Former Israeli Chief of Staff Ya'alon: Sharon's Disengagement a Disaster; Will Only Lead to More War

GAMLA: News and views from Israel ^ | July 6, 2006 | Z Lando

[Challenge]

Former Israeli Chief of Staff Ya'alon: Sharon's Disengagement a Disaster; Will Only Lead to More War

GAMLA: News and Views from Israel

Date Posted: July 6, 2006

GAMLA NOTE:

This article was published "a long" time ago... July 6. It was received by the Israeli media and general public with not a little scorn. "Boogie" Ya'alon, the IDF Chief of Staff that quit the army instead of becoming "cozy" with the inner cirlce of lawyers and spinmasters that rule Israel (if you do not get the hint, GOOGLE "Dubi Weinglass", or better yet, ask Condi....)

Since then, those same people who laughed at Ya'alon are eating their hats... of course, they are used to eating their hats, and in our modern world, the hat eaters keep on "analysing" the situation for us, hat after hat....

In any case, for histories sake, it is our duty to at least give our vision, and hope that our voice will be heard...

...begiining of article:

Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, IDF Chief of Staff until the implementation of the Gaza withdrawal, says that the entire Disengagement was conceived to save PM Sharon from legal troubles.

“The Disengagement was not the result of thorough strategic analysis, but the result of [then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s] political distress," Yaalon said in an interview to be published in full in Haaretz this weekend. “It was a disengagement from reality and a disengagement from the truth."

Though such a claim has been made in the past, including by two prominent journalists Ofer Shelah and Raviv Drucker in their book Boomerang, this is the first time an official who was privy to the Sharon regime from the inside has cited such motives.

"The process created an illusionary hope," Yaalon said, "which was not planned strategically and practically. The Disengagement was mainly a media spin. Those who initiated it and lead it lacked the strategic, security, political and historical background. They were image counselors and spin doctors. These people put Israel into a virtual spin, disconnected from reality, using a media spin campaign which is imploding before our eyes."

"There is no doubt that the Disengagement failed,” Yaalon said. The entire withdrawal and expulsion of 10,000 Jewish residents from Gaza and northern Samaria “was an internal Israeli game that ignored what's going on outside Israel.”

Click here for the full article!

Click here to sign up for the FREE GAMLA Intelligence Newsletter!

[contemplator]

Not having a personal stake in the game, whatever I say is pretty much meaningless. With that said up front, I think the pullout from Gaza was a brilliant maneuver.

It allowed Israel to disengage from territory which would have been extremely costly and almost impossible to defend. At the same time they were able to send an unmistakable message to the world that Israel had once again offered a true olive branch which was then resoundingly rejected.

After the Gaza pullout it was blatantly apparent to even the most dense of observers (the left, Europe, Russia and China) that Israel was facing an enemy which would never be satisfied with anything short of Israel being wiped off the map.

While the left is commited to giving the Arabs every possible dispensation in a sort of 'rooting for the underdog' mentality, the one thing that splits them and the rest of the world is the idea that Jews must lose their homeland once again before there can be peace again. This is the line which only the most extreme leftists are willing to cross.

As the Israel-Hizbollah war has played out, the one common theme that has been echoed by the entire world has been that Israel does in fact have a right to defend herself. This concession, and make no mistake, it is a huge concesion, was brought about by Israel having made that step of showing the world it was willing to make a show of good faith to appease the Arabs. That the Arabs did not grab this chance for peace was not missed and has bought Israel much of the support in flexing her right to defend herself that it enjoys today. The fact that the only criticism Israel is getting is in the amount of force they are using rather than the fact that they are using it is the first place cannot be overestimated.