Barak on withdrawals, peace

Yesterday’s Washington Post featured an interview with Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak.

Meryl noted a too typical assumption made by the reporter.

Israel Matzav played up a threat made by Barak, but has little confidence that the Defense Minister will act as tough as he talks.

I found this response to be interesting.

WP: Will you be looking for something specific in terms of funding or technology regarding Israel’s Iron Dome system that is meant to defend Israeli towns against rocket attacks?

Barak:…

Now we bear in mind that after we pulled out of Lebanon 10 years ago under my premiership it ended up that the area is now full with tens of thousands of rockets or missiles covering the whole state of Israel. In some five or 10 years they will become accurate enough not just to terrorize urban populations but also to be operational against concrete targets. You know, chosen targets. That could easily make Israel with probably four or five power plants, one international airport, 1.5 golf courses, that’s all of the country. We are a very tiny country so we need to have this protection.

We did it once in Lebanon. We pulled out and ended up with an area full of rockets and missiles. We did it next in Gaza and ended up with an area full of rockets covering Tel Aviv as well as other parts of the south and half of Israel. And within the framework of considering an agreement with the Palestinians that will establish a Palestinian state side by side with Israel we should make sure that the three underlying principles of our security are fully assured, namely the West Bank will not become like Gaza and southern Lebanon, another launching pad for rockets against the coastal plane of Israel, the kind of terror wave that flooded Israel with blood spilling in the streets in 2001-2003, all of them practically from the West Bank, will not repeat itself and that in the future if the whole overall situation, geopolitical situation changes and we face once again an eastern front, which is not existing now, we will be able to respond. All these elements should be answered within a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Clearly, with the Syrians and Lebanese, it should be answered. So we need this main pillar which is multi-layered interception system as well as the offensive capabilities and technologies for border inspection and early warning.

Barak here acknowledges that the Israeli withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza led to more not less terror. And he seems to be saying that a major part of any peace deal will be the deployment of a defensive system like Iron Dome. Unless I’m reading this wrong, even a dove like Barak, feels that an essential element to peace is for Israel to be able to defend itself from attacks orignating from the PA. That’s either an admission that he doesn’t much trust the PA’s peaceful intentions, or if he does, that he doesn’t believe that the PA will be able to prevent an eventual takeover by Hamas.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.