Sorry for butting in, but I largely agree with your point of view.
Then again, it can be argued that the Lebanon withdrawal was the main catalyst for Intifada II.
What will this withdrawal spawn?
Israel was IMHO left with no good options, and chose (I hope and pray) the lesser of alternative evils.
Gadid: Settlers blocking entrance
A media bus was attacked with burning tires and its tires were spiked.
Police arrest three far-rightists trying to enter Temple Mount
Two of these were notorious Kach activist Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Avigdor Askin, who took part in a 1995 "Pulsa Denura" calling for the death of Rabin. An attack on Temple Mount is one of Shin Bet's worst-case scenarios.
-Eric
You’re not “butting in”, Eurotwit. You are providing a European perspective just as I am providing my perspective of the military situation as a non-Jewish supporter of Israel. Our opinions may be right or they may be wrong. Be that as it may, the Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish readers of this thread know that we do not have any Israeli political axes to grind.
Israel has never had any “good” options.
Life is tough. You have to deal with it.
On May 15, 1948, on the eve of the invasion of the Arab armies, the Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, laid out the Arab war aims in unambiguous terms: “This,” he said, “will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”
Arrayed against the fledgling Israeli nation were the armies of not mere terrorist groups but of Arab nation-states.
The Arab nation-states came, they fought, they lost.
Cest la guerre.
At this time, Israel’s problems split, like an amoeba, and the so-called “Palestinian” was created.
You can waste much time pretending that the “Palestinian” does not historically exist or that he should not historically exist but that is merely playing with words and names.
The bottom line is that the term means Arabs or descendants of Arabs that used to reside in the British Protectorate of Palestine prior to the 1948 war.
In my library, I have 1954 and 1955 volumes of “Foreign Affairs” journal. In a January 1955 article, Major-General Moshe Dayan refers to these individual as “Palestinian Arabs”……..as opposed to “Egyptian Arabs” or “Jordanian Arabs” or “Syrian Arabs” or Arabs living in any other political entity at the time.
In another October 1954 article by Don Peretz of the American Jewish Committee entitled “The Arab Refugee Dilemma”, the figures were put forth that, in the Egyptian Gaza Strip, more than 200,000 of these “Palestinian Arabs” “outnumber the natives (Egyptian Arabs) there four to one”. The Arab nation-states, however, were not eager to assimilate these “Palestinian Arab” refugees. As a result, the author of this 1954 article observed that these “Palestinian Arabs” had already developed a “professional refugee mentality “with a hatred of Great Britain, the United States, the United Nations and Israel, in that order.”
These “Palestinian Arabs” had a lot to be angry about. According to Peretz’s 1954 article, “Today (1954), nearly half the new Jewish immigrants live in homes abandoned by Arabs. They occupy nearly 400 Arab towns and villages. About a quarter of the buildings now in use in Israel formerly were Arab property. The Arabs left over 10,000 shops and stores in Jewish hands. The Israel Custodian of Absentee Property took over more than 4,000,000 dunams of former Arab land, or nearly 60% of the county’s cultivable area. This was nearly two and a half times the total Jweish-owned property at the time the State of Israel was established and includes most of its olive orchards, a large part of its fruit and vegetable crop land and almost half the citrus.”
Do I feel sorry for these people?
Sure I do……..
………….Right up until I go back and remember the words of Azzam Pasha: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”
In that context, the Palestinian Arabs got off rather easily.
The 1954 Peretz article also observed that the Arab nation-states were “eager for Round Two” of the fight with Israel.
Well, they got Round Two, Round Three and Round Four in the 1956 war, the Seven Day War and the Yom Kippur War and, in all rounds, the Arab nation-states got their butts soundly kicked.
Ever since, the Arab nation-states have lost the stomach for war with Israel.
That, however, still leaves the “Palestinian Arabs”……The “professional refugees”……The people so filled with hatred that Israel cannot take them back into Israel proper ……..The people that even the Arab nation states won’t take…..The people who still remember that grandfather owned an olive grove in what is now Israel.
These people carry one hundred times more hatred in them than is healthy for a human being.
But, after the Seven Day War, who gets stuck with the with them?
Israel.
That is definitely not a “good” situation.
Throughout history, whenever a population has been conquered through war, the choices have been:
1. Extermination……………Nazi Germany’s choice with the Jews
2. Expulsion………………..The Soviet Union’s choice with the conquered Germans in East Prussia.
3. Reformation……………..The United States’ choice with the conquered Nazi Germany.
4. Assimilation……………..The United States’ choice with the American Indian
5. Perpetual Occupation……The choice that has failed every single European colonial power faced with occupying a hostile population.
6. Part Ways………………... Britain’s choices with Ireland, India and, yes, Palestine.
So, what should Israel do with these hatred-filled “Palestinian Arabs”?
Exterminate them?.........Israel is not Nazi Germany.
Expel them from Gaza?......Not really an option in the year 2005.
Reform them into peaceful, loving people?..........Hysterical laughter.
Assimilation into Israeli society?.........Cardiac arrest.
Perpetual Occupation?
Let’s stop here.
This is what Israel has been doing since1967 and it is draining Israel’s life blood.
As Sharon has said, the Gaza Palestinian Arabs are now 1.5 million and will double with every generation.
Israel simply does not have the resources to occupy millions of hate-filled fanatics that even fellow Arabs will not welcome into their own societies.
That leaves Option Number Six: Part Ways.
However, the parting must be complete and secure.
"Intifada" means "Uprising".
You can't have an "uprising" against someone who has gone home and is no longer there.
The Israeli Wall is not an option. It is a necessity. Israelis on one side of the Wall and the Palestinian Arabs on the other. Israel must cut its dependence on Palestinian Arab cheap labor. Fly in Mexican guest workers on El Al if you must but the Palestinian Arab is simply too hate-filled and violent to travel back and forth from Gaza to Israel.
Is that too risky?
Go back to the year 1948 when the Arab nation-states (now wanting absolutely no part of another war with Israel) wanted a total extermination of the State of Israel.
Compared to that, Hammas and every Palestinian Arab in Gaza is a joke.
With the complete parting of the ways between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, the built up Palestinian Arab hatred will be unleashed internally and the fanatics and the slightly less fanatics will be killing each other within Gaza.
Attacks against Israel will be met with air power, armor and artillery. No more foot patrols in hate-filled Arab streets.
I don’t know if God intended for Israel to rule Gaza. If that is somebody’s belief nothing that anyone can say will change his mind.
I am saying what makes military sense to me.