Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, destroying in the process 21 thriving Jewish communities and forcefully expelling 8,000 people from their homes. The state even exhumed the remains of the deceased from their graves, thus complying with the sickening directive of slanderous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: "Go, and take your dead with you."
The rationale was to "disengage." To disengage from Gaza and leave behind the problems, terrorism and the Arabs who live there. The Left jovially promised that we would now have legitimacy from the world to strike back at terrorism, without the burden of responsibility over a civilian population under our rule, as if we were talking about a neighboring country.
The international community did clap its hands in applause for a whole five minutes, before reverting to its customary condemnations. The shelling of Israel from Gaza began immediately after the withdrawal, border communities came under threat of violence and kidnappings, and the terror machine previously kept in check by the Israeli presence turned into a monster. Several months later, IDF soldier Gilad Schalit was abducted from an area which before the withdrawal had been fortified by IDF forces and Israeli communities and had since become a black hole.
The withdrawal put most of the Negev and the center of the country, even as far north as Haifa, within rocket range. Gaza became a full-scale war zone. There have been five rounds of fighting, three of them large, which have claimed the lives of hundreds of soldiers and cost Israeli taxpayers over 20 billion shekels. In an ironic twist, we learned last week that the Left and the Civil Administration still count the Arabs of Gaza in their demographic prognostications. Disengagement, indeed.
These results have taught Israelis an ongoing lesson about the Arabs' true intentions toward us, and that retreating to the 1967 borders will not eradicate the threat of terrorism or ease international pressure. Despite Israel's relinquishing every last inch of Gaza, the shooting from there has not abated and the world has not given Israel the legitimacy to pummel the terrorist elements operating there. Following Operation Cast Lead in 2009, the Goldstone Commission essentially concluded that Israel did not have a right to self-defense. To be sure, throughout the majority of Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel simply had to try shooting incoming rockets out of the sky. Woe unto those who concede and retreat.
The "March of Return" sponsored by Hamas is a clever attempt to breach the border and send hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Gaza streaming into Israel. Where are they "returning" to exactly? All of Gaza has already been given to them. In 2005, Ariel Sharon provided the first phase of the Arabs' 10-point plan to "liberate every inch of Palestinian territory" for free. The Arabs then launched the second phase: voluntarily agreeing to the 1967 borders, to the sound of the Left's applause. Lines of snipers and live fire stopped the jihadist rabble from flooding tiny Israel and entering the kibbutzim and the towns, even the homes of the high and mighty bleeding hearts. Will we never learn?
