In the West, Palestinian violence is often thought to be the result of Israel’s “occupation” of territory previously held by Jordan and Egypt. But such assessments are diametrically opposed to experience, argues Gershon Hacohen:
[T]he threat Hamas posed through the rocket firepower it directed at Israeli cities should set off warning bells about a possible Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. A Palestinian state based on [Israel’s pre-1967] borders will not be demilitarized and will have the capacity to become a far greater threat than the Gaza Strip. The magnitude of the production of weapons under Hamas and Islamic Jihad reveals the hollowness of the demilitarization delusion. Most of that production was carried out with civilian machinery and raw materials. There is no way to prevent a state from possessing computerized lathe machines, iron pipes, or phosphates.
The fact that, at present, there is no rocket production in the Palestinian cities and refugee camps of the West Bank stems entirely from the monitoring and prevention made possible by the IDF forces and the presence of Israeli civilian communities deep inside the territory.
[The IDF] Central Command’s success during this round in containing popular terror activity and violence in the West Bank areas under its aegis demonstrates that the demand for a continued Israeli presence in those areas is justified, both tactically and generally. When one compares the resources and efforts required to secure Israel’s coastal plain, which are built around IDF activity in the West Bank and the support of the Israeli communities there, to what the defense establishment has to invest in the Gaza Strip, it becomes clear that the existing situation in the West Bank is more effective, economical, and suitable.
More about: Gaza Strip, Guardian of the Walls, Israeli Security, West Bank