Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Gantz’s dangerous ambiguity on unilateral disengagement and its consequences - by Gershon HaCohen

Surrender to a potentially hostile Palestinian state would make the defense of the Israeli hinterland virtually impossible.

Gershon HaCohen..
JNS.org..
18 February '19..

Unilateral disengagement from the West Bank, which Israeli prime-minister candidate Benny Gantz seems to support, would have far-reaching adverse implications for Israel in the security, economic, social, infrastructural and ecological spheres.

For all his efforts to keep his views on key national issues under wraps, so as to make his premiership bid appealing to the largest possible number of Israelis, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces has indicated his readiness to apply the highly controversial unilateral disengagement formula that Sharon applied to Gaza in 2005 to the West Bank as well.

“We need to find a way in which we’re not controlling other people,” Gantz told the daily Yediot Ahronot in his first interview as a candidate. “[The unilateral disengagement] was a legal move, a decision made by the Israeli government and carried out by the IDF and the settlers in a painful, but good manner. We need to take the lessons learned and implement them elsewhere.”

Leaving aside the ambiguity of these well-worn terms (e.g., most of the world views Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem as “settlements,” while Israelis consider them an integral part of Israel) or the feasibility of evacuating some 140,000 Jewish residents from their homes with no Palestinian quid pro quo, Gantz’s thinking seems to be predicated on dated suppositions that have long been overtaken by events.

The political and strategic precepts underlying the Oslo “peace” process, which Gantz echoes, vanished long ago.

(Continue to Full Column)

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 which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
.

No comments:

Post a Comment