PrintJune 18, 2008
The Mistakes That Launched 3,000 Rockets
When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew 8,000 residents and all of its defense forces from the Gaza Strip in the late summer of 2005, he offered several rationales to support what he called "disengagement." Regrettably, all but one have proven to be illusory. The result has been disastrous -- leading to the creation of a lawless terrorist haven in the Gaza Strip from which the controlling Hamas faction has lobbed thousands of crude rockets indiscriminately into southern Israel, precipitating a new generation of terror attacks against the Jewish state.DemographicsOne argument cited was the need to take the teeming Gaza Strip out of the Israeli-Palestinian demographic equation. It was estimated that some 1.5 million Palestinians live in Gaza, 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, and one million Arabs lives inside Israel's green line. This population of 5 million Arabs roughly matched Israel's Jewish population of 5...(Read Full Article)
