Separation Anxiety
Honesty requires referencing two problems with the unilateral disgorgement option that Unqualified Offerings has been pushing as the least bad solution to the current terror war in the middle east:
1) According to an audio clip on MSNBC.com, the Matza restaurant bomber was an Israeli Arab, with citizenship papers, who would, obviously, not have been stopped by real borders between Israel and an independent Palestine.
2) There is a sense in which unilateral disgorgement could be said to be giving the Palestinians what they want, and Thomas Friedman today argues powerfully that, “if suicide bombing is allowed to work in Israel, then, like hijacking and airplane bombing, it will be copied and will eventually lead to a bomber strapped with a nuclear device threatening entire nations. That is why the whole world must see this Palestinian suicide strategy defeated.”
These are important (albeit unconscious) objections to the arguments in items lower on this page. I would say the following in response:
1) There are surely other Hamas recruits among Israel’s Arab citizens. But separation will make it harder for Hamas to gain more. Disgorgement will not provide perfect security. It still looks better than the other options. Once again, they are extermination, ethnic cleansing, disgorgement, a lot more of what we have now and Fantasy Jordan.
2) The Friedman Problem, seeming to reward terror, is one Unqualified Offerings has dealt with before. On September 10, I could argue for an immediate pullout from Saudi Arabia and an end to sanctions against Iraq. On September 12, I could not. Because what I considered wise policy in a vacuum would look like capitulation in the face of the atrocities of September 11.
But again, what are the options? They are still extermination; ethnic cleansing; disgorgement; a lot more of what we have now; and Fantasy Jordan.
It is absurd to think that “isolating Arafat” or killing him will make the terror stop. The Palestinians have other leaders and the leadership dynamic will favor the most anti-Israeli. How much infrastructure do you think you need to help some misanthropes blow themselves up? Not damn much. Israel is losing now. It has to stop the bleeding. The current program of visiting daily humiliations on the Palestinians while continuing to bus them into Israel proper for cheap labor is not actually delivering much security. Disgorgement is a strategic retreat to a more defensible position.
Besides, there remains a persuasive case that a critical mass of the Palestinian people and their leadership want not just a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza but the destruction of Israel. To the extent that that is true, disgorgement isn’t even giving the Palestinians what they want. The whole purpose of disgorgement is to prevent the destruction of Israel.
