The current focus in Israeli discussion on whether some Jews have to leave their homes makes consideration of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza disengagement plan unnecessarily and harmfully divisive and misses the real issue of whether the current proposal improves or worsens Israeli security now and for the future.

The widespread agreement among Israelis that ultimately Gaza should not be part of Israel is virtually irrelevant to the question of whether Gaza disengagement is good for Israel now. Opposition to the proposal is not based on a concern for keeping Gaza.

Gaza disengagement needs to be evaluated on the assumption that it will result immediately or shortly in the loss of Israel’s ability to control Gaza’s borders with the world. It is unlikely that even the Israeli leadership believes that Israel can control these borders if it “gets out of Gaza” as Mr. Sharon proposes.

Because the military benefit to the Palestinians of being able to import advanced weaponry, foreign political activists, and foreign military into Gaza will probably increase the military burden on Israel, the virtue of Gaza disengagement must be in its political benefits.

These political benefits have to be greater than the political cost of giving a victory to terrorism and encouraging Muslim and other supporters of the Palestinian Arabs. The prime minister and his advisers have not articulated a vision of how the disengagement will improve Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians or how Israel’s general political position would be improved by the disengagement, apart from President Bush’s letter; it is only said that Israel can’t keep everything and must do something now.

The political costs to disengagement are severe. In the global war on terrorism, withdrawals – whether justified or not – have been tied to an escalation of terrorism. Al Qaeda itself was founded in 1988-89 on the heels of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. An organization that helped defeat a superpower, the Soviet Union, believed after its success that it could launch a global jihad and replicate the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. Israel’s Lebanon withdrawal in 2000 has been linked with the Palestinian decision to launch its September 2000 campaign of violence. What may be perceived in the West as a smart strategic move is often perceived in the East as weakness.

Clearly, reducing daily interactions between Israeli forces and Palestinians will have some tendency to improve the political climate. It is to Israel’s advantage to get its soldiers out of the faces of Palestinians and let them go about their daily business without checkpoints and searches, while at the same time relieving young Israeli soldiers of the morally challenging experience of stopping, searching, and dealing with hate-filled Palestinians.

Another goal is to free Israel of the burden of being an “occupier.” But it is hard to expect that the opposition to Israeli “occupation” will be satisfied with a mere reduction of the “occupation.” Similarly, does anyone think that the hostility to settlements will be seriously reduced if Israel closes down many small settlements? Furthermore, closing fully legal, authorized settlements without receiving any compensating benefit from the Palestinians looks like an admission that the “settlements” and the “occupation” are indeed what is preventing peace. The alternative is for Israel to make a stronger and more consistent effort to explain that the problem is not “settlements” or “occupation,” but the unwillingness of Palestinians and of the Arab states to live with a Jewish state in their midst. (Of course, Israel needs to remove outposts that are illegal under Israeli law in order to preserve its reputation for having a government that speaks for the country.)

One possible goal of the disengagement may be, given the failure of the Palestinian Authority to provide adequate government or to be a negotiating partner for peace, to begin a process of bringing Egypt into the Gaza Strip – and perhaps Jordan into Judea and Samaria. This is in some ways an attractive goal. But with the current condition of Arab politics there is little hope that either Egypt, which may be in the opening phase of a succession crisis, or Jordan has the political will to discipline Arafat or take control of Palestinians. This is a good example of an idea that may benefit from waiting for a more propitious time.

Israel does not have to make new negotiating proposals – or unilateral substitutes for negotiating proposals – at this time because President Bush has said that the advance toward peace and a Palestinian state depends on the Palestinians creating a representative government that will pursue peace – that is, one not under Mr. Arafat’s control. In addition, the roadmap, the internationally accepted negotiating path, puts the ball in the Palestinian court, at least according to Mr. Bush. Further decimation of the terrorist organizations, plus the absence of concessions, is more likely to firmly convince the Palestinians that their campaign of terror against Israel was a failure. More time devoted to defeating Palestinian terror would give a chance for the U.S. program against other Arab (and Iranian) terror to become more effective and to change the political environment in the region by weakening or changing the policies of the states supporting terrorism, which are Israel’s greatest enemies and the strongest supporters of Mr. Arafat. It would also give a chance for a change in the internal Palestinian political situation, resulting in the rise of a successor to Mr. Arafat. In this way, Israel’s policy would be operating in a manner more parallel to that of the American administration and be more supportive of its stand against rewarding terror.

While the American State Department may argue that Israel would help the war against Arab terrorism by making concessions to the Palestinians, this argument is based on a different approach to terrorism than the one President Bush is trying to follow. It assumes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is fundamentally different than the American conflict with Arab supporters of terrorism. An alternative approach of pursuing unilateral disengagement more patiently would enable Israel to put its weight on Mr. Bush’s side.

This alternative approach, which involves continuing the fight against the terrorists at home and supporting the American fight against terrorists in the region, may offer nothing to Israel’s critics, but there is no real evidence that the concessions or actions that Mr. Sharon proposes would satisfy these critics either. It may be more realistic to expect that Israeli retreats would strengthen the demands and confidence of those who deny Israel the right to defend itself.

America, to defend itself, is trying to get all Arab governments, especially Syria and Saudi Arabia as well as Iran, to stop harboring international terrorists. It has already succeeded in stopping Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya – although there are dangers of backsliding. If America succeeds, it will have made the regional environment much more favorable to Israel, and this may make it easier for a Palestinian Arab regime to come to power that might decide to postpone its fight against Israel. In such an environment, it will be much more possible to find an acceptable basis for Israel to disengage in a way that doesn’t threaten to worsen its security.

While the American anti-terror program in the region is currently facing serious difficulties, in the end, America is not going to be defeated by terrorism. It makes more sense for Israel to join and help America by fighting the same enemies and standing for the same principle: that terrorism and its supporters must be defeated, not appeased.

Currently, most Israelis think that in the end Israel is not going to keep Gaza and that it shouldn’t risk soldiers’ lives to hold it for a few more years. It seems as if the only opposition comes from those who, as Mr. Sharon says, think Israel can hold onto everything forever. However, unless the Israeli public hears how valid security concerns are going to be addressed, the popular notion of getting out of Gaza could face rising popular opposition from Israelis who are looking forward to getting out of Gaza as soon as it is prudent to do so and have little sympathy with the settler movement.

It is imperative to conduct a genuine discussion of whether the proposed way of pursuing disengagement threatens to endanger the country, and whether there might be a better time and approach to getting out of Gaza that advances Israel’s security. The result could well be that Mr. Sharon will adjust his schedule and truly align himself with Mr. Bush’s policy.