The Gush Emunim settlers were motivated by the belief that they were preparing the way for the Messiah to come. The Messiah did not show up. The messiah was to take care of all the imaginary "problems" other people saw, like what to do with the Arabs. So the dis-appearance of M is the real failure here. Lessons: 1. Can't rely on religious reasoning, especially Kabbalistic ones. Better to use regular logic. 2. Don't trust ideologues who would not put their money where their mouths are. The enablers of the settlement movement were the Likud ideologues, the non-religious Right. But they themselves by and large did not go to settle. They encouraged their patsies from among the religious to do the hard work. Likewise, in pre-state Israel, the Right did not settle much. The pioneers came from the Left. When the going got rough, the less extreme Right (Kadima) found it easier to pull back and leave the settlers holding the bag. (It is the right thing to do, but had they been settlers..
Netanyahu pays hospital visit to family of Palestinian infant killed in arson attack (Haaretz)
from the article: Settlers, you have failed