Yochanan Tzoref, lieutenant- colonel (res.) and former Arab affairs adviser for the Civil Administration in Gaza, in an opinion piece in Yediot Aharonoth (as translated by Middle East Bulletin), on September 8, 2007:
"Politicians and security specialists use their fertile imagination to produce recycled and hackneyed ideas and solutions that were heard and debated in the past.
"One thinks word games will provide a solution and suggests not just going into Gaza but ‘giving it’ to Gaza. The second believes that only hitting the day-to-day needs of the residents of the Strip – cutting off electricity or oil – will bring the desired change. The third sees in Operation Defensive Shield a model to replicate and argues that what happened in Jenin can be done in Gaza, as if Gaza is Jenin and 2007 is 2002. All are ideas that play into the hands of extremists in Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
"These ideas are a product of the total dominance of the ’security’ school in the decision-making process in Israel. … The same school that terminated one of the most wanted Fatah operatives, Raed Karmi, during a time of relative calm (January 2002), and later admitted its mistake. The same school that only at moments of crisis, such as Hamas’s electoral victory, internalizes the fact that it is necessary to pay attention to the attitudes of the Palestinian population."