TEL AVIV — Israel's domestic intelligence chief, in the first such
utterance, has expressed opposition to the government's policy of unilateral
withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel Security Agency director Yuval Diskin said the transfer of
territory to the Palestinian Authority harmed national security. Diskin
stressed that this was especially so amid the PA unwillingness to impose
order.
[On Tuesday, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would
withdraw from the entire West Bank with the exception of a portion of the
Etzion Bloc south of Bethlehem and the West Bank cities of Ariel and Maalei
Adumim. Olmert said Israel would retain security control over the Jordan
Valley, Middle East Newsline reported.]
"The political echelon can decide what it wants," Diskin said. "But from
a security point of view I am against giving land to the Palestinians, even
that territory that is [already] under their control, unless we know that
there is a Palestinian source that assumes power and imposes order. If there
isn't such a source, from a professional viewpoint, I am against the
transfer of
territory to Palestinian control."
Diskin's criticism was unprecedented for an ISA chief, directly
responsible to the prime minister. His remarks were recorded during a visit
in January to Orthodox Jewish students at a pre-military academy in Eli in
the West Bank. The recording was broadcast on Israeli radio and television
stations on Tuesday.
The ISA director also criticized the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip and northern West Bank in September 2005. Diskin said the government
adopted euphemisms, such as "disengagement," to minimize the human cost of
expelling 10,000 Jewish residents.
"The disengagement was first of all a process of uprooting," Diskin
said. "There are in Israel an array of words used by those scared to say
'uprooting.' They call it 'evacuation.' But there was an uprooting."
Diskin warned of a crisis in Israeli society amid the confrontation
between the government and Jews in the West Bank. He said opposition to the
government's policy of unilateral withdrawal was growing significantly.
On Feb. 5, an estimated 100,000 people gathered in Jerusalem to protest
Israeli police brutality. The demonstration was held four days after more
than 200 people, most of them teenagers, were injured by Israeli troops
during the military's demolition of nine homes in an unauthorized Jewish
outpost in the West Bank.
"Unfortunately, the Israeli political system is in an election campaign
and busy in what politicians are busy during the election period," Diskin,
who warned of what he termed Jewish terror, said. "As a result, the
treatment of this fissure [in society] is not good. And there are
repercussions for insufficient treatment for cracks so deep that in the end
return to me as head of the ISA."
Officials said Diskin has been warning in private forums of a violent
split between Jewish settlers and the government. They said Diskin was most
concerned of the growth of the opposition to the government.
"The ISA must provide a warning with regard to such matters so that
government policy could be formed to deal with these things," former ISA
director Ami Ayalon said. "The real problem is the size of this
[opposition] group, and its size depends to a large degree on the course set
by the state."
