[Veteran Journalist and Pundit Yaron London was one of the most fervent supporters of Sharon’s disengagement policy last year -db]
It should be recognized that the warnings of the opponents of the disengagement from Gaza have materialized.
Disengagement did not reduce the intensity of the confrontation, and we are unwillingly being forced to send the army back to the places it abandoned. Huge quantities of weapons were smuggled through the breached entrances to the Gaza Strip, and as we learned on Saturday night, the operational ability of the terrorists has also improved. The fence has stopped hundreds of infiltration attempts, but it does not ensure quiet.

The Kassam rockets pass over it, and terrorists can dig under it. What is more severe is that the Palestinians did not use their relative freedom to rehabilitate themselves. The area where the Jewish settlements resided, about one fifth of the area of the Gaza Strip, with hothouses that could have served for the residents’ welfare, is not being cultivated. Nothing was built on the ruins besides training camps for terrorists. Palestinian society did not pass the test of autonomy that was granted to it, and it is as divided, wild and combative as ever before.

There is no point in hanging onto the hope that something will come of Abu Mazen. No gesture will help him. This good man is unable to overcome the powerful currents that are sweeping the Palestinians into oblivion. We should talk with him, so that the Western countries take note of the fact that we talked, but the pressing questions that face us are not diplomatic but rather military: What to do in order to reduce the terror attacks. We tried targeted killings from the air, operations by commando units, artillery volleys aimed at sparsely populated areas and economic siege, and all these did not improve the nightly sleep of the children in Sderot. The moment is approaching when we will have to implement what we promised to do when we evacuated Gaza: You will suffer if the harassment continues after we have relieved you of the burden of the occupation. From now on we will do what states do when their sovereign territory is bombed. They return fire towards the source of the fire, no matter what it is.

Threatening to employ this tactic is also the way to bargain over the fate of the abducted soldier. Not trading him for imprisoned terrorists, but rather taking the lives of the dispatchers of the terrorists, those who conceal terrorists and the propagandists of the terror organizations.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR