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…

Martin Sherman's View on Statehood for the Pals.

Failing the test of history

Merit is no qualification for freedom…. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour's occupying you is greater than the profit.
T. E. Lawrence to the Editor of The Times July 22, 1920


This quote from a letter written by "Lawrence of Arabia" almost a century ago, setting out a case for the political independence for the Arabs in the Middle East, has current relevance in assessing the flurry of statements over the last few years - particularly from senior US politicians - that "the Palestinians deserve a state of their own."



...the Palestinians have undermined – indeed invalidated – their claim to statehood by even the more lenient and clearly measurable empirical criterion set out by Lawrence above. For the Palestinians' ongoing failure to achieve statehood reflects the converse – but necessary - corollary of the practical yardstick he stipulates.

If success in achieving statehood is the sole criterion by which to judge whether such statehood is indeed deserved, then surely it follows that the reverse is true: Failure to achieve statehood is the ultimate indicator in determining that it is not.



And the Palestinian failure has been undeniably staggering. In fact a strong case can be made for the claim that, in the history of modern national independence movements, none have enjoyed conditions more conducive to success, and yet achieved such miserable results, than that of the Palestinians.

...the Palestinians have not managed to produce any semblance of a sustainable society. The Palestinian leadership has done nothing but bring about a repressive and regressive interim regime that provided little but the pillage of the Palestinian people and the squander of the vast amount of resources provided by donor nations.

Nearly a decade and a half after the Oslo Agreements, the Palestinians have shown the world that they simply cannot "cut it." All they have been able to establish was both tenuous and dysfunctional, from a corrupt kleptocracy to a tyrannical theocracy – both now sliding into abysmal anarchy and chronic chaos accompanied by fratricidal fury.

...Clearly then, the time has come for the international community to recognize that rather than a coherent, cohesive national entity, the Palestinians comprise an amorphous amalgam of clans, gangs and bands whose overriding aspiration to not to establish a state for their own people but to dismantle a state of another people.

Clearly the time has come to remove the issue of Palestinian statehood from the international agenda – for the Palestinians themselves have shown that they are patently incapable of maintaining such statehood...

Accordingly, the time has come challenge the validity of the conventional wisdom which holds unquestioningly that "the Palestinians deserve a state of their own.” Not because of any objections raised by the opponents of such a state, but because the Palestinians themselves have manifestly failed the test of history.

(Yes, I know Martin well but his opinions are his own)