Gilad Sharon, the son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said that the Disengagement from Gaza, which was carried out 15 years ago, was "the right thing to do," but cautioned against carrying out a similar withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.
"I think it was the right thing to do. It's easy when you have to choose between a good option and a bad one. It becomes more complex when you have to choose between two bad options, and staying in the Gaza Strip was much worse than leaving the Gaza Strip," Sharon said in an interview with Arutz Sheva.
He dismissed claims that the Disengagement led to an increased rocket threat from terrorists in Gaza. "We had rockets four and a half years before leaving the Gaza Strip. The difference was that we could not react. We couldn't do what we have done in the operations [such as Cast Lead and Protective Edge] because the Attorney General said 'you are responsible for the territory. You cannot do it. You are the sovereign over there.' So, actually, we couldn't fight terror while being there."
"Eventually, we had 8,000 people among a million and a half Palestinians. Now it's two million. In a few years it will be three million. It had no future," Sharon explained.
While he continues to support the Disengagement from Gaza, Sharon said that a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would pose too great a risk to Israel's largest population centers. "What we could afford in the Gaza Strip, in an isolated area squeezed between the desert and the sea, we cannot do in Judea and Samaria. This is the heart of the land, Judea and Samaria. When the world sees what happened in Gaza, because they got billions of dollars. What did they do with the money? [Did they build] any housing, factories, something? Only rockets and terror tunnels. That's what they did, so everyone understands that that's how they behave when they are left alone. What you can afford for yourself in an isolated corner, you cannot do in the heart of Tel Aviv, in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, in the heart of the country."
"I don't think we should evacuate anything. Gaza was a very unique case, nothing to do with Judea and Samaria, which we have to hold forever."