The end of mythology

Caroline B. Glick wrote in Townhall The deportation of the Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria over the past week and a half and surrounding events have put paid to two of the foundational myths of the narrative that has been propounded for the past 30 years by the Israeli and international Left.... The foundational myth of the Left is that Jewish extremism, not Palestinian terrorism, is the cause of Israel's present security woes and the source of the constant wars that have plagued us since the dawn of modern Zionism. What we saw this week was that these people – whom one British reporter standing outside the synagogue in the now-ruined city of Neveh Dekalim ever so eloquently referred to last Thursday as "the hardest of the hard-line settlers" – are anything but extreme. The expelled residents of Gush Katif – from the farmers of Atzmona, Katif, Netzarim, Netzer Hazani and Kfar Darom, the surfers and fishermen of Shirat Hayam, the Torah scholars of Neveh Dekalim and the mothers of Gadid – are not "hard-line" or "extremists." They are the finest sons and daughters of Israel. They are the bravest soldiers in the Israeli military and the most patriotic citizens that Israel has produced. This truth was exposed to all in their darkest hour. As they were physically ejected from their homes and synagogues, they behaved with the most exquisite patriotism, heroism and humility.

And the settlers forced to leave Gaza were actually contributing to the Palestinian economy, because they provided jobs in agriculture and small-industry, but the terrorists among the Palestinians did not care for the Palestinians that wanted jobs, they just wanted to kill Jews, and it was not feasible to include the Gaza settlements inside Israel's wall.

When we contrast the behavior of the expelled Jews to that of the Palestinians over the same period, we see, too, that for the Palestinians, terrorism is not a weapon of weakness or evidence of desperation, but rather a strategic choice. It is a weapon that defines them as a society as much as moderation and humility characterize the now homeless Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria.... PA chieftain Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly dismissed the Gaza pullout, scoffing that the area comprises "only five percent of Palestine."

If he does not want the land, he does not have to take it. And it will be interesting to see how he can replace the jobs that the Israelis provided when they were in the settlements.

Like his lieutenants Muhammad Dahlan and Qurei, Abbas has repeatedly threatened that unless Israel immediately follows the withdrawal from Gaza with further withdrawals in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the terror will continue.

But once Israel completes its wall it will have much more defensible borders, and will be able to concentrate on responding to terrorists rocket attacks with devistating reprisals

And it already has. On Thursday rockets again rained down on Sderot and Wednesday night 21 year old Shmuel Mett was stabbed to death in Jerusalem....Were Katyusha rockets to start falling on runways at Ben-Gurion Airport or on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, Israel's economy would simply cease to function. Given the state of Palestinian society, and simple geography, it is both logically incoherent and strategically ridiculous to think that any withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would do anything other than enable and encourage such attacks.