Former COS Moshe Yaalon has been speaking out with increasing vehemence on the ever-clearer folly of Ariel Sharon's 'disengagement' plan. He's not saying a lot we didn't already know last summer. In fact, he's saying many of the same things he was saying last summer. (That's one of the reasons he lost his job.)
The latest:
"There is no doubt that the disengagement failed. This failure emanates from the fact that the disengagement was essentially based on a doomed idea. It was not the result of thorough strategic analysis but the result of a political distress of his who was prime minister then, Ariel Sharon," Yaalon told Haaretz.
Yaalon, whose term at the helm of the army was not extended by a year under a common IDF practice, added that "the disengagement was an internal Israeli game that ignored what's going on outside Israel. It was a disengagement from reality and a disengagement from the truth."
Speaking to Haaretz, the former chief of staff said: "The process created an illusionary hope that was not planned strategically and practically. The disengagement was mainly a media spin. Those who initiated it and lead it lacked the strategic, security, political and historical background. They were image counselor. They were spin doctors. These people put Israel in a virtual spin that is disconnected from reality using a media spin campaign which is imploding before our eyes."
Ya'alon is still singing the same tune he was last year, although a few of the lyrics have changed a bit. His predictions of Qassams falling on Tel Aviv haven't panned out, nor has his anticipation of a broad escalation of terror attacks from the West Bank. But he did say that the pullout would send the wrong message and that bad behavior would increase, and he also said the result would be a return of the IDF to Gaza. And here we are.
Ya'alon is an odd duck, and at times a sort of cross-dresser politically. But he had Sharon's number on the ultimate motivation for this disaster. "Political distress," indeed.
Update: The full interview of Ya'alon by Ha'aretz's Ari Shavit is here.
