A Tale of Two Stevens

A Pre-Post Mortem

Stephen Green, in his blog VodkaPundit article A Pre-Post Mortem, writes (in part):

Since assuming office in 2001, Sharon has completely remodeled Israel's defensive situation – by putting the Palestinian Authority on the defensive, militarily, politically, and morally.

By forcing Jewish settlers out of Gaza, Sharon angered many of his rightwing allies in the Likud Party. By doing so without a formal treaty with the PA, Sharon completely alienated Israel's leftwing Labor Party. Trapped in the center – much like his division was once trapped behind Egyptian lines – Sharon came up with a creative solution: last November, he founded a new political party, Kadima. The goal was to create a centrist party to formally pursue Sharon's security goals, without being beholden to crazies on the left or the right.

Stupid, Suicidal, and Self-destructive

The Retreat-in-Panic, which is euphemistically referred to as the "disengagement", was a stupid, suicidal, and self-destructive act. Its wonderful results include:

• El-Kassam missiles are now falling in Ashkelon and Negev settlements, rather than "merely" Sderot;


• Utter chaos reigns in Gaza city, as armed gangs vie for their piece of turf;


• Palestinians in Gaza are out of work, the economy in shambles, their Jewish employers thrown out and industries razed with nothing remotely in sight to replace them;


• The border between Gaza and Egypt, which Egypt was supposed to maintain, is breached, open, and arms and materiel flows freely to terrorists who have frightened off European Union observers^*;


• And six months after the debacle,most of the families who were uprooted from Judenrein Gaza are still homeless, jobless, and without basic services such as health and schooling.

If this is what Kadima claims to its credit, then good riddance.

What is "moral high-ground" about self-destruction? That would be about as immoral as can be, except that it also drags along the destruction of innocents on all sides.

^* It boggles the mind what these observers were supposed to do in the first place. Observe the terrorists to death? Strike a blow against terrorism with a magic glare? Who's fooling whom here?


UnDisengagement

On the other hand, Prof. Steven Plaut's Op-Ed The Most Effective Defense Against Rockets presents the case for an UnDisngagement.

In part, Prof. Plaut says...

It should have been obvious that the expulsion would result in massive escalation in violence and in Kassam and mortar fire, which would eventually make an ever-widening circle inside Israel and around Gaza unlivable. Well, we are clearly well on our way to fulfillment of that prediction.

The abandoned Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip are the closest points from which the PLO can fire rockets at Negev towns. The Israeli heavy artillery has been moved up to prevent the PLO and its Hamas affiliates from entering those abandoned settlements in order to set up and fire rockets at the Negev.

Poppa Arik

Many Israelis supported Sharon and his party because they're just tired and are looking for a Strong Daddy to make it all better. Tired of fighting, of incessant reserve army duty. Tired of the threat of terror. Tired of struggling to make the end of the month. Tired of seeing diplomatic failure after failure, as no agreement signed by the Palestinians has ever been honored.

Far from being in retreat, the Paletinians' only reason for not committing more horror lately is because of the internal power struggle raging over the post-Arafat vacuum.


The Emporer's New... Um...

Am I one of those "crazies", who see the damn Wall as a waste of money and false security, who actually believe the Palestinians when they proclaim the Retreat-in-Panic as a victory for them, and who believes that "Fortress Israel" is nothing more than Warsaw Revisited? Who's crazy? A party who is proud of the blows it's struck against the Windmill of no-Negotiations? An emporer who stood buck-naked in the light of fear of the gentile and Arab?

Or the boy who simply asks him why he has no clothes on?