...Given that about 80% of Palestinian Arabs continue to reject Israel's very existence, signs of Israeli weakness, such as the forthcoming Gaza withdrawal, will instead inspire heightened Palestinian irredentism. Absorbing their new gift without gratitude, Palestinian Arabs will focus on those territories Israelis have not evacuated. (This is what happened after Israeli forces fled Lebanon.) The retreat will inspire not comity but a new rejectionist exhilaration, a greater frenzy of anti-Zionist anger, and a surge in anti-Israel violence.

Palestinian Arabs themselves are openly saying as much. A top Hamas figure in Gaza, Ahmed al-Bahar says "Israel has never been in such a state of retreat and weakness as it is today following more than four years of the intifada. Hamas's heroic attacks exposed the weakness and volatility of the impotent Zionist security establishment. The withdrawal marks the end of the Zionist dream and is a sign of the moral and psychological decline of the Jewish state. We believe that the resistance is the only way to pressure the Jews."

A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri says likewise that the withdrawal is "due to the Palestinian resistance operations. … and we will continue our resistance."

Others are more specific. At a mass rally in Gaza City last Thursday, about 10,000 Palestinian Arabs danced, sang, and chanted, "Today Gaza, tomorrow Jerusalem."...

Following Israel's departure from the Gaza Strip this month, Egypt will be free to arm the Palestinian Arabs with tanks, armored personnel carriers and other heavy weaponry, warned Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz.

When the committee convened Monday to discuss Israel's plan to surrender control of the Gaza-Sinai border, Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz said Egypt would be under no legal obligation to prevent the influx of advanced arms into the strip.

Steinitz described this revelation as a “bomb,” according to Arutz 7.

He reminded the committee that Israel was already engaged in diplomatic efforts to prevent the sale of 100 Egyptian light armored personnel carriers to the Palestinian Authority. With no Israeli presence on the border, Jerusalem would have little ability to prevent such transfers...