WHAT GAZA DISENGAGEMENT HAS MEANT

This is a sober assessment of the Gaza situation by a Major General of the IDF (Israeli Defence Force)

Paying the price for disengagement

by Ya’acov Amidror

(THE JERUSALEM POSTJuly 7, 2006)

We are now paying just a portion of the price for the withdrawal from Gaza. Because of the pullout, Hamas rose to power. Moreover, its ideology became widely accepted in Gaza.

Before disengagement, no one got through the security fence around the Gaza Strip. The trickle of arms that was being smuggled underneath the Philadelphi corridor has risen to a flood through the Rafah Crossing. And we’ve had many more Kassams.

What we will see in the future is the rise of al-Qaida and Hizbullah in Gaza. It’s been less than a year, just give them enough time.

It is not right to second-guess those who have to make the operational decisions. I don’t have access to the intelligence information that they have. However, it is worth asking so-called strategists like [adviser to former prime minister Ariel Sharon] Dov Weisglass and [former director of the strategic coordination staff in the Prime Minister’s Office] Brig.-Gen. (res.) Eival Giladi: how could you bring us to this point, you who promised us salvation?

These people have caused the rise of Hamas, at the price of 8,000 people who still do not have homes.

And most of the world is criticizing us for our actions now!

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya’acov Amidror, a former head of the research branch of Military Intelligence, is director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. (Interview by Ehud Zion Waldoks.)

The sting is really in the last sentence by Amridor. What must be placed at the forefront all the time is the presence of anti-Semitism in the world. No other real explanatiion is possible for the terrible Israel hatred which we cannot get away from.