The Failure of the Disengagement Policy

From Martin Sherman's "Obssesive or Obtuse?"

...any dispassionate observer of events is easily able to discern that Disengagement brought a quantum leap in the scale of the activities of Palestinian terror in terms of operational execution, logistical capabilities and political empowerment.

This is clearly reflected in a paper published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) Israel's War to Halt Palestinian Rocket Attacks, authored by Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold. It points out that although:

"Qassam rocket fire did not start with Israel's Gaza disengagement...nonetheless, after disengagement the number of confirmed rocket strikes against Israel increased by more than 500 percent …The disengagement … led to the loss of Israeli control over the Philadelphi route …allowing for a significant increase in the range and quantity of rockets in the Palestinian arsenal. What is dramatically new in the rocket attacks in 2008 are the range and quantity of rockets being fired...[and as a result of increased tunneling] the quantities of explosives and foreign-produced, longer-range rockets that could enter Gazan territory increased dramatically...in early 2006 [it was reported] that the amount of explosives smuggled into the Gaza Strip … had grown drastically - by more than 300 percent...[and] between $50 -$70 million in cash has been smuggled into Gaza in order to finance the Hamas terrorist operations."

...the JCPA paper points out: "The 2005 Gaza disengagement provided Hamas with a sense of empowerment and self-confidence …Politically, this led to the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections in January 2006."

...The difference in the severity of the realities confronting Israel in the pre- Disengagement era and post- Disengagement one are so clear and stark, that to attempt to suggest that there is any equivalence between them is a ludicrous as to suggest that a mild cold and terminal pneumonia are similar simply because they can both be diagnosed "viral infections."

Disengagement has been a staggering failure – at least in the conventional sense of the word. All the envisioned benefits that its proponents advanced as reasons for its implementation have not materialized. All the ominous forebodings of the dangers that its opponents warned of as reasons for eschewing its implementation – and which were scornfully dismissed by its proponents – have indeed materialized. The ascendancy of the radicals, the expanding threat to Israel's civilian population, the emerging strategic dimension of the weapons in the hands of radicals…