STUDY: GAZA PULLOUT ACTUALLY HURT ISRAEL'S IMAGE

Study: Gaza pullout hurt Israel's image (JTA)
Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip did not garner the expected international sympathy, a new study found.

According to the study by two political and communications researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel's unilateral 2005 removal of troops and settlers from Gaza and four West Bank communities had the effect of presenting Israel in a more negative light in the Western media.

The researchers reached their conclusion after trolling through thousands of American and British press reports and government statements.

"We found that one of the main reasons for this phenomenon is that Israel continues to be viewed by the world as a conquering state," said Tamir Sheafer, one of the study's authors. "We also found that the demands from Israel to territorial concessions in the territories not only were not lessened following the disengagement but actually became stronger."

Then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cast the Gaza withdrawal as a stopgap measure in the face of a Palestinian Authority that was unwilling or unable to stop terror.

Sharon also said the pullout "improves our international standing and promotes the chance of peace in our region."

74% OF ISRAELIS OPPOSE ANOTHER UNILATERAL PULLBACK

Poll: 74% of Israelis Oppose Another Unilateral Pullback - Anshel Pfeffer (Jerusalem Post )
This week's Ma'ariv TNS opinion poll shows that right now only 18% of Israelis are in favor of more unilateral pullbacks, while 74% are against.

ISRAELIS COOL TO WEST BANK WITHDRAWAL

A Changing Israeli Consensus on West Bank Withdrawal - Aluf Benn
There is a growing consensus in all the camps and across the political spectrum in Israel that a withdrawal from the West Bank is no longer possible. President-elect Shimon Peres wrote last week in Yediot Ahronot: "It is unclear when we will pull out entirely from the territories....Even if we are ready to pull out, we have no one to hand them over to at this stage, because of the Palestinian inability to establish a single army, and a single state that will assert their control over the territories." In the current public discourse, any talk of withdrawing from the territories is perceived as a dangerous illusion.

The reason is obvious: Israel does not want Kassam rockets on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Ben-Gurion International Airport. Most Israelis assume, in view of the experience from Lebanon and Gaza, that any territory that will be evacuated will become a launching pad for rocket attacks against Israel. (Ha'aretz)

TERRORISTS LOVE A VACUUM

Land for Peace …… or land in pieces? By Seth Leibsohn (NRO)
The news out of Gaza is actually not the latest history lesson that Munich-type land-for-peace propositions require us to restudy. What we need is an update to Baruch Spinoza. While nature may still very well abhor a vacuum, we now know beyond speculation that terrorism will thrive in one. Where once a democratic state “occupied” Gaza, a terrorist Fatah took over under the watchful eyes of the U.N. In less than two years, the even-more-radical Hamas blasted Fatah out of power and took over from there — in one of the bloodiest coups of the past decade. Now Hamas, with support from Iran, runs a mini-state on the border of Egypt and Israel....

Now is the time to take a history lesson about democracies withdrawing from lands tyrants lick their lips over. Again. The lesson no longer need be from the 1930s, or even the 1970s — when a forced U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia resulted in killing fields and slaughter. The lesson can easily enough be 2005, when Israel left Gaza. The world wanted Israel out of Gaza, just as so many now want us out of Iraq. Israel left Gaza, and the void was filled — but not by the laying of tracks for the Peace Train. Within two years, Iranian Hamas took over from Arafatian Fatah. Where many of us once warned that Fatah’s rule of Gaza would create another Libya in the Middle East, our warnings went unheeded, and, at the same time, the warnings were not alarmist enough: A new Iranian state in the Middle East is now in charge. Nice work. At long last, might we now absorb the lesson?

A democracy showing weakness where terrorists thrive is a sure recipe for disaster if only one condition is met: Cede land to the terrorists and encourage the democracy to withdraw.

