Informed Speculation

I’ve resisted commenting thus far on Sharon’s policy of pulling out of Gaza – but I think it’s the correct, smart thing to do. The ‘defensible borders’ explanation carries a good deal of weight with me, and it is this explanation that Victor Davis Hanson stresses:

The Israeli military is crafting defensible borders, not unlike the old Roman decision to stay on its own side of the Rhine and Danube Rivers. In Sharon’s thinking, it no longer made any sense to periodically send thousands of soldiers into Gaza to protect fewer than 10,000 Israeli civilians abroad, when a demographic time bomb of too few Jews was ticking inside Israel proper.

But Gaza itself is only a tessera in a far larger strategic mosaic. The Israelis also press on with the border fence that will in large part end suicide bombings. The barrier will grant the Palestinians what they clamor for, but perhaps also fear: their own isolated state that they must now govern or let the world watch devolve into something like the Afghanistan of the Taliban.

That Hanson mentions fear on the part of Palestinians is no accident; after years of scapegoating the Israelis for all the wrongs of the world, the prospect of having to handle their own affairs has the Palestinians horrified:

Palestinian medical experts fear a looming health crisis after Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip unless patients are guaranteed access to life-saving treatment beyond the territory.

While Israel regards its departure from Gaza as signalling the end of its 38-year occupation, the Palestinians argue that Israel will remain an occupying power as long as it retains control of its borders and is thus still obliged to meet the health needs of the local population.:

Meanwhile, we get word (no joke) that:

Tribune Media Services columnists Victor Davis Hanson and Arianna Huffington will square off in a debate about whether the U.S. is “internationalist or imperial.”

The debate is scheduled for Sept. 14 at the Gerald R. Ford Museum Auditorium, Grand Rapids, Mich. It’s the first in a series of events (also taking place Oct. 6-7 and Nov. 17) on “War and Empire” hosted by the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University.

Gee, Arianna vs. Hanson – wonder who’ll win THAT matchup?…