… General (res.) Moshe Ya’alon, the chief of staff until shortly before the disengagement, spoke passionately by telephone from his current place of residence in Washington….

Lieutenant General (res.) Moshe Ya’alon: “There is no doubt that the disengagement failed. The failure was to be expected. It stems from the fact that underlying the disengagement was a baseless idea. It did not derive from a thorough strategic analysis but from political distress and from the personal distress of prime minister Ariel Sharon. Accordingly, what we actually had was an internal Israeli game that ignored events outside Israel. What we had was disengagement from reality and disengagement from the truth. The entire process created a false hope that was not based on strategy and was not based on facts.

“In large measure, the disengagement was a media spin. Those who initiated it and led it had no background in strategy, in security, in statesmanship or in history. They were image advisers. They were ‘spinologists.’ And what those people did was to place Israel into a virtual bubble divorced from reality by means of a huge media spin, which is now unraveling before our eyes.

“The conceptual flaw that underlies the disengagement is the following: the fact that there is no one to talk to on the other side does not mean that we can ignore the other side or the consequences our actions have on it. The fact that not even Fatah is ready to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state and is committed to the ‘phased doctrine’ does not mean that we can ignore the fact that fleeing under fire is construed as surrender and that it encourages terrorism.

“It is true that because there is no partner, the political process has to be stopped at an early stage with the explicit assertion that there is no partner. It is also true that in this situation there is no choice but to take unilateral measures. But unilateral measures are not only withdrawal. Unilateral measures are also a diplomatic offensive, and perhaps also a military offensive, and an ideological offensive.

“The deep problem is that in its struggle against the Palestinians, Israel is waging a battle of withdrawal and delay. It has withdrawn stage by stage toward a two-state solution, which can?t work because it lacks a Palestinian partner. The basic paradigm of the two-state solution is an irrelevant one. In the present situation, it cannot be implemented. Therefore, what Israel has to do is to undermine this paradigm, not entrench it.

“The unilateral move of disengagement did exactly the opposite. It strengthened the Palestinian narrative and weakened the Israeli narrative. It entrenched the expectation of additional withdrawals in the West Bank without an agreement and without a quid pro quo. It deprived Israel of assets without giving it assets.

“Above all, though, the disengagement created four dangerous precedents. The first is the precedent of withdrawal to the Green Line. This will make things very difficult for us in Judea and Samaria when we come to demand territories that are vital for our security. The second precedent is the evacuation of settlements without anything in return. The result of that precedent is that the evacuation of settlements in Judea and Samaria is now perceived as being self-evident and not as a painful move in return for which Israel receives what it needs for its existence and security. The third precedent is forgoing demilitarization and forgoing supervision of the borders. That precedent did away with a vital Israeli demand, which was part of the Oslo Accords and of every peace agreement that was talked about in the past.

“However, the fourth precedent is the gravest of all: Israel undertook all the concessions entailed in the disengagement without obtaining international recognition that the occupation of Gaza has ended. Despite all we did, we are still perceived as being responsible for the fate of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“When the present confrontation began, in 2000, I argued that if we did not wake up in terms of understanding it, and if we continued with the withdrawal and delay, an existential threat to Israel?s future would be created. That was why I said we had to sear the Palestinian consciousness. That was why I said that the war of terrorism must end with terrorism defeated, with the Palestinians understanding that terrorism does not produce gains.

“In the summer of 2003, we had made great progress toward achieving that goal. Militarily, we suppressed terrorism and induced the terrorist organizations to accept an unconditional cease-fire. Politically, we persuaded more and more international bodies and individuals that [former PA chairman] Arafat was the problem and not a solution. But then came the disengagement and everything went haywire. It caused the loss of all the assets we accumulated in the years of the war.

“The disengagement was a cardinal strategic error. It led to the victory of Hamas. It provided a tailwind for terrorism. It nourished the Palestinian struggle for years to come. It gave the Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida the feeling that Israel can be defeated. That Israel really is a spider-web society, as Nasrallah claims, or a rotten tree, as Ahmadinejad claims. Thus the disengagement did severe damage not only to Israel, it also damaged the U.S. regional strategy of the war against terrorism. It gave extreme Islam the feeling that just as it defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, it defeated us in Gaza and will defeat us in the West Bank and will defeat us also in Tel Aviv. In this way, as it already once undermined a world power, it will now undermine the West by defeating Israel.

“Now we are in the southern Lebanon scenario in the Gaza Strip. A great deal of weaponry has entered Gaza. Standard-issue explosives have entered. Katyushas have entered. There are antiaircraft missiles. Antitank missiles. Grad missiles. As a result of the disengagement and the way it was executed, there are in Gaza Hezbollah agents, Al-Qaida agents and Iranian terrorist agents. There is Iranian know-how and there is Iranian money. Just as I warned, the Gaza Strip is turning into Hamastan, Hezbollahstan and Al-Qaidastan.

“The situation will only get worse with time. The failure of the disengagement will be more and more concrete. We will find ourselves facing a kingdom of terror that is capable of launching into Israel more rockets of greater range and greater effectiveness. The rocket threat will reach Ashkelon and Ashdod and deep into the Negev. It will not be possible to deal with that threat solely by means of aerial attacks. Therefore, if we want to go on living, we may have no other choice than to launch an Operation Defensive Shield in Gaza.

“The advocates of the disengagement claimed it would bring us international support. But the international credit we received was limited and temporary, and it has already run out. The advocates of the disengagement claimed it would improve our security situation. It is true that from the narrow military aspect the present deployment is more convenient for the IDF, but our overall security situation has worsened in the wake of the disengagement. There is no saving in manpower or in money, as was promised.

There is no calm and no stability. There is a serious blow to the civilian infrastructure of Sderot and Ashkelon. There is a process of population deserting those areas.

“The fact that we did not stick to our promise that if Qassam rockets were fired after the disengagement we would react with all our force, eroded our deterrence, adversely affected our status in the region and also encouraged Iran. The present operation, too, is not the result of the firing of Qassams. In practice we accepted the firing of the Qassams as though it were rain. We inserted permission to fire Qassams at Sderot into the rules of the game. That restraint was a serious mistake. If firing is permissible from Gaza at Sderot, firing is also permissible from Lebanon into Galilee. There is a serious problem here of loss of deterrence for which we will pay dearly.

“One of the reasons the majority of the Israeli public supported the disengagement was that it was blinded and dazzled and drugged, and also because the public has a true desire to be freed from the burden of the conflict and to divide the land. But we have to understand that even when we try to get the Palestinians off our back they do not get off our back, they stab us.

“We must not deceive ourselves. We live in the Middle East. We cannot entrench ourselves behind fences and walls. That is why there is really no unilaterality. Even when there is no dialogue with our neighbors, there is interaction with them. Every step of ours has implications for them. And whoever projects weakness in the Middle East is like a weak animal in the wild: it is attacked. It is not left alone, it is attacked. Therefore, if we now try to continue the failed disengagement with the convergence, the result will be grave. We will give terrorism a terrible tailwind. We will provide a tailwind for radical Islam across the region. We will create a strategic threat to Jerusalem and to Ben-Gurion Airport and to the population centers of the coastal plain. The Qassams and the Katyushas will no longer be Sderot’s problem. They will reach the front door in Tel Aviv.”

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/735513.html

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