Apparently there is no one in Israel who still believes that the unilateral Gaza withdrawal was wise
or at all conducive to peace with the Palestinians. Maybe Ariel Sharon
still does but he is no position to tell us. So there has been a parade
of doves, with the Gaza disaster still with them and actually being escalated,
attesting to their disenchantment with surrendering any of the West Bank to the
Arabs unless it comes with iron-clad guarantees that the territory will not be used to shower Israel with
rockets, missiles and other weapons that are easier to make and easier to
smuggle. Would you relinquish territory deeply knowing that it will become
another base for war against your homeland? If you think yes, you are a
strategic and cosmic masochist.
Almost all of the demands of Fatah--the "moderate" Palestinians--would
have the effect of making Israel
more and more vulnerable to random violence and coordinated warfare. Some
of these demands they want satisfied simply in order to arrive in Annapolis. This is,
of course, a joke. But it doesn't mean that there are no backers, and the
closer it comes to d-day the more pressure Israel will be under to crumble.
Here's one such demand: the Israel
agree to Palestinian control of the link between Gaza and Judea/Samaria. Are they
nuts? What with the constant smuggling of weapons to Gaza
from Egypt, which has had a
peace treaty with Israel
for almost three decades, no one would agree to the invitation to suicide.
And now Reuters reports
the obvious: that Hamas asserts that it will seize the West Bank if Israel
withdraws. The end even to pretense.