NETANYAHU: 1, BOSTON GLOBE: 0

Our Hopeful Step, Your Foolishly Unilateral Withdrawal (WSJ-BOTW)
Yesterday we noted [ED. SEE MY POST HERE] that the Boston Globe was blaming Israel--and in particular "Ariel Sharon's foolishly unilateral withdrawal" from Gaza in 2005--for Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza. Blogger Harry Forbes notes that in 2005, the Globe sang quite a different tune:

To argue, as Benjamin Netanyahu did in resigning from the Cabinet, that disengagement from Gaza would create "a giant base for terrorism" is to argue that there should never be a two-state solution to the conflict. Denying Palestinians a homeland has been counterproductive for both peoples. Denying them even the hope of a homeland would be a road map to war everlasting.

Another protest frequently voiced by the Israeli right is that the withdrawal, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, only rewards Palestinian militants for the second intifadah--five years of attacks and other violent resistance to Israeli control. But this stance is backward-looking and self-defeating. . . .

Begun as a unilateral move announced by Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the step has since attracted a level of coordination that is encouraging on its own terms. . . . The settlements have often been called facts on the ground. The withdrawal from
Gaza, if successful, will be another important fact.

Well, at least the Globe wasn't wrong about everything. There is no denying that the withdrawal from Gaza is an important fact.

OLMERT ADMITS UNILATERAL WITHDRAWALS A FAILURE

Ehud Olmert Admits Unilateral Withdrawals a Failure (Daniel Pipes)

In an interview with the Chinese news agency Xinhua, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has acknowledged that Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza did not work, and that the summer's violence out of these regions has convinced him not to repeat the policy. He prime minister confirmed his belief in a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which will require an Israeli retreat from many territories it now controls, something "we are ready to do. A year ago, I believed that we would be able to do this unilaterally," a reference to his plan to withdraw unilaterally from the West Bank.

However, it should be said that our experience in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip is not encouraging. We pulled out of Lebanon unilaterally, and see what happened. We pulled out of the Gaza Strip completely, to the international border, and every day they are firing Qassam rockets at Israelis.

Under existing circumstances, he concluded, "it would be more practical to achieve a two-state solution through negotiations rather than [through unilateral] withdrawal."

Comment: As someone who has been making this point since 2000 about Lebanon and 2003 about Gaza, I am gratified that Olmert has understood his mistake. But I mourn the price already paid and worry about the price yet to come; and I wonder why it took a two-front war to make this point obvious.

IS OLMERT GETTING READY TO OFFER PALIS MORE LAND?

Olmert offers Arabs more ‘sweeping, painful’ concessions (JNW)
Just how far he is prepared to go to keep his word is unclear, but a domestically increasingly unpopular Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Thursday messaged the Israel-hating Palestinian Arabs that he is ready to make “sweeping, painful and tough” concessions to persuade them that Israel serious seeks peace.

Olmert, who according to nationwide surveys only has the support of two or three percent of the Israeli electorate, appeared to be pinning his hopes of leaving a legacy on the “Palestinians” snapping at, and swallowing, his bait.

The concessions he is believed to be contemplating include the surrender of more Jewish lands to the Arabs and a severing for all time of any Jewish claim to great swathes of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

Israeli Pullback Unlikely - Joshua Brilliant
A year and a half after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza so many problems remained unresolved that analysts believe it unlikely Israel would go for a similar pullback in the West Bank. According to Hebrew University Professor Yaakov Bar-Siman-Tov, the Gaza withdrawal signaled the end of the idea of "land for peace." Bar-Siman-Tov doubted there would be another unilateral disengagement in the near future. In the past seven years Israel carried out two unilateral withdrawals: from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. Both did not provide peace.

