Sharon, Netanyahu, and the Lebanon Deal

Elliott Abrams

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The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2006 offers some useful lessons for Israelis, and for the United States, as a ceasefire in Lebanon begins.

As a reminder, Ariel Sharon’s government proceeded in 2004 and 2005 with his plans to remove all settlements and military installations from Gaza. As implementation got closer, Benjamin Netanyahu resigned from the cabinet on August 7, 2005. The evacuation of settlers was completed on August 22, and of the IDF by September 12.

During the withdrawal, on August 25, Hamas fired two Kassam rockets into Israel. On September 24, five Israelis were injured when thirty rockets struck from Gaza. The invasion of Israel and the capture of Gilad Shalit on June 25, 2006 led to Operation Summer Rains, starting on June 28. By then, according to the IDF, 757 rockets of various kinds had been fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad since Israel’s departure from Gaza the previous year.

Pressure Points

Abrams gives his take on U.S. foreign policy, with special focus on the Middle East and democracy and human rights issues.

Prime Minister Sharon had warned against rockets being fired during the withdrawal or after. He told the visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in July, 2005 that “our reaction (to attacks) will be of a different kind, with the addition of very harsh means, both if it takes place during the evacuation, or after we evacuate the Gaza Strip.” In a public speech in August, while the withdrawal was underway, he said “"The world is waiting for the Palestinian response -- a hand stretched out to peace or the fire of terror. To an outstretched hand we shall respond with an olive branch, but we shall fight fire with the harshest fire ever.”

But Sharon did not do it. He had a minor stroke on December 18, 2005 and a massive one on January 4, 2006, that put him into a vegetative state for the rest of his life. Still, he did not respond either to the August 25 attack or the much larger September 24 attack with the kind of force he had threatened. By the following Spring, an emboldened Hamas (and Islamic Jihad) were firing dozen of rockets every month, and finally invaded via tunnels Israel in June.