Why did Sharon, of all people, want to do this?

Submitted by Wayne Wagner (United States), Mar 9, 2008 at 15:41

After all, he was the one most intimately familiar with Arab violence, having got his start in reprisal raids himself. Perhaps he thought withdrawing from Gaza would give Israelis a needed lesson on the dangers of wishful thinking.

It is too much to hope that the world beyond Israel will learn. Gaza is a rent-seeking welfare nest where the greater the violence is, the greater the foreign aid is channelled through those responsible for the violence. A formal siege might work, if Israelis have the stomach for letting the world see weeks and weeks of television of starving and diseased women and children.

The rabbis have a saying: "He who starts being kind to the cruel, ends up being cruel to the kind." This is the pattern we have seen in dealing with Arabs who commit or tolerate terrorism - the more aid they get, the more incentives they have for greater violence.

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