Getting It Wrong Again on Gaza

The Israeli novelist and commentator A.B. Yehoshua has a soft spot for capitulation. Last week he stunned Israelis by calling on the United States to pull its ambassador in protest over Israeli failure to dismantle West Bank outposts, as the government has committed to do: 

 If the US is a true friend of Israel, it must help her through a symbolic act of protest that would express its dissatisfaction. By doing so, it would boost and stimulate it, like a loving yet strong father, to start overcoming its addiction to this destructive drug.

Leave aside for the moment the question of whether the very idea of relating to the United States as a “loving yet strong father” is a flat-out repudiation of the central Zionist principle of Jewish sovereignty. Even leave aside the question of what to do about the outposts. More interesting here is how Yehoshua echoes past statements he has made about  the consequences of unilateral withdrawal – statements now tested by time. Consider what he said in an interview with Ha'aretz in 2004, when Ariel Sharon was advocating Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza strip. When asked whether the Palestinians would then launch a terror war from liberated Gaza, he said:

I don't think so. They tried to scare us before the withdrawal from Lebanon, too. It's possible that there will be a war with the Palestinians. It's not necessary, it's not impossible. But if there is a war, it will be a very short one. Maybe a war of six days. Because after we remove the settlements and after we stop being an occupation army, all the rules of war will be different. We will exercise our full force. We will not have to run around looking for this terrorist or that instigator - we will make use of force against an entire population. We will use total force. 

Because from the minute we withdraw I don't want to know their names. I don't want any personal relations with them. I am no longer in a situation of occupation and policing and B'Tselem [the human rights organization]. Instead, I will be standing opposite them in a position of nation versus nation. State versus state. I am not going to perpetrate war crimes for their own sake, but I will use all my force against them. If there is shooting at Ashkelon, there is no electricity in Gaza.

Prescient, that bit about electricity. Yet in suggesting the possibility that there could be a blockade of Gaza similar to the one now in place, Yehoshua was effectively predicting that such a prospect would keep the Palestinians from misbehaving. Perhaps even more notably, he suggested that a pullout from Gaza would leave Israel free to use “total force.” But in fact, the cut-off of electricity has become an international cause célèbre that threatens to limit Israel’s willingness to act decisively against the Gaza missiles aimed at Sderot and other towns. On Thursday, according to Reuters,

the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday demanded Israel lift its week-long blockade of Gaza, rebuking the Jewish state for violations in the Palestinian territories for the third time since it was set up in 2006. The 47-member council adopted a resolution presented by Arab and Muslim states by a vote of 30 states in favour and one against with 15 abstentions, and one delegation absent.

Israeli military attacks on Gaza and the West Bank city of Nablus constituted "grave violations of the human and humanitarian rights" of Palestinian civilians, it said. But Western countries abstained in bloc after criticising the text as unbalanced for failing to even mention the rockets launched into Israel from Gaza by Palestinian militants.

And here in Israel? It was only a matter of days before a coalition of human-rights groups took the blockade to the Supreme Court. The court rejected the demand that it intervene in the matter, but not before the government announced it would loosen its hold.

Yehoshua got it wrong then, and he's getting it wrong now.

The logic of unilateral withdrawal, accepted by many Israelis, goes something like this. We tried occupying the land; that didn't work. Then we tried giving it away in a negotiated settlement, and we got a terror war. Anyway, we really don't like the Palestinians all that much, so why don't we just pull out unilaterally? That will really freak them out. Worst-case scenario, they attack us anyway, but at least then it won't be our fault, and we can slam them militarily in good conscience. 

The problem is that the worst-case scenario was always likely -- since any withdrawal, unilateral or otherwise, in the thick of violent conflict pours gas on the pyre of war, as it sends a signal of retreat. From the enemy's perspective, the threat of a harsh response to additional violence seems small compared to the promise of further withdrawals that may result from it. The logic of the terrorist tells him: We attacked them, they got sick of us, and, just like the British in 1948, they pulled out. So let's keep attacking them, and they'll pull out further. 

Unlike Britain, Israel is not actually a colonial power; after a certain point, it has nowhere to withdraw to. This is the great fallacy of the Palestinian cause -- the hope that, given enough violence, the Jews will just go back to wherever it was they came from. It's a shame that eminent Israelis like Yehoshua continue to give them reason to believe they are right.

About the Author

David Hazony is a writer living in Jerusalem.

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