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

Reader comment on item: Yossi Klein Halevi: Israel's Withdrawal from Gaza a "Disaster"

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.

Submitting....

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Reader comments (11) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
one more step [122 words]yuval brandstetter MDMar 14, 2008 05:56122631
Klein-Halevi overly optimistic about the lessons learned from Gaza [114 words]MHLMar 10, 2008 23:22122332
The "guilty Israeli" may be extinct, but still walks and talks, still filled with hate [124 words]Carl SesarMar 10, 2008 00:48122230
Israel's withdrawal fro Gaza a disaster? [279 words]M.D. AnthonyMar 10, 2008 00:24122226
There is hope [23 words]Yuval Brandstetter MDMar 15, 2008 13:12122226
Why did Sharon, of all people, want to do this? [153 words]Wayne WagnerMar 9, 2008 15:41122182
The Patton Solution [173 words]Don LeeMar 9, 2008 14:18122180
Palestinian terrorism- when will the world wake up? [932 words]gary fouseMar 7, 2008 00:35121955
Palestine Should Be Seen As A Failed Effort [63 words]AnneMMar 9, 2008 16:50121955
I don't think it was a mistake [315 words]Boris FrenkelMar 6, 2008 18:17121927
Israeli post modernism, left wing, liberal, soft heartedness is killing the country [161 words]James BurkeMar 5, 2008 07:17121795

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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".

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