Sharon's Decision to Evacuate from Gaza

Submitted by Jerrold Katz (United States), Apr 5, 2005 at 17:55

I agree with Daniel Pipes that the withdrawal from Gaza and southern Lebanon will be seen by the Palestinians as a victory for the terror groups. In fact Hezbullah has already claimed a victory ofver Israel in southern Lebanon. However, Mr. Sharon has little choice because of the geographic and demographic factors around the Gaza settlements. These are small areas of land that are totally surrounded by large Palestinian populations. They will always be under attack and will be difficult to defend. Similarly southern Lebanon was not an easy place to defend because of the local demographics.

The ideal solution would have been for Israel to expel the entire Palestinian population from Gaza and set up colonies through the area. As we both know, this is not an acceptable solution and will bring international opprobrium onto Israel.

A more feasible solution would have been to populate the land near Israel on the West bank so as to kjeep part of the West Bank and then to move the people from Gaza to this new area.

Under the current circumstances Sharon has little choice. Moving the people out of Gaza is the best decision

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".