Gaza.

Another view:

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.

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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?

[Gaza] [Fatah] [Hamas] [Israel]