'My attitude was, and still is, that Israel without the Gaza Strip is stronger than Israel with the Gaza Strip. Israel without Nablus is stronger than Israel with Nablus," says Dan Schueftan emphatically, with the utter self-assurance and extremely good cheer of an enfant terrible. But, he stresses, "this has nothing whatsoever to do with peace."

Policemen arrest an anti-disengagement protester.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski [archive]

In fact, says Schueftan - a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa, where he serves as deputy director of the National Security Studies Center - "my concern is not whether the Palestinians will stop being terrorists, because they won't. My consideration is whether Israeli society will be as strong today and tomorrow as it was yesterday."

Schueftan, who also lectures at the IDF's National Defense College, insists that the only way the country can remain a flourishing, modern democracy (what he calls the "eighth wonder of the world") is for the Jews to have a sustainable majority over the Arabs. His point is that while "we may be able to do with less aircraft and fewer tanks," demographic imprudence will do us in for sure.

Indeed, the author of Disengagement - the 1999 book that became a virtual blueprint for the 2005 withdrawal from Gush Katif and northern Samaria - is a demography doomsayer.

So much so that he even goes as far as to claim that the state's allocation of child allowances, which encouraged "non-Zionist, non-productive, non-democratic, non-modern" elements to be fruitful and multiply, posed as great a threat to its survival as an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Not that Schueftan - a leading expert on the Middle East in general and Arab-Israeli affairs in particular, whose advice is sought out by decision-makers at home and abroad - isn't worried about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's program. On the contrary, he is hoping and praying for a massive American military operation against the Iranian despot's dangerous infrastructure.

"As one who retroactively condones Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he states unabashedly, "I believe that this would send a signal to radicals the world over that the US can only be pushed so far."

You are credited with being one of the main fathers of disengagement. Your book, Korach Hahafrada (Disengagement), was considered its manifesto, if not impetus. A year and a half after the Gaza withdrawal, how do you view its having panned out?
Indeed, my book was the first conceptual framework for disengagement decision-makers had seen. Some of them were even specifically convinced by the book that this was the inevitable course that Israel should take.

I still believe today that this is an inevitable course - one that we will resume at a later date. At the moment, it's not popular, but we will inevitably come back to it, because the basic logic that led to it is still there.

Arthur Conan Doyle put it so well in Sherlock Holmes's mouth: "If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

In this case, I'm not speaking about truth in Doyle's sense of the word, of course. But when you eliminate the impossible courses of action - peace with the Palestinians and perpetuation of the status quo - you inevitably revert to unilateral steps by Israel.

Unilateral steps can take different forms. For instance, I wouldn't suggest today that Israel leave the West Bank and take the IDF out. I would remove the settlements more or less behind the fence - mutatis mutandis - and leave the IDF there for as long as it is absolutely necessary, taking the security consequences of Israel's leaving the area into account. But basically my attitude was, and still is, that Israel without the Gaza Strip is stronger than Israel with the Gaza Strip. Israel without Nablus is stronger than Israel with Nablus. Even more than that: Israel without the parts of east Jerusalem heavily populated by Arabs - with a very different delineation of the line than we had before 1967 - is stronger than Israel that includes 300,000 Arabs. My assumption is that, for the foreseeable future, we'll have neither peace nor any kind of working settlement with the Palestinians. My assumption is that the conflict will go on for at least this generation.

What about the Jordan Valley?
The Jordan Valley should be under Israeli control for as long as possible and necessary. The best option would be if we could reach some kind of an accepted settlement according to which the Jordan Valley stays in Israel but the heartland of Judea and Samaria is linked to the rest of the Arab world through a corridor in Jericho. Among other things, this would also protect the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from the Palestinians.

In other words, you support Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's realignment plan that has been put on hold.
Yes, with one exception: not taking the army out of the West Bank... for the time being.

But in terms of territory, I would remove most of the settlements, and keep most of the settlers inside Israel, including the Ariel bloc, Ma'aleh Adumim, Givat Ze'ev, Pisgat Ze'ev, Gush Etzion. I'm sorry that the Supreme Court imposed going back to the June 5, 1967, lines in Judea. There is no reason whatsoever for this, as far as population in the area is concerned. We could have taken a portion of it. But, if this is the deal, I would accept it.

When Olmert reiterated his realignment plan during the Second War in Lebanon, he was chastised by the public for it. His popularity has suffered greatly since then. Are you saying that he was given a bad rap?
No. He deserved a setback, because he mishandled the war.

Secondly, Israelis expected the disengagement from Gaza to lead to a decrease in terrorism, which it didn't do.

You didn't expect this?
I certainly didn't. If I may put it in a broader context: In 1977, when asked if I would leave the Sinai Peninsula for peace, I answered, "What [Egyptian president Anwar] Sadat is offering (a separate settlement removing Egypt from the active violent confrontation with Israel) is so critical for the future of Israel that I would have paid more than merely the Sinai Peninsula, but it has nothing to do with peace. And when we withdraw - indeed, the more we concede to Egyptian demands - the more hostility, hatred and anti-Semitism we will arouse."