Conversation with Yaalon

Okay, so it wasn't a conversation exactly. It was a Blogger Conference Call, and I was only one among many bloggers on the call. But still ...

It was fascinating to hear Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon's assessment of the current strategic situation in Israel. He began by stressing to bloggers that the two major attacks on Israel in these last weeks - by Hamas from Gaza and by Hezbollah from Lebanon - had no basis whatsoever in any territorial dispute.

Prior to the attacks, there was no Israeli presence in either the Gaza strip or southern Lebanon and there was no dispute over land or control of land.

When Israel was attacked, she exercised no control, real or imagined, over the territories from whence the attacks originated. In name at least, the Palestinian Authority was in control of the Gaza strip and the government of the sovereign state of Lebanon was in control of its southern reaches. In actuality, of course, Hamas was in control of Gaza and Hezbollah controlled south Lebanon.

There was not a single Israeli soldier in Gaza -- until June 25th, when Hamas came into Israel, abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and brought him there by force. Likewise, there was not a single Israeli soldier in south Lebanaon -- until July 12th, when Hezbollah came into Israel, abducted Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, and brought them there... by force.

To my mind, it seems very much as if these terrorists missed the excuse of Israeli "occupation" and so tried to recreate it, albeit on a small scale. But that is neither here nor there.

Point #1 having been duly stressed, I'm going to stop here for now, and blog other points in separate posts. Please bear with me as I experiment; I'm trying to find the most effective format in which to blog these calls. I'm thinking that in future, it might be more useful to be able to refer back to a specific idea, rather than the call itself, which contained so much.

I figure I can afford this luxury because

(1) Allen Roth has a great synopsis of the call at OneJerusalem, where there is also complete audio;

(2) the Amazing Atlas has a transcript;

(3) WestBankMama already beat me to the scoop: Boogie Yaalon "I'm More Afraid of the Corruption in Israel Than I Am Of the Iranians"; and

(4) Rick Richman has connected the dots, past, present and future:

... how different things would have been had Israel’s leadership at a moment of trial been Netanyahu, Sharansky, and Ya’alon -- all of whom left the government or were removed from it as a result of the disengagement plan -- instead of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz.

Fortunately, in a democracy, these things can be corrected.

Comments

[westbankmama]

Thank you for the link.