The Yale Free Press

As the last bulldozers leave gaza this week, The Economist reports: “Opinion polls show that most Israelis support the withdrawal (though there is widespread skepticism that it will make Israel safer or bring peace nearer).”

These supporters are wise to be skeptical. At the same time that Israeli soldiers are taking a break from the physically and psychologically exhausting endeavor of forcing their protesting compatriots from their homes, Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his team of advisers are up to no good. On August 21st, PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei held a reportedly cordial meeting with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations. This highranking official was afterwards quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying that “there will be no calm until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.” The Post also quoted the boasting of Musa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader present at the meeting with Qurei: “The Gaza victory was achieved with the weapons of the resistance, which is the only strategy to drive Israel out of the rest of our lands.”

With the Gaza airport needing $20 million dollars’ worth of repairs, the Palestinians hardly have a pressing need for Jerusalem; yet the fight, for Qurei, Marzouk, and Abbas, must go on. For what? Certainly not for anything that, if achieved, would bring satisfaction and stability. The struggle between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is that of a rational democratic regime and a sort of Volk, in Nietzschean manner asserting authenticity and cultural identity through the exercise of power. The power is military and, to an even greater extent, psychological: it is the power to bully and intimidate, and it is enhanced by every Israeli concession.

Meanwhile, Abbas has proclaimed Israel’s withdrawal to pre-1967 boundaries as the new condition required for the achievement of peace. He is joined in this sentiment by his civil affairs minister, Muhammed Dahlan, who also pointed out to the Jerusalem Post that Palestinian violence will continue unabated for as long as the passage from Gaza to the West Bank is not cleared of Israelis to the Palestinians’ full satisfaction.

In other words, the withdrawal from Gaza is not going to bring peace any closer. No one in Palestine is even talking about that; they are merely reformulating the conditions on which violence will continue. By sending his prime minister, who expresses such anti-Israel views, to negotiate with terrorist leaders, Abbas is doing just the opposite of even a nominal attempt to hold up his side of the bargain by disarming terrorist organizations.

Yet the Israeli skeptics are also wise to be in support of the withdrawal. It will work for Israel if it is treated as only an apparent, not a real concession – if, rather than a step towards peace, it is a preparation for war. Those on the Israeli right who supported Sharon from the beginning did so because withdrawing from Gaza would remove Israel’s security burden of guarding the settlers and make it easier to construct the security fence. Plus, it is easier to shoot back at terrorist camps if your own people are not living near them.

If leaving Gaza was done for the sake of making it easier for Israel to protect its borders, it was a success; if it was meant to please Palestinians, we already know that it failed. The question keeping Israelis up at night is which of these was Sharon’s real intention. The answer will come from his treatment of the West Bank.

There is no argument on the practical, military side that withdrawing to pre-1967 boundaries in any region other than Gaza would be suicidal for Israel. The war of 1967 was fought not because Israel felt a sudden greed for land, but because the Golan heights, towering over Israeli kibbutzim and towns, proved the perfect strategic point from which to kill Israelis. A generation of Israeli children living on Israeli land was brought up inside bomb shelters, as the Syrians took full advantage of this convenience. There is no reason to think that Hamas would do otherwise if Palestinians were to receive control of the West Bank and the Golan heights. The West Bank, due to its larger size and elevated location right in the heart of Israel, is an even greater threat to Israeli security. Practically all of Israel’s major cities and other targets can be easily attacked from the West Bank if the right people get to the task – as doubtless they will.

If Sharon is out courting Arab and American favor, he will give in on the West Bank, and his nation is doomed to succumb to Palestinian violence; if his intention in clearing Gaza was to protect Israeli security interests, he will stay put, and Israel has a chance. Only time will tell.

Lia Oksman is a senior in Trumbull College and Managing Editor of The Yale Free Press.