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then in response to Hamas rocket fire into Israel. The moral: Arik was wrong to
withdraw. But the Islamists’ ascendancy was happening anyway. After all, it was
Hamas attacks that provided the spearhead of the intifada of terror launched in the
wake of Camp David. Arafat’s own influence was also inexorably on the wane by
the time he passed away, in Paris, at the end of 2004, to be succeeded by Abu
Mazen. I do not know of a single senior figure in Israel with any military
experience who believes that we would be more secure today if we still had
thousands of soldiers and settlers inside Gaza. Surprised though I was by Arik’s
decision to leave, I had no doubt that the fundamental security judgment he was
making – that a disengagement was in Israel’s own interest – was the right one. I
was encouraged, too, by his parallel announcement of a small, token withdrawal
from a few small West Bank settlements. My regret at the time was that he did not
go further toward the kind of major West Bank disengagement I’d been arguing
for, and that even in Gaza the pullout seemed insufficiently prepared or thought
out. The model, I believed, should have been our withdrawal from Lebanon –
involving detailed prior consultation with, and political support from, the UN and
key international allies. I also felt it was critically important to ensure that, while
we would obviously need offshore patrols to prevent arms and munitions from
getting in, we allowed and encouraged an environment in which the Gazan
economy could function and grow after we left. None of that happened. Though we
left Gaza, we effectively sealed off and blockaded one of the most densely
populated, economically strapped and politically febrile strips of land on the face
of the earth.

Still, I did see it as an important first step toward the kind of wider
disengagement that would prioritize Israel’s own security interests, and political
and social cohesiveness, until and unless conditions allowed a for a serious new
effort for a final peace deal. I was heartened when Shimon led Labor back into
Arik’s coalition at the start of 2005 to ensure he’d have the support necessary to go
through with the Gaza withdrawal. And while I did make a brief attempt to return
as party leader later in the year, when it was clear I wasn’t going to win, I threw
my support behind Shimon and against the other challenger, the longtime labor-
union leader Amir Peretz, who was running on a platform to take Labor out of
Sharon’s government.

But Peretz won the leadership election. He did leave the cabinet, forcing Arik to
call an early election for March 2006. And that, along with the most ambitious and

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