapproval should encourage the prime minister. Despite the polls, there is reason to believe that public support for the plan remains unchanged.
But this alignment between revulsion and approval should alarm him, because it can only lead to one result. This result had not matured yet to a strict coherent political view, but when it happens it will erupt out of the public political subconscious, with one objective:
Let him get out of Gaza already and out of our faces – Sharon, his government and his way.
