RETREATING FROM GAZA SENDS WRONG MESSAGE TO ARABS

Retreat from Gaza - Daniel Mandel
According to historian Michael Oren: ''The minute you pull out of Gaza you signal to the Arabs that you're in retreat. It's a huge victory for the Palestinians. Palestinians will have huge celebrations in Gaza. You think they'll sit down and talk after that?" Journalist Yossi Klein Halevi noted: ''The psychological implications are to reinforce the post-Lebanon withdrawal perception in the Arab world that we are a defeatist society and with enough pressure we'll simply withdraw."

The terrorists will be the leading beneficiaries of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal, appearing vindicated in asserting that terrorism first and foremost is the way. Americans are fighting the same Islamist terrorist groups. The Bush administration should think twice about supporting policies that weaken its best Middle Eastern ally while emboldening the terrorists it is also fighting. The writer is associate director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia. (Boston Globe)

Wake up, Washington! By Caroline B. Glick
Unless one ignores reality, it is impossible to sustain an argument that as presently constituted, Israel's withdrawal from Gaza will do anything other than strengthen the cause of global jihad and Arab authoritarianism. Unfortunately, until the US abandons the contrived belief that what happens to Israel has no connection to what happens to the US, it will be unable to see — and thus thwart — the dangers that await it.