it may come as no surprise to some that ariel sharon has a hole in his heart. doctors discovered it when he had his stroke december 18.
this might not be a tactful time to say it, but, personally, i think he has a hole in his head, and not from the stroke. anybody with half a milliliter of common sense could foresee his unilateral gaza pullout would hand hamas a perfect opportunity to claim they'd forced israel out.
all he had to do to avoid giving them that propaganda ammo was to negotiate the withdrawal so the palestinian authority could claim it as their victory.
the best way to weaken hamas is to strengthen mahmoud abbas's hand.
20 hours ago
Hey,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by my blog. Do you know that Israel actually supported the creation of Hamas to act as a religious alternative to the PLO? The divide and conquer tactic ended up backfiring, as we can see in the news each day.
I actually think Sharon is a shrewd guy. He's a war hero, savvy politician and he wouldn't have handed over Gaza unless there was a long-term strategic benefit to doing so. Time will tell.
to II:
ReplyDeletei've heard that about hamas, but i don't know how to verify it.
so sharon's a war hero n savvy pol, he's still screwed it a couple times at least.
ReplyDeletehe started the 2nd intifada by going to the mount. sure, it got him elected pm, but look what it cost his country n the peace process.
handing over gaza unilaterally w/o negotiation was lousy strategy, as the blog post says.
n my memory might be wrong, but wasn't he the guy that dismissed arafat's '82 beirut escape with a "so what?" wave of his hand when asked about it?
Handing over Gaza was a brilliant move. It is too expensive to guard a couple thousand people in settlements from the tens of thousands surrounding them. Financially it made sense. Also, now that Israel is building the apartheid wall and expanding West Bank settlements, it makes more sense to focus resources where they really matter - around Jerusalem, not in the big sewage pit called Gaza. Strategically, Gaza is not worth the trouble.
ReplyDeleteAnd, although it was barely a handover since Israel still controls the electricity, airspace, water supplies, etc., Israel gets tons of p.r. mileage out of it.
Putting aside the ego battle, there should always be a strategic reason to fight a battle and, with Gaza, there was none.
2 intellectual:
ReplyDeletemost of what u say is true, of course. i never disputed that leaving gaza is best.
but u haven't responded to my point, which is the same as the one the blog made: it wasn't exiting gaza that was dumb strategy, it was doing it unilaterally, because that empowered hamas.
sharon should have negotiated the pullout with abbas, so it would look like abbas's accomplishment, and hamas wouldn't be able to exploit it as they are doing, which makes a lot of people dread the next election.