Reply to MacNeni

Submitted by sully (United States), Dec 30, 2005 at 18:09

You're assuming that a renewal of open hostilities in Gaza is necessarily a worse thing than an everlasting occupation during which the Israelis are constrained by world opinion to behave like a carefully restrained police force while the Palestinians are free to permit their radicals to behave like ravening beasts.

Perhaps Sharon recognized that hostilities had never in fact ceased, and that they would never cease. So he withdrew in order to enable the Palestinians to make a clear choice - behave like a peacable neighbor, or provoke an invasion done according to military rules rather than civilian police rules.

One hopes that the IDF has a plan which drives Palestinian civilians ahead of its attack and that it then openly walls off the cleared area as a no-man's land which will stay unpopulated and under Israeli control for the long run. In similar fashion I've never understood why the Israelis don't evict Palestinian civilians and move their border fence with the West Bank forward a mile or so in a clear demonstration that each and every attack costs land which is permanently denied to the Palestinians.

The Israelis have tried moderation for 50 years - perhaps tit for tat should have a try.

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