The Islamic Hamas claimed its fighters forced the Israelis out of Gaza, and Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said he believed the disengagement demonstrated Israel's weakness, Bar-Siman-Tov noted. When Hizbullah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and triggered a month-long war, "the entire strategy of a unilateral disengagement was dealt a serious blow. It was proven, for the second time, that it was ineffective (in producing peace)." Gazans have also continued cross-border attacks. (UPI)

HAMAS TV: GAZA WITHDRAWAL SHOWS HOW TO DESTROY ISRAEL

Hamas TV: Gaza Evacuation Shows How to Destroy Israel - Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook (Palestinian Media Watch)
The most frequent message being repeated this month in Hamas' new Al Aqsa Satellite TV broadcasts is a statement by Ahmad Yassin, founder and former head of Hamas, made in 2005 in response to Israel's plan to evacuate Israeli towns in Gaza. Yassin's message was that the Palestinians had found the key to destroying Israel. Since terror was forcing Israel to leave Gaza, the Palestinians only have to keep up the terror in Israel's other cities and Israel would run from those as well.

PERES: WE'RE NOT DONE SURRENDERING

LET'S SEE. IN EXCHANGE FOR NOTHING FROM HEZBOLLAH OR LEBANON, ISRAEL UNILATERALLY WITHDREW FROM SOUTHER LEBANON. SOON, HEZBOLLAH ARMED ITSELF, KIDNAPPED ISRAELIS, PROVOKED A WAR, AND LAUNCHED MISSILES INTO NORTHERN ISRAEL. IN EXCHANGE FOR NOTHING FROM THE PALESTINIANS, ISRAEL UNILATERALLY WITHDREW FROM GAZA. SOON, HAMAS TOOK OVER, ARMED ITSELF, KIDNAPPED ISRAELIS, AND LAUNCHED MISSILES INTO SOUTHERN ISRAEL.

AND NOW, PERES WANTS TO UNILATERALLY WITHDRAW FROM THE WEST BANK.

WHAT CAN GO WRONG? IT'S NOT AS IF GIVING THE PALESTINIANS THE HIGH GROUND OF THE JUDEAN HILLS FROM WHICH TO LAUNCH MISSILES COULD BE A PROBLEM. AND WHO WORRIES ABOUT THEIR CONTROLING SOME OF THE HOLIEST SITES IN JUDAISM AND MAKING THEM JUDENREIN?

Peres: We will surrender Judea-Samaria (JNW)
Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said on Saturday that the current government still very much intends to uproot thousands of Jews from Judea and Samaria and surrender their homes to the "Palestinians."

In an interview on Israel's Channel 2 TV, Peres stated matter-of-factly:

"The government will evacuate...dozens of settlements by the end of its term."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert originally ran on a platform of additional "disengagement" from the biblical Land of Israel.

But his plummeting popularity following Israel's failures in last summer's Lebanon war called into question the ability to implement such a controversial policy, and Olmert put the issue on the back burner.

At the time, Olmert claimed that he had been forced to change his mind due to the fact that Israel's withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza had brought increased violence instead of peace.

But the fact that Peres made his latest remarks at a time when hostility from Lebanon and Gaza continues unabated calls into question whether or not Olmert has really learned his lesson.

SEE ALSO: Talking surrender, inviting disaster (Zionist.com)
This will come as no surprise, but the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert still very much intends to uproot thousands of Jews from Judea and Samaria in the very near future.
Vice Premier Shimon Peres said on Israeli television on Saturday that by the end of the current government’s term, at least several dozen established Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria will be no more.

It is still staggering to watch Israel talk openly of surrender in the name of peace, even after all the evidence that the “Palestinians” have presented proving that they do not really want peaceful coexistence.

You can chalk this one up to a combination of internal Israeli foolishness and massive self-serving pressure from Washington.

I personally don’t think this plan will ever be implemented, but I said the same thing before the abhorrent uprooting of Jewish Gaza, so I could be wrong.

That means that despite our firm belief that in the end God is going to have His way and Israel will come out on top, if we don’t want to see thousands more Bible-believing Jewish brothers and sisters violently ripped from their God-given inheritance along the way, then we need to do something now.