Former Commander of the Samaria Brigade: In Gaza we don’t have a millionth of the capability that we have in Judea and Samaria. Withdrawing from Judea and Samaria would bring us Gaza in the heart of the Land of Israel. They would shoot down jets at Ben Gurion Airport using simple machine guns.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Harel Knafo, former Samaria Brigade commander and presently a member of the Bitahonistim (The Security Experts), stated in an interview with Arutz 7 that abandoning Judea and Samaria would be a disaster for the State of Israel. According to him, the Israeli leadership must internalize the fact that there is no difference between Fatah and Hamas and that they both aspire to the destruction of Israel, each organization in its own way.
Knafo states that if Israel leaves Judea and Samaria we would get “Gaza on Steroids in the heart of the Land of Israel”, in his words. In his opinion, today, we don’t have even a millionth of the capability in Gaza that we have in Judea and Samaria and the moment we leave, the area of Judea and Samaria would become another Gaza, and the attacks initiating from there would succeed”.
Knafo warns that the terror attacks and terror activities would be much more significant and destructive than they are presently from the Gaza Strip. “They would not need to deal with weapons and vehicles because they would have much easier means and it would be much harder to stop them”.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Knafo states emphatically that “There is not and will not be any difference between Fatah and Hamas. There is no difference. The Palestinians want to bring about the destruction of the State of Israel. Some think that it should be done by means of a popular struggle, some by weapons and some by suicide attacks, but they all want one thing – that we will not be here. When the People of Israel understands this, it will be easier to find solutions”.
“We must understand that the Palestinian people is the Jewish People’s enemy, and then decide what to do with the enemy. The enemy is not a partner for discourse, who wants to live in peace with us, they are the enemy, who views us as an enemy. They do not recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish People and they do not keep their commitments as defined in the accursed Oslo Accords, and this is the result. If we leave Judea and Samaria, we will get Gaza on Steroids in the heart of the State of Israel. With simple machine guns, they could shoot down jets at Ben Gurion Airport”.