By Stan Goodenough
Sep 07, 2005
Three weeks ago, just before the Sharon government implemented its ?disengagement? plan, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared that the forced removal of Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria would lead to a decline in terrorism.
On Tuesday Mofaz reversed himself, warning that Judea and Samaria were primed to become focal points for renewed and intensified Arab terror in the coming months.
The defense minister made his assessment as warnings multiplied of terror attacks in and from those areas, and amid concerns that Jews traveling to their Judea-Samaria homes would increasingly be targeted by Arab gunmen.
Briefing senior IDF officers including Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, Mofaz said the withdrawal had created a complex reality, including the possibility of an increase in ?suicide? bombings.
To prevent these killers making their way from Judea and Samaria into Israeli population centers like Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Netanya, Mofaz ordered that IDF troops manning roadblocks be extremely strict with everyone passing across the ?Green Line? into pre-1967 Israel.
Anyone bringing Arabs illegally ?into? Israel was to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Sounding somewhat anxious, the defense minister said that the IDF was ?not to have pity on any Palestinian, even if this will cause traffic jams and evoke indignation, because the security of Israel?s citizens is our primary interest.?
?Stop them, stop them, stop them,? he said.
Judea, the southern part of the so-called West Bank, should be locked down and turned into ?a bunker.?
?No-one should be able to pass.?
Arutz 7 reminded its readers Wednesday that, before the expulsion of Jews, ?virtually every senior military officer said that Arab terrorists have been smuggling and manufacturing more sophisticated weapons throughout Israel.?
YnetNews reports that in recent months IDF forces had thwarted a number of attempts by Arabs to manufacture Kassam rockets in Shechem and Ramallah.
Numerous military experts and students of Islam warned before the surrender of Gaza that the Israeli retreat would only fuel the appetite of the Jewish state?s Arab enemies and solidify their belief in their ultimate victory over all Israel.
Despite these ominous ?realities,? the Israeli cabinet decided Wednesday that the IDF would be ordered to pull completely out of Gaza Sunday, half a week earlier than scheduled. The military will have 24 hours to vacate the strip after the order is given.
Parts of northern Samaria made judenrein last month are also to be handed over to the Arabs, according to Ha?aretz.