Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon was dead right when he told an Army Radio interviewer Tuesday that Israel had no choice but to reject US proposals for Israeli concessions last year, as the US pushed for talks with the Palestinian Authority.
"If we had implemented the American's offers," argued Ya'alon, "in the area of security, for example, then today there would already be mortar shells striking Ben Gurion Airport, and rockets on Tel Aviv."
But the problem is not just the Americans. The problem is that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu himself keeps talking about a “demilitarized West Bank Palestinian State.” That is a delusional fiction, because the Palestinians will be able to smuggle the same type of rockets into their West Bank "demilitarized state" that they successfully smuggled into Gaza.
The difference between that scenario and what happened in Gaza is that the rockets launched from the West Bank will be able to hit Israel’s highly and densely populated Sharon Plain that holds 70% of Israel’s Jewish population. What are you going to do? Reinvade the West Bank as the rockets are flying into Netanya?
Ya'alon was reacting to an interview with US Secretary of State John Kerry in the New Yorker, in which Kerry said he believes Israel is headed toward becoming a “unitary state that is an impossible entity to manage."
Kerry also said that Israel is currently at risk of turning into a “big fortress."
To this, Israel should respond: we'd rather live in a "big fortress" than in a smaller coffin.
Mark Langfan explained the dangers of Katyusha rockets from the West Bank hitting Tel Aviv in this video interview with Christian Broadcasting’s Erick Stakelbeck: