by Haggai Huberman, journalist and author, translated by Hillel Fendel.
Ariel Sharon announced his intention to "disengage" from Gush Katif and all of Gaza 20 years before the Simchat Torah massacre. The commission of inquiry must investigate how this led to the current war.
Most
of the citizenry of Israel, it appears from a cursory glance at the daily headlines,
favor a public commission of inquiry to determine what led up to the horrific
massacre of Simchat Torah `23. The Israeli public does not like the clumsy
attempts of the government and the Prime Minister, via various tricks and
excuses, to avoid having to answer to such a commission.
However,
it is not clear from what date this commission should start its research.
I
would recommend that the government agree to a public commission of inquiry.
After all, the government will be the body that sets the subjects of inquiry
and their limits. Netanyahu's government therefore has the opportunity and the
right to tell the commission to focus on government policy not only of the few
years, but of the last two decades. Why that long?
It
will be recalled that almost exactly 20 years before the massacre, in Dec.
2023, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his intention – contrary to
everything he had promised in the election campaign less than a year earlier –
to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza. That is, all of our armed forces, and the
22 Jewish communities in Gaza (mostly in Gush Katif, were to be physically
removed. This was known as the Disengagement Plan.
What
is the connection between this Disengagement and the horrors of Oct. 7th?
Finding the answer to that question is exactly what I am proposing as a central
topic for the inquiry. To pinpoint the connection, the following questions may
not be avoided, and they must be directly answered:
·
To what extent did Israel's
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip enable Hamas to build up its humongous military
force, in terms of both personnel (the Nukhba units) and its rocket arsenals?
·
How is that Hamas succeeded [in
2007] in defeating Fatah and taking over Gaza militarily from the PA, but did
not succeed in doing so in Judea and Samaria?
·
How is it that the Arabs of Judea
and Samaria did not perpetrate an invasion and massacre similar to the what the
Arabs of Gaza executed?
·
To what extent did the withdrawal
detract from the intelligence capabilities of the IDF and the Shabak? No one
disputes that critical information regarding Hamas intentions that morning of
Oct. 7th did not reach Israeli intelligence bodies in time.
Regarding that last point, we know that the Shabak conducted an
internal inquiry, of which only small portions have been publicized. The report
states that "there was relatively little intelligence, as a result (inter
alia) of restrictions on our freedom of action [in Gaza] and increasing
difficulties in the Shabak's independent ability to complete
intelligence/operational processes there."
These words are precisely what the commission must investigate:
Why were there such "restrictions" that led to "relatively
little intelligence" specifically in Gaza, and not in Judea and Samaria? [It
is axiomatic that intelligence is very hard to obtain without physical presence
in the area being scouted. - HF]
Without detracting from the responsibility of the current political
and military leaderships for the events of Oct. 7th, the very demand
to investigate also the government of 20 years ago can serve as a litmus test
for the commission of inquiry that is to arise:
If it is willing to begin its investigation 20 years back,
regarding events that (many feel) marked the beginning of the process that
ended with the Hamas invasion/slaughter of nearly 18 months ago, then it can be
said to be objective and public-minded. But if it seeks all sorts of tricks to
avoid having to investigate the Sharon era and place some of the responsibility
on him, this automatically places a large question mark on the reliability and
trustworthiness of the commission and its conclusions.
In addition, if a measure of blame is accorded to Sharon and the
Disengagement, it will have ramifications for any future consideration of
similar unilateral or other withdrawals.
Netanyahu's
Share of Responsibility
A
public commission of inquiry must also investigate the failure of the Netanyahu
governments' policies over the years that led to this war. However, while the
left-wing seeks to indicate that Netanyahu's failure lies in his "managing
the conflict" instead of trying to reach a diplomatic solution, I believe
the opposite: "Managing the conflict" was a correct approach, but it
was applied only in Judea and Samaria – from where no Oct. 7th
emanated!
Let's
assume for a moment that there had been a "diplomatic process" with
the PA which had actually led to some sort of a peace agreement; highly
improbable, I know. The only result would have been terrorists roaring through
Jewish towns along the Green Line such as Modiin, Kfar Saba and Raanana on
motorcycles and Toyotas, as happened in Jewish towns near Gaza on Oct. 7th.
Other
say that we shouldn't have separated between Yesha and Gaza. But again, I
believe that that actually worked in our favor, serving as an additional factor
why the Arabs in Judea and Samaria did not follow their cousins in Gaza and
attempt their own slaughter of Israelis.
For
example, consider that in 1987, when Yesha and Gaza were not officially
separate, the first intifada broke out in northern Gaza and then quickly spread
to Judea and Samaria. The second intifada started simultaneously in Gaza and
Yesha (and even among Arab-Israelis), in September 2000. But in clear contrast,
the Simchat Torah war never expanded to Yesha, despite the hopes of then-Hamas
leader Yihye Sinwar for a "joining of the fronts."
Where,
then, is the real failure of Netanyahu? It lies in his formulation and
implementation of the motto, "Quiet will be met with quiet." That is,
if Hamas remains quiet, Israel will view this as if Hamas is
"deterred" – even if, as it turned out, it was simply biding its time
while preparing for war – and we won't initiate an offensive.
How
could the Likud have forgotten the famous line of its ideological founder, Zev
Jabotinsky, who wrote in one of his poems, "Quiet is filth." He meant
of course that to remain passive in the face of major challenges can lead to tragedy.
The suitcases of dollars that our government transferred to Hamas was not meant
to strengthen Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority, as opponents
of the government claim. It rather stemmed from a fear of war, and from the
foolish belief that an improvement in Gaza's economic situation will weaken Sinwar's
passion to murder Jews.
It
wasn't only Netanyahu, of course, who believed this. This belief started back
in the days of Shimon Peres, and encompassed also Galant, Gantz, outgoing
Shabak head Ronen Bar, former IDF Chief of Staff Hertzy HaLevy, Yair Lapid,
Naftali Bennett, and others whom I have forgotten; my apologies to them and to
the readers. Each of them is equally responsible, but the Prime Minister – who
has been in office for many years – has a bit more responsibility than all the
rest. The sad result was that Hamas was permitted to build its monstrous
strength over the course of years.
Our
conclusions concern not only whom to blame in the past, but mainly how we are
to act in the future. The State of Israel must achieve the release of all the
living hostages (yes, living; contrary to popular opinion, it's OK if we wait
until the next war to receive the corpses), and this is possible only if we
negotiate and pay heavy prices. After they have all been released, then we can
go on to implement another line in Jabotinsky's poem: "Carry the fire to
ignite."
Note: This was written just before the IDF resumed the war in Gaza this week.