By Dr. Aaron Lerner
April 21, 2006
"In light of the fact that the evacuation of Gush Katif put Hamas in office, increased the Qassams, and Israel is still in Gaza via cannons, and maybe soon with tanks, I suddenly doubt if the Ehud Olmert government will be able to evacuate 60 thousand settlers."
Leading retreat advocate Yoel Marcus - Haaretz 18 April 2006
It may very well turn out that the Palestinians will unwittingly succeed in undermining the powerful media-political retreat alliance. But it would be a terrible mistake for retreat opponents to rely on Palestinian stupidity.
By the same token, it would be a terrible mistake for retreat opponents to focus efforts exclusively on improving attitudes towards settlers. That's just not the determining issue.
Consider the attitude of the Israeli public towards withdrawing from the Golan Heights.
The Golan residents are seen as hardworking secular Israelis, identified with mainstream political parties. The Golan itself is one of Israel's most popular recreation areas.
Yet looking back at December 1999 through Mid January 2000, the period of abortive efforts to cut a deal between then PM Ehud Barak and Syrian President Assad, one finds that the plight of the Israeli residents of the Golan wasn't even a factor considered worthy of accounting for in most of the polls studying attitudes towards a deal that would have ostensibly traded the Golan for a peace treaty with Syria.
And while the potential loss of the water from the Golan served as a secondary consideration, the loss of the beautiful parks and Israel's only ski slope was also not seen as an important consideration.
The position of the Israeli public on the Golan was not driven by either love for the Golan or the Golan residents but instead the belief that withdrawal from the Golan in return for a piece of paper signed by President Assad simply did not serve Israel's security interests.
And they took this position despite the efforts of such groups as the Council for Peace and Security (ex-brass that essentially support any withdrawal anywhere) to convince the Israeli public that the Golan either wasn't important or could be readily replaced with gizmos.
The West Bank, of course, is considerably more complicated than the Golan, what with a significantly sized Arab population that is anything but complacent about the situation.
Nonetheless, the lesson of the Golan rings true: like it or not, for the average Israeli the key consideration is the perceived security ramifications of withdrawal. (While some members of Acting PM Olmert's Kadima Party claim that the IDF would remain in place after the evacuation of Jewish communities, it can be readily argued that, historically, the permanent deployment of the army in a given area is predicated on its being justified by a civilian presence.)
Convince the public that retreat is simply too dangerous and the poll-driven politicians in the ruling coalition will prove Marcus' prediction was right on the money.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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