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The Israeli government's removal of its own citizens from Gaza ranks as one of the worst errors ever made by a democracy.
This step is the worse for being self-imposed, not the result of pressure from Washington. When the Bush administration first heard in December 2003 that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had unilaterally decided to pull all soldiers and civilians from Gaza, it responded coolly. Months of persuasion were needed to get the White House to embrace the initiative. The harm will be three-fold: within Israel, in relations with the Palestinians, and internationally.
Sharon won the prime ministry in early 2003 by electorally crushing an opponent who espoused unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Sharon declared back then: "A unilateral withdrawal is not a recipe for peace. It is a recipe for war." For unknown reasons, in late 2003 he adopted his opponent's policy of leaving Gaza, thereby reneging on his promises, betraying his supporters, and inflicting lasting damage on Israeli public life.
Charles Krauthammer, with whom I almost always agree, has argued that the Gaza pullout makes sense:
The fence decision makes clear that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is only part of a larger strategy, the first serious strategic idea Israel has had since its period of utter confusion and demoralization at the beginning of the 2000 intifada. The idea is this: Israel must (unilaterally, if necessary) rationalize its defensive lines -- in order to (1) protect its citizens, (2) permanently defuse the Palestinian terrorist threat and thus (3) open the door to a final peace.
Evacuating Gaza and completing the fence are complementary parts of that strategy. Both Gaza and the northern West Bank are separated from Israel by fences. Not a single suicide bomber has infiltrated through them. As a result, northern Israel enjoys calm.
But in Gaza, which is also surrounded by a fence, the bloodshed has continued. Why? Because 8,200 Jews are living on the wrong side of the fence. Defending them involves enormous Israeli military deployments, great danger and no real return. Everyone knows that ultimately this island of Jews in a sea of a million Arabs will have to go.
Once Israel leaves Gaza, and once the rest of the West Bank fence is completed, the Israeli and Palestinian populations will be almost perfectly divided in their own territories as defined by this temporary frontier. The fence approved by the Cabinet last Sunday leaves perhaps 1 percent of Israelis on the wrong (Palestinian) side of the fence and perhaps 0.4 percent of Palestinians on the wrong (Israeli) side of the fence. (These figures exclude polyglot Jerusalem.) This defensive barrier separating the two populations will not only prevent suicide bombers from killing hundreds of innocent civilians. It will change the entire strategic equation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The terrorism weapon that the Palestinians have brandished in the past -- and will surely brandish again at every turn in negotiations when their maximal demands go unmet -- will disappear.
I have tried for months to buy into Krauthammer's view, and I would be glad if he is proven correct. But no other authority I have read supports this view. And the gigantic rewards the Gaza pullout gives to the enemies of Israel -- the ones who make war on Israel gleefuly, because Israel does not make war on them in return -- appear to present a grave danger to Israel. Per Daniel Pipes (same link as above):
To Palestinian rejectionists, an Israeli retreat under fire sends an unambiguous signal: Terrorism works. Just as the Israeli departure from Lebanon five years earlier provoked new violence, so too will fleeing Gaza. Palestinians ignore all the verbiage about "disengagement" and see it for what it really is, an Israeli retreat under fire.
