Israel Matzav

Livni wants to walk away from Gaza shaking a finger

Israel Radio reported yesterday - and Herb Keinon reports at length in today's JPost - that the woman who would be Prime Minister wants to walk away from Gaza once Israel's goals are accomplished without an agreement with Hamas, Egypt or anyone else, warning that if any more rockets are fired on Israel, the response will be furious. The rationale is that foreign minister Livni doesn't believe Hamas will keep any agreements anyway.

If the approach sounds familiar, it should: It was the same unilateralist approach that Ariel Sharon took when he expelled all the Jews from Gaza in 2005. Sharon expelled the Jews but the furious response to the rockets never came and the number of rockets increased. I hope someone at the Likud got Livni's remarks on tape. That will make a heck of an election campaig ad.

Keinon points out that it makes sense that Livni wants to use Sharon's approach to Gaza: Livni is a Sharon protege and is using many of Sharon's advisers in her election campaign.

According to Keinon, Ehud Barak wants to keep going in Gaza until an agreement is reached with Egypt that will require Egypt to ensure that the smuggling tunnels don't reopen. Do we really trust the Egyptians to do that?

Eventually resigning Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert wants to keep going in Gaza long enough to make the country forget his failure in Lebanon in 2006. That would at least require bombing Gaza back to the Stone Age.

Keinon doesn't mention Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was last seen outside his office holding up a wet finger, trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing. But his Likud party announced yesterday that it would not be using television clips of Netanyahu predicting a disaster as a result of the expulsion of Gaza's Jewish population. Perhaps that's because they're afraid that if they do use those clips, one of his rivals will pull out the clip of Netanyahu voting in favor of the expulsion.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:04 AM