The Gaza disengagement in hindsight

Bret Stephens, one of my favorite commentators, acknowledges that he was wrong to support Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Max Boot stops just short of such an admission.

Thus prompted, I decided to check out what I wrote about disengagement from Gaza at the time. Here is what I said:

Natanyahu [who had just resigned from the government in protest of leaving Gaza] is correct on the merits of the pull-out. The notion that Israel somehow is better off with Hamas in charge of Gaza is odd enough that the pull-out would make little sense even if Israel had received something in return, which it did not. Cal Thomas may be over-dramatic is seeing the pull-out as the beginning of the end for Israel, but it could well be the beginning of a new round of big trouble.

Actually, it turned out to be the beginning of several rounds of big trouble, with more, probably, to come.

I hadn’t remembered that Netanyahu left the government in protest of the pull-out. In explaining his opposition to exiting Gaza, Netanyahu said he fears the pullout will turn Gaza into a “base of Islamic terror” and endanger Israel.

Ironically, but not altogether surprisingly, he is now left to deal with the consequences of the ill-advised, fuzzy-headed decision he opposed (albeit not entirely consistently).

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