New York – A report from Geostrategy.com, an intelligence analysis website published by World Tribune.com, says that Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza last year has weakened Israel as a US ally by creating the image of a country that retreats in the face of terrorism and fails to take strong military action against it. The report states that the President Bush and some of his aides have been “quietly concerned over the image of Israel as a country ready to withdraw in the face of terrorism. Privately, leading aides and strategists believe that Israel’s hesitancy to fight Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups could encourage Al Qaeda and those sworn to defeat the United States. They also see Israel’s failure to defeat Palestinian insurgents as encouraging Iran’s belligerency.”
The report also quotes an unnamed senior Bush aide as having said that “Israel screwed us up with its unilateral withdrawal plan because this is what is expected of us in Iraq … But we can’t be seen as intervening.” As a result, the Bush Administration went along with the Gaza/northern Samaria withdrawal plan as a way to win some support in the Arab world. The report also quotes an analyst close to the Administration saying, “The feeling in both the administration and belatedly among many conservatives in Congress is that Israel has to accept the fate of a small nation reliant on a superpower patron.” (geostrategy-direct.com, April 5).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This report, if correct, bears out the long-standing concern of the ZOA that the Gaza/northern Samaria withdrawal would harm Israel strategically, politically and militarily. We have already seen that the withdrawal did not bring Israel increased security. On the contrary, there has been an incessant barrage of Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza, including recently with a long-range katyusha rocket, which Palestinians had never succeeded before in smuggling into Gaza when Israel controlled the area. There has also been an unprecedented flow of offensive weaponry to Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel fires artillery rounds into empty fields, not hitting real military targets. Withdrawal has not brought Palestinian moderation. On the contrary, Hamas received a huge boost and won January’s Palestinian elections. And now we have apparent confirmation that Israel, by unilaterally weakening itself and showing itself unwilling to destroy the terrorist infrastructure is looked upon with less respect in Washington than before.
“Israel’s failure to win the terrorist war is doing grave harm to Israel’s security, deterrent strength and even its relations with the US. It is even harming the United States, as this weakness encourages America’s enemies. We urge the Israeli government to heed the advice of Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, who said last year that, ‘The army can reduce terror to very close to zero … In contrast to the theory that the army cannot eliminate terrorism, I believe the army can reduce terrorism to the very lowest level’ (Jerusalem Post, October 7, 2005).”
“Israeli is now talking of making further unilateral withdrawals, which can only encourage more terrorism in order to increase the amount and swiftness of Israeli concessions. This not only endangers Israelis living there, but also harms the international war on Islamist terrorism by making it clear that terrorism pays. The Islamist terrorists must learn that their agenda must go backward not forward.”