Guessing game

A pessimistic friend of mine has tacked up a copy of the parting shots taken by former Army Chief of Staff Moshe "Bugi" Yaalon, in which the army veteran predicted a severe escalation of terror by Palestinians in the days and months following the disengagement, which is set to begin in August.

On my bulletin board are the comments by former Shin Bet director Avi Dichter in his parting shots. Dichter, like Yaalon, a potential political player to be reckoned with in coming months, took a more optimistic view of the situation now and in the near-term future.

Dichter said the core of the Palestinian terror infrastructure has been severely damaged in the last few years, and Palestinian terrorists, for all of their current bluster, can't do much.

Faced with such divergent positions from two people who really should know what is going on, what is one to conclude?

First, let's filter out the political cant in each of their comments.

Free or political?

Yaalon was unceremoniously dumped at the end of his three-year term as chief of staff, and did not receive the customary fourth year. So he has no particular reason to follow the party line of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the pro-disengagement forces in the government.

That could mean two things: either he was taking a shot at Sharon, or he is finally free to tell the truth. I lean more to the thinking that his comments were designed to chip away at the credibility of Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. Mofaz, at least, is a potential political opponent in the future.

Taking Yaalon's potential political future into account reduces his credibility as a disinterested observer.

Similarly, Dichter has political stars in his eyes, likely with the Labor Party, or, who knows, with some as-yet-unnamed new political entity. So that would also serve to reduce his credibility.

Except for this: during his unusually public tenure as head of Shin Bet (known colloquially as Shabak) Dichter often clashed with political elites such as Sharon by offering more optimistic assessments than they did.

Further, as a potential head of an opposition party, Dichter has no particular interest in making Sharon look good. So, when he says the situation may not be so bad, as Sharon certainly hopes will be the case, Dichter may be offering a more honest assessment than Yaalon.

Too many unknowns

Taken on their face, though, those two divergent predictions lead me to the conclusion that no one knows what is going to happen.

Even though army and civilian intelligence agencies have a great deal of human and signals information at their fingertips, there are too many unknowns and intangibles.

Here are just a few:

• What would happen if extremist right-wing Jewish elements - some of them now gathering rather publicly at a dilapidated Gaza hotel - perform any serious acts of terrorism?
  

• Similarly, what would happen if the remnants of Palestinian terror groups, determined not to be eclipsed by an era of good feelings, actually succeed in their own acts of terror? They certainly seem determined to do so - just this week they sent an ailing woman through the Erez checkpoint in Gaza with explosives sewn into her underwear (That they had to resort to using such a tactic - a low even for them - suggests the depths of their disarray.).
  

• What good feelings existed between Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas earlier this year certainly seem to have evaporated in recent months. Their escalating rhetoric could lead one or the other to step all over his tongue and further limit their already minimal amount of cooperation. Only the strong thumbs of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on each of their necks has kept them even minimally civil toward one another.
  

Any number of other individuals or events could derail this fragile process. That's where public opinion can come into play. It will take continued and vocal public support - and, yes, even in the deeply conflicted Palestinian territories - for the disengagement to stay on track.

So, don't trust either Doomsday or Pollyanna scenarios. But work to keep the process - such as it is - limping along.