Admitting Israel's Unilateral Withdrawals a Mistake

by Daniel Pipes
Tue, 9 Jan 2007
updated Fri, 14 Dec 2007

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In an interview with the Chinese news agency Xinhua, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has acknowledged that Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza did not work, and that the summer's violence out of these regions has convinced him not to repeat the policy. The prime minister confirmed his belief in a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which will require an Israeli retreat from many territories it now controls, something "we are ready to do. A year ago, I believed that we would be able to do this unilaterally," a reference to his plan to withdraw unilaterally from the West Bank.

However, it should be said that our experience in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip is not encouraging. We pulled out of Lebanon unilaterally, and see what happened. We pulled out of the Gaza Strip completely, to the international border, and every day they are firing Qassam rockets at Israelis.

Under existing circumstances, he concluded, "it would be more practical to achieve a two-state solution through negotiations rather than [through unilateral] withdrawal."

Comment: As someone who has been making this point since 2000 about Lebanon and 2003 about Gaza, I am gratified that Olmert has understood his mistake. But I mourn the price already paid and worry about the price yet to come; and I wonder why it took a two-front war to make this point obvious. (January 9, 2007)

Nov. 8, 2007 update: Israel's National Infrastructure minister, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, has also had a change of mind: "I admit and confess. I was with those who strongly supported Ariel Sharon, and today I say with my head held high: We erred, we made a very big mistake." A pullout such as the Gaza one can only succeed, he says, when the territory is "handed over to responsible hands and anchored in agreements and international guarantees. Here we have a precedent - a territory we left turns into a base for terror - period."

Related Topics: Arab-Israel conflict & diplomacy

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Reader comments on this weblog entry

Title	By	Date
Just another short sighted Israeli political hack/crook [666 words]	Ken Besig	May 28, 2008 14:16
↔ Reading your comments twice. [218 words]	Lynn	May 29, 2008 09:47
Give them an inch. [28 words]	Lynn	May 28, 2008 14:08
learning a lesson [71 words]	Rebecca Moulds	May 27, 2008 23:04
Failure is "we" [379 words]	Lame Cherry	May 27, 2008 19:10
Unilateral withdrawals. [31 words]	M.D'Souza	May 29, 2007 20:08
Coming around - albeit at a turtle's pace [29 words]	David W. Lincoln	May 28, 2007 16:14

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