Gaza Disengagement = A Terrible Idea

The battle over disengagement from the Gaza Strip has been raging for months in Israel, and with the planned evacuation set to take place in just a couple weeks, TheSolidSurfer.com wishes to state unequivocally that this is a terrible idea for Israel.

There is no logical reason or justification for expelling your own people and giving land away to an enemy who openly declares its desire to destroy your country. Ariel Sharon is making a grave mistake, although the more Israelis that turn against it (and many are doing so every day), the greater the hope that the government will change course at the last minute.

The pro-disengagement rationale is that Israel can't afford to continue devoting massive amounts of resources and soldiers (whose lives are at risk) to defend 8000 Gazan Jews against the hostile Palestinians who surround them. And so, the rationale goes, Israel would be better off by separating entirely and removing its people. Furthermore, the Palestinians keep saying that their terrorism is a result of the "occupation" and so this is the first step toward ending it. Sounds all nice and dandy, right?

Wrong - this explanation is pure sugar coating and denial. In reality, the "occupation" that the Palestinians rail against is not just Gaza and the West Bank; it's all of Israel. Palestinian terror attacks against Israel took place far before Israel ever had a presence in the territories. From 1948 to 1967, Gaza was part of Egypt and the West Bank part of Jordan, and yet the PLO formed in 1964 with the stated goal of liberating the "occupied land of Palestine." Hmmm, wonder what that could be referring to? (Hint - it wasn't the West Bank or Gaza.)

Giving Gaza to the Palestinians, then, would be perceived as completely capitulating to their terrorist attacks, just as PLO and Hamas leaders have of course repeatedly expressed in celebration. This is not exchanging land for peace; it's exchanging land for more terrorist attacks and war, which is nothing but outrageous. Most of Sharon's top advisors were naturally against this, and so he fired them and replaced them with new ones. It'd be one thing if giving away Gaza would truly lead to peace, but in this case it's virtually 100% certain that it won't.

This further exposes the ineptness of the pro-disengagement thinking as well, because Israel will still have to devote the same amount of soldiers and resources to defending Jews; only this time, the soldiers will have to be stationed deeper inside Israel. Right now, they're protecting Gush Katif, but after a disengagement, they'd be protecting Ashkelon and Sderot.

So, as you can see, the logic behind the disengagement really makes no sense at all. And that's without even getting into the tragedy that Israel's government plans to uproot 8000 peaceful citizens from their homes simply because they live amongst a hostile Palestinian population. That's not the Jews' fault - it's the Palestinians', completely. If the Palestinians want a state of their own, they should be prepared to accept a Jewish minority population. If Israel can do it (one fifth of Israel's citizens are Arabs), then it's totally outrageous and anti-Semitic for Palestinians to claim that they'll only accept a state free of Jews. Until the Palestinians can do this, they're not ready for a state, period.

The rationale behind disengagement is pure lunacy, and Israel needs to turn the situation around quickly. For more resources on the subject, Israel Insider is an excellent place to start.