Israel Hayom..
13 November '12..
Speaking from the Knesset podium on the day his disengagement plan was approved on Oct. 25, 2004, in a tone that ridiculed his opponents, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, "They tell me that the disengagement [from Gaza] will be interpreted as a humiliating withdrawal, lead to an increase in terrorist attacks and present Israel as a waning power. I categorically reject this statement."
Then Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz had no doubt at the time that the move was "necessary and correct, and will increase security for Israeli citizens." Meir Sheetrit, who was housing and construction minister at the time, dismissed claims by those who believed the move would threaten cities and towns close to the Gaza border and that Israel was "fleeing from terrorism." Sheetrit responded by saying, "I have never heard a more ridiculous claim."
Even judges of the High Court of Justice (with the exception of Justice Edmond Levy) ignored the warnings and refused to visit the Gush Katif settlement bloc in Gaza. They made do with the opinions of state-provided defense experts and automatically assumed that plans like the disengagement "improve the country's security." They claimed that "the disengagement reduces the Palestinians' will to harm the Israeli population."
Seven years later, when the ritual public debate on the south is almost as frustrating as the situation itself, there is a loud silence concerning the link between our past sins and the current situation. The connection here between cause and effect begs itself, not for the purpose of saying, "We told you so," but primarily so that similar thoughts of additional withdrawals, with or without an agreement with a "partner" who until today refuses to accept our existence as a state or perhaps even as individuals, will never see fruition and will be rejected outright.
Unfortunately, there is no lack of central players in our political arena who have failed to abandon this dangerous trend in thought. Some want to implement the same plan in Judea and Samaria. Not by coincidence they are also the last ones to deny a connection between the evil that was unleashed upon us in the south seven years ago and its intensity, and the simultaneous end of an Israeli military and settlement presence in the area from which rockets are now launched against Ashkelon and Ashdod.
There are no coincidences in the Middle East, which has never been so "ancient" as now. Hamas took control of Gaza moments after our soldiers and settlers disengaged from it. The enemy's arsenal has grown to unprecedented and unfathomable levels — tens of thousands of rifles, rockets and missiles that currently threaten the country's south and center, and even further north.
This situation is the result of one simple, uncomplicated reason: The Israel Defense Forces were not there to prevent it. When Gush Katif existed in Gaza it served as a security zone for the south. In its last years, settlers there were victims of more than 6,000 Qassam rockets and mortars. Sderot also came under fire then, but much less than now, and Grad missiles did not reach Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Gedera or Kiryat Malachi.
The withdrawal — just as MK Benny Begin, members of the Yesha Council (at the time the umbrella organization of Jewish municipal councils in Gaza, Judea and Samaria) and hundreds of thousands of protesters warned — was interpreted as a tremendous sign of weakness among our enemies. Our self-restraint did not project strength, but rather helplessness and flight.
The promise that "we will hit them hard" if they so much as fire one bullet at us was presented before the Olso Accords and the disengagement from Gaza, but was revealed in both instances to amount to nothing more than words. The withdrawals, as opposed to what their architects trumpeted, did not bestow the international and internal legitimacy upon Israel that would enable it to "hit them hard."
Those who saw good in the bad over the disengagement; those who claimed the darkness was light and the light was darkness; those who pandered to Ariel Sharon and permitted him to turn a flourishing land and an entire world of communities and splendid religious institutions into ruins, as well as those defense officials who did not shout at the top of their lungs what was being whispered in closed quarters, must do two things today: They must ask for forgiveness from those noble Gush Katif souls who were uprooted from their homes and, more importantly, learn the lesson and refrain from poisoning the minds of the public with the lies of additional withdrawals being vital to Israel's security.
Demographic or any other type of disengagement or withdrawal in the spirit of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Defense Minister Ehud Barak will inevitably bring "Hamastan” closer to the doorsteps of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2864
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment