NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
COMMENTARY
August 20, 2005
Gaza explained
In arrogant moments, I think of myself as one of the few people dissecting the plot in the Middle East. But there are days when I think I should hang up my marble slab. One of them occurred this week, when I read a column by David Frum (in Il Foglio, the Italian edition of the Wall Street Journal) explaining why Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw all Israeli settlements from Gaza -- even at the risk of fomenting something like civil war in Israel itself, and alienating key political allies. It was a move that could not be explained by American pressure, nor by Israeli domestic political pressure, nor by military necessity.It utterly mystified me. I thought to myself, “Surely Sharon cannot be so stupid. He's never been this stupid before; he is genuinely wily. And he knows just what will happen. He knows the Arabs will not accept the withdrawal as a peace opening. They will take it as a desperate retreat. He will get no more credit from Europe and the international media than Israel ever gets for anything. Far from it: they will play up the ‘angry’ Palestinian reaction. And in Gaza itself, the Palestinian militias will stage a big, psychopathic victory parade -- the way they did when Ehud Barak voluntarily withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon, only bigger -- and funded by the UNDP. Hamas and Fatah will step up the rocket attacks on Israel proper, and the Palestinian Authority will try to rekindle the Intifada. I can imagine Barak being so stupid, I can’t imagine this in Sharon.” And what has been happening is exactly what I expected. As one Palestinian put it to a reporter of the Jerusalem Post (no less), speaking for most if not all: "Of course this is a victory for the blessed Intifada. Had it not been for the Kassam rockets and suicide bombings, Israel would never have thought of running away from our lands. The disengagement proves that the only way to liberate our lands is through the resistance, and not at the negotiating table." So why, why, would a loyal Israeli leader, to say nothing of sane, not only allow all this to happen, but trigger the events? As I wrote above, Mr. Frum has nailed it. Mr. Sharon, as everyone else who understands the background situation, is fully aware that, “Post-occupation Gaza will become a Mediterranean Somalia: an unstable failed state in which gangs compete for power and extremist Islam finds a sanctuary.” But by allowing this to happen, he puts an end to the silly game, in which prevaricators in the West and across the Muslim world attribute every Middle Eastern disorder to Israel’s supposed refusal to allow a Palestinian state. He is now prepared to let them have that state, unconditionally, and let the world see why it should never have come into being. Let the foreign ministries of Europe now panic about this triumph of Islamism on Mediterranean shores. Let the Egyptians now panic, as Israel removes the watch that protected Egypt as well as Israel from Islamist insurgency. Let Egypt and Jordan be compelled to send their own troops, respectively, into Gaza, and soon the West Bank. Let them take over Israel’s thankless task -- or suffer the consequences of it not being done. (The Egyptians have already sent into Gaza their first 750 troops to replace the IDF.) For that matter, let the international community of professional apologists for Palestinian terrorism now drop their pretensions, and let the world know that what they actually demand is the annihilation of Israel. Let Israel secure itself within the most defensible available frontiers, and complete the Wall it has been building. In his Washington Post column, Charles Krauthammer spells out the security implications of this: the need for a mechanical system of retaliation for each Kassam rocket or other incursion that finds its way through or over that Wall. This “Frum theory” is, I am now convinced, the only one that fits the facts. It cannot be welcome to the U.S. State Department, who, judging from Dr. Condoleezza Rice’s most recent “roadmap” bleatings, are either not in the loop, or pretending not to be. Let me add, that the Israelis are, on this theory, returning to their much more successful survival strategy, pre-1967. It was, similarly, to seal the borders on the ground, and meet each successful Arab incursion with a brutal and unambiguous retaliation, on ten times the scale. This worked, wonderfully, in securing peace and quiet. Will it work again? David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top