How can the Palestinians be prevented from copying the Kassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip to Judea and Samaria?

In other words-how can Israel put a stop to what the Palestinians consider the successful logic whereby Kassam rockets = Jewish evacuation. After all, this rocket fire will no longer be on “peripheral” places like Sderot and Gush Katif, but fall in the heart of Jerusalem, at Ben-Gurion Airport, Petah Tikva and Kfar Saba. This logic is not just imaginary. Senior Hamas officials repeatedly say this at this time, just before the military victory parades that will be held in Gush Katif. This, after all, is Hamas’s reason for being, it explains the evacuation of Gush Katif, it is behind the logic of the military expulsion of the Jews from there, it is what the Hamas calls the “el-Aksa victory,” the direct continuation of the el-Aksa Intifada. Just as the withdrawal from Lebanon was perceived as flight from Lebanon and led to the idea of the Intifada, the withdrawal from Gaza is liable to step up the battle over Judea and Samaria. This is a complex question, since the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from both Lebanon and from the Gaza Strip is correct, we just have to know the right way to carry it out.

Parliament First

Hamas will be in no hurry to expand its use of rocket fire and terror. It isn’t stupid. Therefore, it will reserve this until after elections in the Palestinian Authority, which are expected to take place early next year. The reason for this is because it wishes to present itself as being a fair-minded organization, worthy of taking control of the Palestinian parliament from the inside, and therefore also controlling all of the Palestinian Authority. But after this seizure, it will embark on another battle, this time for Judea and Samaria, now backed by the independent territory of Gaza and perhaps also with a seaport, as well as the historic precedent of Jewish uprooting.

The best way to prevent this expected trouble is to prepare a balance of profit versus loss for the Palestinians, whether this is the Palestinian Authority, whether this is Hamas and whether these are civilians, when they weigh the idea of beginning a war of Kassam rockets in Judea and Samaria. To our great consternation, the Israeli government today is only offering them a balance of win-win.

There are many ways to create a balance of loss for the Palestinians-military, infrastructure or political loss-when the Palestinians do not only act on the basis of emotion and arousing passions against Israel, but also on the basis of the clear and cruel logic of profit and loss. In Arab culture, the fear of losing is much greater than the desire to reach achievements, as the Palestinian saying goes “make the calculation of loss before the calculation of profit (“ahsab hasaab al-khasara kabal hasaab al-makasab“). And indeed, in the five years of the Intifada, the Palestinians made sure that their society did not fall apart and that the symbiotic connection to Israel remain in place despite everything.

This article suggests a strategic balance of loss, and if it is carried out, it can perhaps prevent the worst, or at least create dilemmas that today do not exist for the Palestinian leadership. This balance is based on the word “disengagement” and on implementing it to the letter, i.e. after the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, that Israel turn its back on the Palestinians there, basically give it a divorce, and stop providing them with anything-not water or electricity or money or medical backup or agricultural experts or money transfers. Israel must not allow any Palestinians to work in its territory, and instead of “crossings” it must set up a closed border. Let the Egyptian “brothers” provide for the Palestinians. This would be a precedent for all those planning another unilateral withdrawal for Israel: Israel retreats, but at the same opportunity, cuts off its ties to the Palestinians.

If this is done, the Palestinians will think hard if its worth it to them to disengage from the Israeli teat and enter an economic and strategic desert, when the Arab world also boycotts and curbs them. For the first time, the Palestinians will realize that they will also have to pay a price, a high price, for their battle, and not only gain achievements.

Double Profit

Unfortunately, in light of the Israeli government’s policy today, Israel is indeed “disengaging” from the Gaza Strip, but it appears that this disengagement is for the sage of engagement: “crossings” will be opened between Israel and Gaza that will give passage for workers into Israel, the electricity and water companies have already announced that they will continue to provide Gaza and northern Samaria with services as usual even after disengagement, the shekel will continue to be the legal and perhaps sole tender in Gaza, VAT money will continue to be sent and Israel intends to open a “safe passage route” between Gaza to Judea and Samaria.

For the Palestinians, this scenario constitutes a double profit: they control the territory and also continue to milk Israel. In contrast, in its folly, Israel will both lose its settlements in Gaza and also continue to provide for the Palestinians there.

This double profit must be stopped as of now, especially since stopping Palestinian labor inside Israel and not renewing the “safe passage route” are welcome in and of themselves.

Why is Israel’s evacuation in the Gaza Strip called “disengagement” if afterwards Palestinian workers again enter Israel as if nothing has happened? After all, if this total disengagement, the burden of providing for the Palestinians will continue to be on Israel’s shoulders, and in effect, we will have done nothing.

On the eve of the last Palestinian uprising, 120,000 Palestinians worked inside Israel. This created total Palestinian dependency on work in Israel, and Israel became dependent on them and their labor. With enormous effort their number was lowered to a few thousand and now, with the first calm, there are those among us pushing to raise the number again, as if the Intifada had never happened or as if appalling acts of terror had never taken place.

It’s time that Israel take advantage of the historic opportunity afforded it for the first time since 1967 and encourage self-work or minimize foreign work that does not make us dependent on it. There is no need to expand on the security aspect, when Israel was transparent from the intelligence and terrorist aspect to the enemy, when tens of thousands of eyes walked among us in every corner and saw everything.

The situation is even worse in regard to the ” safe passage route.” In the last few days the Palestinians said that in coordination with Israel, it has been decided to re-operate the “safe passage route” between Gaza and Judea and Samaria through Kiryat Gat, but “for now, in the supervised convoy method.”

Crossing Into Israel

Few know that this miserable “safe passage route,” which began working in early 2000 until the outbreak of the Intifada, contributed a great deal to the Intifada. The concern of the Oslo people, who thought of the idea, was that Gaza Strip residents would infiltrate Israeli territory on their way from Gaza to the Tarkumiya crossing, and therefore everyone leaving from Gaza to the West Bank and vice versa was checked that they had indeed reached their destination in a reasonable time. What the planners “forgot” to consider was that the Gazans did indeed reach Judea and Samaria on time, but they simply remained there. Experience shows that from Judea and Samaria, many of them entered the State of Israel, where they stayed. That same year Israeli Arabs on the seamline complained of thousands of Gazans who had moved and lived among them and began work in Israel undisturbed, breaking the local job market. And so, when the October 2000 riots broke out, the police in the northern district were astounded to discover Gazan rioters and inciters in the Nazareth region, for example.

If the safe passage route indeed takes on flesh, then in the framework of “disengagement,” Israel will only “engage” better with the Palestinians who live in Gaza. The latter will stand in line to cross into the West Bank, and from there straight into Israel, where five years on, the separation fence is still incomplete. By this logic, today Israel is more disengaged from Gaza than it will be in a few weeks.

It’s time that the decision makers in Israel internalize the complex term they themselves came up with-“disengagement” -which entails an aspect of punishment and deterrence and distancing from the Palestinians, from a position of strength, otherwise this will only be a Jewish “uprooting” based on a position of weakness, inviting further Palestinian aggression. If done properly, the concept of “disengagement” can relate not only to what has already taken place in the Gaza Strip, but also prevent and stop what is still liable to take place.

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