The news out of Gaza is actually not the latest history lesson that Munich-type land-for-peace propositions require us to restudy. What we need is an update to Baruch Spinoza. While nature may still very well abhor a vacuum, we now know beyond speculation that terrorism will thrive in one. Where once a democratic state “occupied” Gaza, a terrorist Fatah took over under the watchful eyes of the U.N. In less than two years, the even-more-radical Hamas blasted Fatah out of power and took over from there — in one of the bloodiest coups of the past decade. Now Hamas, with support from Iran, runs a mini-state on the border of Egypt and Israel.
And yet, too much of the world — and too many at home — maintain a dangerous, if not fatal, post-9/11 foreign-policy strategy. The fatal thinking is twofold: 1) The U.S. must withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible and 2) the U.S. must reengage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Iraq Study Group, made up of the “wise” men and women of our political establishment, encouraged this policy by stating that “The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict.” As if Israel had anything to do with Iraq. As if, perhaps, Israel withdrawing from Gaza might be a model for the U.S. in Iraq. As if, perhaps, Israel should be further encouraged to fully withdraw from the West Bank as it did in Gaza. But there is no Israeli-Palestinian peace process right now, not when the ruling Palestinian government of Hamas adheres to a covenant that believes Israel will exist only up until “Islam will obliterate it,” and was founded to consummate that goal.
Now is the time to take a history lesson about democracies withdrawing from lands tyrants lick their lips over. Again. The lesson no longer need be from the 1930s, or even the 1970s — when a forced U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia resulted in killing fields and slaughter. The lesson can easily enough be 2005, when Israel left Gaza. The world wanted Israel out of Gaza, just as so many now want us out of Iraq. Israel left Gaza, and the void was filled — but not by the laying of tracks for the Peace Train. Within two years, Iranian Hamas took over from Arafatian Fatah. Where many of us once warned that Fatah’s rule of Gaza would create another Libya in the Middle East, our warnings went unheeded, and, at the same time, the warnings were not alarmist enough: A new Iranian state in the Middle East is now in charge. Nice work. At long last, might we now absorb the lesson?
A democracy showing weakness where terrorists thrive is a sure recipe for disaster if only one condition is met: Cede land to the terrorists and encourage the democracy to withdraw. The Middle East is now in the balance between forces of composition and forces of decomposition. Just as the world community, and many in America, did not want Israel in Gaza, and now it has Iran and Hamas there, the world community, and many in America, no longer want the U.S. in Iraq. But what would be left as Sunni Baathists, al Qaeda, and Iranian militias have staked their claims to that country? We can leave, that is the easy thing to do. But look at Gaza once more, and ask: What will come next? In the end, no history or philosophy degrees are required to answer that question — just two eyes to read the newspaper, and a memory that can reach back two years.
— Seth Leibsohn is a fellow of the Claremont Institute.