Anyone who still thinks more Israel territorial withdrawals are a good idea should carefully study Ehud Yaari’s chilling new report for The Washington Institute on “Sinai: A New Front.” To anyone who has been following the situation, Yaari’s bottom line – that Sinai-based terrorism “could break a fragile bilateral peace [with Egypt] that is already challenged by growing post-Mubarak demands to abrogate, review, or amend the treaty” – isn’t new; I’ve been warning of this for months. Where the veteran Israeli journalist and Arabist makes a real contribution is his analysis of how Israel’s 2005 pullout from Gaza contributed to Sinai’s radicalization. And while he doesn’t say so, the implication of his research is obvious: An Israeli pullout from the West Bank could similarly radicalize and destabilize Jordan.
Clearly, radicalization doesn’t happen overnight, and Yaari indeed describes a slow spread of radical Islam among the Sinai Bedouin since the 1980s, along with a consequent rise in arms trafficking and terror. But Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, “and subsequent removal of troops from the Sinai-Gaza border,” catalyzed the process:
As Bedouin political activist Ashraf al-Anani put it, “a fireball started rolling into the peninsula.” Illegal trade and arms smuggling volumes rose to new records, and ever-larger sectors of the northern Sinai population became linked to Gaza and fell under the political and ideological influence of Hamas and its ilk. Sympathy and support for the Palestinian battle against Israel grew; according to al-Anani, the closer one got to the Gaza border, “the more people are inclined toward Hamas.” In short, despite then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s quiet hope that Cairo would assume unofficial responsibility for Gaza affairs, the Israeli withdrawal instead allowed Hamas to export its influence into Egyptian territory.
Facilitated by the dramatic increase in the number of tunnels—which numbered no less than 1,200 at their peak—the expansion of Hamas and other Palestinian activities in the Sinai was unprecedented. In fact, the arms flow was often reversed, with weapons going from Gaza to the Sinai. During the revolution, for example, observers noted a huge demand for firearms in the peninsula. And even in late 2010, well before Mubarak’s ouster, Hamas was already in the process of transferring heavy long-range missiles to secret storage places in the Sinai, including Grad rockets and extended-range Qassams…
Today, a significant number of Hamas military operatives are permanently stationed in the Sinai, serving as recruiters, couriers, and propagators of the Hamas platform. A solid network of the group’s contact men, safe houses, and armories covers much of the peninsula … In addition, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other factions have been moving some of their explosives workshops—which produce homemade missiles, rockets, mortars, improvised explosive devices, and so forth—from Gaza to the Sinai in recent months. In many ways, the Sinai has already become a sort of hinterland for Hamas military forces in Gaza. Dual-purpose materials used for the production of explosives are regularly transferred to the peninsula, allowing the group to place a significant part of its military industry beyond Israel’s reach.
As in Gaza, an Israeli pullout from the West Bank could easily end in a Hamas takeover. True, the Palestinian Authority is protected by American-trained troops, but the same U.S. general, Keith Dayton, trained the PA forces in Gaza, and Hamas routed them in a week during its 2007 coup.
Moreover, like Sinai, Jordan already has both a homegrown Islamist movement and some serious stability issues. Additionally, Jordan is roughly two-thirds Palestinian, and its Palestinian citizens have close ties of kinship and friendship with West Bank Palestinians. Thus, radicalization on the West Bank would likely spread to Jordan quickly if Israeli troops were no longer serving as a buffer between the two.
So if Western leaders think a radicalized, destabilized Jordan is a good idea, they should by all means keep pushing an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. But if not, they should be praying that Israel stays put.
Well, if the Obama admin thinks a radicalized, destabilized Egypt and Iraq are good ideas, why not Jordan too? n nAs for Europe, they could care less. Keeping the oil flowing, and findings markets for their increasingly worthless bonds are their priorities. A destabilized Jordan and its effects on the Jews are the east of their worries. n nI think things will have to get worse, much worse, before they start to get better.
I like the "for anyone who still thinks more Israeli territorial withdrawals are a good idea…" n nI remember this debate well and only Mort Klein and the Zionist Organization of America pointed out the foreseeable consequences of Gaza withdrawal. Mort and the ZOA were almost alone and disdained and marginalized by Jewish conventional leadership. n nThe same had occurred over the euphoria when Mort Klein pointed out that Arabs would not keep their promises because they did not want peace but wanted Israel wiped off the map. n nThe Arab and Muslims are implacably and fanatically committed to eliminating the Jewish State and Jews. A hundred years of unremitting, continuous war, hot and cold, tactically fluid but strategically focused, tells a story: when Arabs and Muslims say they want to kill you and then starts shooting at you, one can reasonably conclude they mean what they say and say what they mean; and only an elite intelligentsia can think it means something else. n nThe fact that there are any who still think appeasement will work with a violent, expansionist, totalitarian enemy implacably committed to your destruction is testament to how dangerous our situation is, in the US and Israel, all of us.
Bob's right. I agree that Mort Klein deserves a lot of praise.
Permit a contrarian thought: Israel would not be facing the dangers it is now if it had not occupied Gaza in the first place. The same applies for potential problems if there is withdrawal from the settlements in the West Bank. By most standards, those settlements were illegal; in retrospect they were stupid to boot.
The danger Israel faces has been constant since well before they became a nation, not just since they began occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The war, started by the Arabs, resutling in the occupations, convinced those countries with standing armies including Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Egypt to stop attacking Israel. The Israelis have consistently been willing to accept a two-state solution. The Arabs have consistently turned it down. Those who expect everything of Israel before expecting anything of Arabs represent one of the greatest dangers to Israel today.