No one would have supported Oslo and the Disengagement if he knew that in 2019 alarms would sound in Tel Aviv and there would be an emergency situation in Jerusalem. Read the important post published by journalist Amit Segal in light of the escalation in the South:
After all of the compliments on the IDF’s precise execution, it is worthwhile, in the end of this conflict to take an honest look at the situation, not through the IDF spokesman’s celebratory briefs or the brisk interviews with cabinet ministers. And if we look at it honestly, we will see a shocking picture.
One morning in 2004, Israel eliminated master murderer Ahmed Yasin, the founder of Hamas on his way to the mosque. Five other uninvolved people were killed along with him. This had been the most dramatic assassination in the history of Gaza. The organization’s response: Three Qassam rockets were shot at Sha’ar Hanegev. Hamas wanted to do more, but that was all it managed to do. This morning, after the assassination of a mid-level commander in a small organization, two hundred rockets were fired and they had still more. The State of Israel is in chaos: school for half of the students in Israel were cancelled, the economy was paralyzed, an emergency situation was declared from Beer Sheva to Ra’anana, and every place within range.
How did we get from the situation where in 1992 the country was shocked by a knife attack from Gaza to the complacency with which this day of battle is received? How can we accept the situation where the IDF sends seemingly “reassuring” messages which are actually shocking, that according to them, Israel is not returning to the policy of targeted assassinations? And why does the Prime Minister need to justify himself by saying that the deceased was a ticking time bomb; would they answer that if he was not in the process of preparing terror attacks, wouldn’t it also be appropriate to eliminate him because of the destruction that he had sowed in Israel for years?
This is the main question, and the answer is, in two words, Oslo and the Disengagement.
These two disastrous steps were taken as an experiment to cure the chronic illness called the Gaza Strip. They were two miserable experiments to put out a bonfire with jet fuel: once the thought was that a group of experienced murderers from Tunis would be better at maintaining our security than an IDF battalion, and the other time – that uprooting the Jews would calm down the terror organizations. Without permanent military presence the Strip became an exporter of terror and we became its permanent, captive customer.
It was a terrible failure. Anyone who now claims that the terror organizations would have equipped themselves anyway with the arsenal they currently possess, is ignoring the fact that the withdrawals in 1993 and 2005 were intended to improve the situation, not to have it remain as it was. Billions of shekels and the terrible rift in the People were the price we paid that was supposed to bring about peace, but the goods were never delivered. On the contrary. Let’s face it honestly: Would any reasonable person have supported Oslo or the Disengagement had he known that in 2019 the caption on the television screen would tell of alarms in Tel Aviv and an emergency situation in Jerusalem?
Yes, the responsibility for continuing the problem rests on the six prime ministers and especially on the present one, Benjamin Netanyahu, 13 years in office; on the eight chiefs of staff; and on an endless number of Defense Ministers and cabinet members who buried their heads in the tactical sand of Gaza instead of discussing the strategic problem. They are responsible for not having rectified the situation. But it was these miserable decisions that created the bad situation that a million students and a half million workers paid for just this morning. And we will continue to pay, until we acknowledge the problem.