Jerusalem Post

     Israel Security Agency chief, Yuval Diskin recommended on Monday that Israel refrain from intervening in the factional violence in the Gaza Strip. He said that while Israel needed to prepare a contingency plan to deal with the Gaza Strip, now was not the time for a large-scale operation there. "If we don't want to ruin everything then we should stay out of what is going on there," he said. Before Israel launched such an operation, it needed to think about the "day after" and what would happen if the Palestinian Authority collapsed and no longer provided social services to the residents of Gaza, Diskin said. "If the PA collapses, then we will need to set up a Civil Administration in Gaza and care for the residents' welfare." The parameters that needed to be taken into account before an IDF operation aimed at halting Hamas's military buildup inside Gaza were the pace of that buildup, the IDF's level of preparedness, and the violence between Fatah and Hamas. "Chaos in the PA does not serve Israel's interests," he said. At the same time, a unity government there would place Israel in a delicate position, because there would be pressure on Israel to deal with the government even if it did not come out squarely behind the international community's three principles. Diskin predicted a Palestinian unity government would lead to the lifting of the international aid blockade on the Hamas government and would eventually create pressure on Israel to engage the terrorist organization in a dialogue.....(11,04)