From disengagement to terrorism - The link between our past and current situation

Nadav Shragai..
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.

Hamastan’s happy birthday

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
Sarah Honig's Blog
25 June '10

Hamastan has just marked its third birthday. It was a glad gala indeed, punctuated with buoyant morale and maritime hijinks by “freedom flotillas” raucously rushing to spark the celebrations.

Unbelievably the anniversary of Hamas’s hegemony in the Gaza Strip came and went with scant critical appraisal anywhere. The Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, which took over Gaza in a spasm of violence during June 2007, now appears an acceptable regional fixture. Nobody demands even a modicum of good behavior from it. Hamastan gets such pampering press that it seemingly cannot set a foot wrong.

At first the international Quartet (US, EU, UN and Russia) mildly hiccupped with reluctant disapproval, not so much for Israel’s sake but out of concern that its darling Mahmoud Abbas, figurehead president of the rival Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, might lose ground. Formally the above guardians of global propriety request that Hamas recognize Israel, forswear terror and acquiesce to previous Israel-PA deals. But in reality they itch to backtrack.

Their pretext is alleviating what’s depicted as Gaza’s heart-wrenching humanitarian crisis. Disinformation that serves cynical purposes quickly forms an axiomatic premise. It matters diddly, therefore, that no humanitarian crisis grips Gaza. If the Quartet and willing media accomplices claim something with sufficient alacrity and frequency, it becomes fact.

Willy-nilly this has triggered a curious momentum. In three years, during which Hamastan functioned as an Iranian terror outpost as well as imposed an Iranian-like theocratic tyranny on Gazans, it incongruously gained legitimacy and sympathy throughout the liberal West. Its sins and excesses are invariably blamed on Israeli “occupation,” although the last Israeli exited the Strip in August 2005.

Concomitantly, Israel’s legitimacy has steadily eroded throughout the West. The two dynamics are intrinsically interconnected.

Hence from Hamastan’s vantage point, it had proved itself a sterling success. Nothing it does seems to incur particular odium. Moreover, everything it does seems to make Israel stink more. That leaves Israel serially and cripplingly hobbled, while Hamas can do pretty much as it pleases with impunity.

Not a bad deal – especially when we keep in mind that fanatical Hamas hasn’t budged from its charter, which calls for Israel’s utter destruction and its replacement with an Islamic theocracy. At the same time Israel has made concession after concession. So why are we getting the bad rap?

Perhaps partly because of our inclination to give a little ground and buy time and goodwill. With each concession we appear to admit wrongdoing. We paint ourselves as villains who expediently promise to commit a little less villainy. It’s one thing when a disingenuous world defames us; it’s quite another when we even look like we’re buying into that defamation.

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Why the Palestinians Don't Want a State

David Gutmann
American Spectator
05 March '10

President Barack Obama will soon be entering the lion's den of Middle East politics with the same conviction that has guided all his predecessors -- that the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict lies in the Two-State Solution, leading to the early establishment of a Palestinian state.

The received wisdom has it that the Palestinians wish above all things to have a state of their own, but that their fervent wishes are frustrated by Israeli delaying tactics, such as endless arguments over West Bank settlements, security fences, water rights, and the like.

While the Israelis probably do not want a Palestinian state on their borders, an entity that could easily become Hamastan II (and yet another missile launching platform), there is increasing evidence that the Palestinians themselves are of two minds about the prospect of their own statehood.

The first piece of evidence is the unchallenged observation that Palestinian leaders have rejected or sabotaged every proposal for statehood since 1947. In that year the Palestinians rejected the UN-sponsored division of the former British mandate into Jewish and Arab states on the grounds that they did not want to share Palestine with the infidel Jews. Instead of developing trheir own state, they tried through armed conflict to eradicate the nascent Jewish state. Their leaders took this big step just two years after the end of the Holocaust; and, guided by Hitler's associate Haj Amin Al-Husseini, their implicit goal was to continue the slaughter. But if you start a war of politicide plus extermination you had better win it; otherwise, like Hitler, or Tojo, or the Palestinians of 1948, you will very likely end up with a bombed-out wasteland, or -- in the Palestinian case -- as a defeated rabble of landless refugees.

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