By Ted Belman, Israpundit

Proponents of withdrawal both before Gaza and now, argue that it will save money. They also argued that Israel will be more secure, but that’s another story.

Israeli acting PM Olmert has gone so far as to say that his party, Kadima, will no longer spend money on the settlements east of the fence (dividing the West Bank from Israel). In so doing he is reinforcing the message that the settlements and or the occupation are a financial burden, a waste of money that could be better spent on Israelis rather then settlers. Fair enough, but where is the proof? What are the facts?

On an issue as important as this, I would expect to see a study which compared the future expenditures if Israel did not withdraw or if it did. Not only is there not such a study, so far as I know, nobody is talking about it in an detailed way other then to simply declare money would be saved.

Kadima is saying it will maintain a military occupation of Yesha. Will this take more troops with the removal of settlements or less? Israel ran from such an occupation in Lebanon. Will it be able to remain in Yesha without the settlers?

An Israeli expert recently wrote to me

“The 1994 “disengagement” from Gaza quadrupled the number of security persons stationed in/around the Gaza area, but the public is uninformed about it. When you’re inside Gaza, you enhance intelligence, deterrence and operability, and therefore you can manage with fewer personnel. When you’re out of Gaza, you regress on all these accounts; hence you need to offset the damage by increased personnel/budget.”

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