Qassam rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza, and Israel renewed targeted killings and bombings in Gaza. Was disengagement a mistake?
Below comes from the September 26th "Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher", APN's weekly Issue Brief from the noted Israeli security expert.
Q. Over the weekend Hamas fired 35 Qassam rockets from Gaza at targets in Israel, and Israel renewed targeted killings in Gaza and threatened to retaliate with artillery. Does this indicate that the Gaza redeployment was a mistake?
A. In a word, no. But PM Sharon has maneuvered himself into a position where he is liable to pay dearly for his success in leaving Gaza.
The weekend violence was the inevitable outcome of the holes in the internal Palestinian ceasefire agreement, the weakness of the Palestinian Authority in dealing with armed militants, and Sharon's resolve to retaliate harshly for violence from Gaza and to oppose the attempts of PA/PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas to coopt Hamas into the Palestinian political system.
The military picture is straightforward, and not unusual. The escalatory spiral began last week with an Israeli attack on Islamic Jihad militants in Tulkarm on the West Bank that led to the deaths of three terrorists. Islamic Jihad does not observe the ceasefire and continues to plan suicide bombings and other attacks, which PA security forces do little to impede. Islamic Jihad responded by firing a few rockets from Gaza into Israel, thus heating up the atmosphere. Then a Hamas military parade in Jebalya refugee camp in Gaza ended in heavy casualties when a pickup truck loaded with rockets blew up accidentally, killing at least 15 Palestinians, including children. The parade violated Abbas' directives. The latter, to his credit, blamed Hamas, for once taking Israel's side. But Hamas insisted Israel had caused the explosion and proceeded to launch its Qassams, with PA forces standing by helplessly. The Cabinet, responding to Sharon's demand to create a new and more powerful deterrent against violence emanating from Gaza, approved Israeli artillery retaliation as well as the clearing of no-man's land areas inside the Gaza fence. Israel also attacked a variety of Palestinian terrorist targets in Gaza from the air, and arrested some 300 Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Most were Hamas members, including candidates in coming Palestinian elections.
The weekend violence provided timely ammunition for Binyamin Netanyahu's attempt to unseat Sharon from the Likud leadership, a move almost certain to catalyze new elections. That process is scheduled to come to a head on Monday, Sept. 26, when the Likud Central Committee votes to decide whether to hold early leadership primaries (Netanyahu's demand) or not (Sharon's position). If Sharon loses the vote (the results will not be known before midnight Israel time on Monday) he is almost certain to resign from the party and form a new center party, and is likely to seek early elections. If Netanyahu wins and Likud primaries are moved up, the result will also almost certainly be elections. In any event, Netanyahu now claims that he was right to warn that disengagement would reward Hamas and provoke new and worse violence.
Sharon's dilemma in this regard is that he allowed the Israeli public to believe that disengagement would be good for security, without articulating clearly what he means. In fact it was obvious from the outset that the pullout would not necessarily reinforce the ceasefire, and that more violence was likely. It was also clear that disengagement is very good for demographic security, but Sharon never convincingly stated his case on this issue, apparently because he would be hard put to explain to the public why, if demography is the issue, he built the Gaza settlements in the first place. Nor could he respond to Netanyahu's repeated reminders of the Hamas claim that it had expelled Israel from Gaza--by acknowledging that Israel and its settlements should never have been there in the first place, and that Jerusalem should have withdrawn long before the current violence began. So he set himself up for criticism the moment violence was renewed.
Sharon can now claim that Israel is much better positioned to fight terrorism in Gaza. There are no settlers there to be "held hostage" by Palestinian terrorists, the PA's obligations to prevent terror are more clear-cut, and Israel can deal with terrorism from Gaza and address the PA's security failings there without the constraints of operating in occupied territory. Nevertheless, the timing of the violence was particularly unfortunate for Sharon, coming two days before his critical confrontation with Netanyahu, which in turn could ultimately affect future West Bank disengagements or negotiations with the Palestinians. Sharon's speech to the Likud Central Committee on Sunday--the speech he never gave due to a sabotaged sound system--sought to set the record straight regarding Gaza, violence, and demography.
If past experience is anything to go by, even an escalated Israeli military reaction to Hamas violence emanating from Gaza will not deter Hamas, which does not hesitate to jeopardize the lives and wellbeing of multitudes of Gazans. In this regard, the IDF has still not found a complete military solution to Palestinian terrorism, and can only hope to reduce Hamas' efficiency by targeting its leadership and operational command, as it did effectively in the past.
This tactic also now appears to focus on the newly emergent Hamas political leadership, which intends to lead the movement in additional local elections later this week and then in the January 25 elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council. Sharon has staked out a problematic position in announcing to the world that Israel will obstruct PLC elections if Hamas participates: not because the violent radical Islamist organization deserves to participate, but because Abbas has staked his future on these inclusive elections and the Bush administration is backing him. While the current flare-up will likely calm down, Hamas' post-disengagement aggression against Israeli targets is liable to give Sharon a tempting opportunity to mix war with politics, with potential ramifications for PA stability and for Bush's regional reform program.