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Another Round in the War

(Daily Star-Lebanon/Bitterlemons.org) Yehoshua Porath - * The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza cannot, even by the most fertile imagination, be perceived as an end to the protracted war between Israelis and the Arabs. * Even if we erroneously assume that Egypt will make a bigger effort than in the recent past, the smuggling of rocket-launchers, heavy mortars, and artillery from Sinai into Gaza will continue. Once the Gaza sea and airports are functional, a steady flow of these arms will enter the strip. To date, Israel has only consented to the establishment of these ports, not to their actual functioning. But I doubt it will be in a position to resist international (mainly European) pressure to let the ports open, once so much foreign money has been invested in their construction and the economic needs are seen as paramount. * Let us speak frankly: no power, human or divine, will be in a position to prevent a huge stockpiling of arms in Gaza within a few years. The Israeli government understands this; hence it has until now rejected any demand for safe passage between the strip and the West Bank. The possibility that these arms will flow to Abu Dis, Tulkarm, or Kalkilya, which would place a majority of the Israeli population between Haifa and Jerusalem under daily threat of bombardment and the Israeli economy under threat of near total standstill, is real enough to create very strong Israeli resistance. * The arms stockpiled in Gaza will not be used for display only, but rather to bring Israel to concede the most central Palestinian-Arab demand: the right of the 1948 refugees "to return to their homes and lands." Consequently, within a few months or years after completion of the ports (if not earlier), the Palestinians will launch a static war of bombardment from Gaza against southwest Israel (Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon). No Palestinian leadership will have the authority or even the will to prevent these attacks as long as the Palestinian population of Gaza continues to nourish the vision of turning back the clock to the pre-1948 situation. * No Israeli government would let such a situation continue. I assume that, following a period of devastating blows, and despite international pressure to concede more and more to the Palestinians and absorb the blows, Israel would reconquer Gaza. Simply put, what we will see is yet another round in the generations-long war between Israel and its neighboring enemies. The writer is emeritus professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
2005-09-02 00:00:00
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