Israel's days of infamy

“Today Gaza and tomorrow the West Bank and later every inch of the land,” Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled Mashaal told the al-Hayat newspaper last week, calling the Gaza withdrawal the “beginning of the end for the Zionist project in the region”.

“Does anyone really believe that, having rewarded the terrorists, Israel will see less terror against Israel in the future?” Center for Security Policy head Frank J.Gaffney wrote this week.

“Common sense tells us that, as the Palestinians obtain billions in financing from the West, arms (at US insistence) from Israel, unimpeded and unmonitored use of a seaport, airport and land border with Egypt, the ability of Israel’s enemies to increase the number and lethality of attacks on the Jewish state from behind internationally recognized boundaries will only grow.”

Less than a month ago, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a joint press conference with Prime Minister John Howard said trying to make a deal with terrorists was “a little like feeding an alligator hoping it eats you last”.

Speaking on the same day, Rumsfeld’s British counterpart, John Reid, had another metaphor in mind. “Every kid in the playground” knew the idea that the school bully would not come after you if you ran away was completely untrue, he declared.

Although both were responding to claims the Iraq war made Western nations more vulnerable to terrorism, they could just as well have been referring to Israel’s intended retreat from Gaza.

More recently, President Bush gave an impassioned defence of the US staying the course in Iraq, arguing in an August 13 radio address that withdrawing American forces prematurely “would cause others to question America’s commitment to spreading freedom and winning the war on terror”.

”We’re staying on the offensive in Iraq, Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror, fighting terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home,” he said.

Alas, Israel does not have that luxury.