Israel Matzav

Israel's former head of Military Intelligence... insane?

Insanity, as I'm sure you all know, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Israel withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon in 2000, and now we have 60,000 or more rockets pointing at us courtesy of Hezbullah. Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005 (and expelled the Jewish population), and the strip was taken over by Hamas and is now a base for shooting rockets at Israel. Now, former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin is advocating doing the same thing again in Judea and Samaria. Insane? You bet 'ya.

With the chances of success in the Israeli-Palestinian talks "very small," and as the Palestinians have a detailed Plan B for when the talks fail, Israel needs to be proactive and consider a "coordinated unilateral" withdrawal to lines it deems suitable, Amos Yadlin said Monday.

Yadlin, a former chief of Military Intelligence who today heads the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that although unilateralism got a "bad name" in Israel because of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon, "it is not necessarily a bad strategy" if done right.

Yadlin, speaking at a briefing marking his think tank's publication of its 2013-2014 Strategic Survey for Israel, and a day prior to the organization's annual two-day international conference, said that a unilateral step in the West Bank would not be Israel's first option, and that it would prefer an agreement. But if that is not possible, Israel should consider withdrawing to the security barrier, leaving some 15 percent of the West Bank – including the Jordan Valley – in its hands.

He said that one of the lessons learned from the Gaza withdrawal was that it was a mistake to withdraw from 100 percent of the territory, because then there is no incentive for the other side to continue to negotiate.

Why would we unilaterally give up territory that everyone agrees has strategic value? What would we accomplish by doing this aside from worsening our position and endangering our lives? How would people in the Jordan Valley get back and forth to any other part of the country if the IDF is not there to protect them? And if we give the 'Palestinians' 85% of the territory for free, why wouldn't they just wait for the rest?

Insane. Simply insane.

Labels: Amos Yadlin, Judea and Samaria, unilateral withdrawal

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:31 PM