I generally like Max Boot. (In fact I even have relatives who like reading him.)However his take on the withdrawal from Gaza, More on the decline of Terror is mistaken for a number of reasons. Boot writes:
I wrote in this Los Angeles Times op-ed in August 2005 that the withdrawal was the right move even though it would undoubtedly turn Gaza into a “Hamastan.†I argued that the evacuation would regain the initiative, strategically and morally, for the Jewish state, and that Israel would actually be more free to respond to terrorism from Gaza if it were no longer under “occupation†but the territory of a sovereign state.
But by withdrawing Israel allowed a terror infrastructure to develop. Last week we saw an escalation in the technology used against Israel. And as Backspin noted, the moral initiative was rather fleeting.
Hebrew University researchers studying thousands of news articles found that Israel’s image in the MSM deteriorated after the Gaza disengagement.
Remember how the World Bank blamed Israel for closing Gaza and further hurting the Palestinian economy?
Boot writes further:
The growing number of rocket attacks from Gaza into southern Israel has led me recently to start wondering whether I was wrong. But the figures Hazony cites suggest that the rockets are much less deadly than the suicide bombers of old. Moreover, Israel is starting to respond more effectively to those provocations, with, for instance, targeted strikes on terrorist masterminds.
Until now, the rockets have been less deadly than suicide bombers. But given the porous border with Egypt the possibility of an escalation of rockets is a frightening possibility.
I also figure that another thing that has helped Israel is that in the wake of the 2006 war in the north, Israel’s defense minister has been replaced with someone who, despite his limitations as a politician, knows how to operate an army.
If Israel still had a military presence in Gaza those targeted strikes would be easier and the infrastructure could have been disrupted. Rather the terror infrastructure has been able to grow due to a lack of an Israeli military presence.
Think back to the terror attacks of early 1996. What led to that escalation? Israeli withdrew from 6 Palestinians cities in late 1995 and when the PA took over it gave Hamas a free hand.
Even last year’s war with Hezbollah could be attributed to the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon.
Seraphic Secret quotes Israeli Nobel Laureate Prof Aumann
“The expulsion of Jews from Gaza was stupid, venal, and barbaric. The expulsion of Jews from Gaza led directly to the war with Hizbullah, and now to the rain of missiles on S’derot.â€
(read the whole thing, of course.)The decline in terror is due to factors other than the withdrawal from Gaza, which only encouraged terror.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
