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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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