AFTER THE REDEPLOYMENT, IT WILL BE WORSE
(Commentary by Nadav Shragai, "Ha'aretz", Jul 7, 1998, p. B1)

There is something improper and infuriating in the series of fearful
questions that those supporting the second redeployment present to the
public: What will happen to us if, heaven forbid, the second redeployment
is not implemented? What will happen to the Palestinian pressure cooker
which is about to explode? To the personal security of all of us? To
terrorism? To settlements in Judea and Samaria? There is nothing wrong
with these questions, but at the same time other necessary questions are
noticeable by their absence: What will happen here after the second
redeployment? What will happen to personal security? Will terrorism
resume? And what about that same "bubbling Palestinian pressure cooker?"
Will it cease bubbling after the redeployment, or will it in fact boil
over? And the bottom line -- is it possible that in several important
spheres in our life we will actually not benefit, but lose, from
implementation of the second redeployment?

MK Shlomo Ben-Ami recently related that, in a discussion he held with
Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security
Apparatus, Rajoub assessed that the waves of terrorism would resume after
the second redeployment is carried out. IDF Chief of Staff Amnon
Lipkin-Shahak also assessed to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee (on 9 June, 1998), that "from a security standpoint, we will
live in a much, much more difficult reality that the one currently
prevailing... when larger portions of territory are not under Israel's
responsibility and the ability to control areas around some of the roads
and some of the settlements becomes more difficult or impossible," while
the dialogue with the Palestinians becomes even more difficult and slower
than today.

Last weekend, the PA showed us an example of what could happen in Judea
and Samaria if the second redeployment is implemented, succeeding in a
matter of minutes in paralyzing the lives of 10,000 Jews. About 170,000
Jews live in Judea and Samaria, and one does not need a developed
imagination to paint the same scenario when it is implemented along the
length and breadth of hundreds of kilometers of roads in Judea and
Samaria.

The transfer of additional territories to the PA will, undoubtedly, also
damage the ability to foil terrorist attacks and reduce the possibilities
of intelligence collection in these areas. It will increase, even further,
Israel's dependency on Palestinian intelligence and will fix the circle in
which Israel is trapped today: Unceasing high payments to the Palestinians
in exchange for intelligence and security, which they are supposedly
obligated to supply to us under the agreements with them, without any
payment. It is enough if we note in this connection that of the 2,000
Hamas members that Israel arrested in 1997, and of the 100 terrorist
attacks that the GSS foiled in that same year, most were in six villages
and towns currently located in Area B (Palestinian civilian responsibility
and Israeli security responsibility): Bir Zeit, Halhoul, Yatta, Tzurif,
Dahariya and Dura. The second redeployment would turn them into Area A and
the ability to prevent attacks organized in these locations would be
severely damaged.

Major General Moshe Ya'alon, until recently head of IDF Intelligence and
today OC Central Command, stated last week that Yasser Arafat is fostering
Hamas' terrorist infrastructures, making sure to maintain the potential to
resume the attacks, and that he will not even hesitate to use it, as he
has done in the past, the moment that negotiations get caught up in a
truly serious crisis. Such a crisis is anticipated with the beginning of
discussions on the final status agreement: The refugee problem; the right
of return; Jerusalem; the status of the settlements; the Jordan Valley;
greater Jerusalem, and evidently even before -- when it becomes clear that
Arafat does not accept Netanyahu's interpretation of a minimal third
redeployment and continues to avoid carrying out obligations he assumed in
the Hebron Accord. The prime minister and the defense minister hear these
assessments in far greater intensity, but they do not share them with the
public and are not even willing to admit, at least publicly, that the
planned redeployment in Judea and Samaria is entirely the result of
American pressure and that -- in the current situation -- it does not
contain any real or clear interest for Israel.

The comparison that Arafat makes between the agreement with Israel and the
Hudeiba agreement which Muhammad made with the Qureish tribe, an agreement
that Muhammad broke after two years and which was recognized in Islam as
being legitimate tactics and cunning -- also does not set off the
necessary alarm bells among us. Even Arafat's clarification in several
interviews recently of the 1974 doctrine of stages passes quietly, as does
the constant sharpening of terminology of senior PA officials against
Israel, now referred to as "Satan." All of these writings, and many
others, are currently on the wall. The failure to decipher them is built
into the incorrect question, which is still captive to the Oslo
conception. The dangers present in the absence of a redeployment pale in
comparison to the dangers which would result after it, and if things are
bad today, after the redeployment they will apparently be worse.