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If you want some international intrigue and strategy with globally significant repercussions, it’s on, in Gaza.
Gaza is a large strip of land within the current southern boundary of Israel.
Last month I posted about the policy of Ariel Sharon, to force the evacuation of 9,000 Israelis living in the Gaza strip. These people have been living there for 20 years. They went there at the request of the Israeli government. They are enduring incredible hardships in order to be a bulwark of Israel against those who plainly say, that they wish to destroy Israel. As I posted in another article, titled Courage in Gaza, they don’t want to move. They want to stay.
The title of my post last month on this subject was, The Biggest Current Mystery on Earth: Forced Evacuation of Israeli Citizens by Their Own Government. No one can understand what Ariel Sharon is thinking.
Last Thursday I went to a meeting of a group in Los Angeles that is seeking to save Gush Katif, the Israeli cities in Gaza. With the slogan, “Let My People Stay,” this group is working to bring to public attention the facts about what is happening. Their excellent web site is here.
At that meeting it was pointed out that Gaza is home to cities that currently include 1.3 million Palestinians, and that, if Israel pulls out of Gaza, Gaza will almost certainly become “Hamastan”—that is, a nation owned and occupied by the terrorist forces of Hamas.
Can Ariel Sharon be so misguided as to pursue a policy that could lead to this result? That is one possible explanation. But there is another possible explanation as well.
From World Net Daily:
Israel: No more towns to Palestinian control
Halts West Bank handover amid repeated cease-fire violations
Posted: May 6, 2005
Israel announced yesterday it would not hand over any more West Bank towns to Palestinian security forces until their government acts against terror groups.
The move follows continued Palestinian violations of a cease-fire agreement signed in February.
...Israel has expressed disappointment at what it calls repeated violations of a cease-fire agreement announced in Egypt Feb. 8 by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
There have since been more than 200 rocket and mortar attacks against Jewish communities in Gaza, a suicide bombing and several attempted bombings attacks.
The alternate explanation is as follows. Sharon had no intention of pulling out unless all terrorist activity actually stopped—something he knew was unlikely. He anticipated continued terrorist attacks, with the intention of halting the pullout from Gaza when they had become a reality. This forces world opinion to confront the fact that it is the Palestinians who are breaking the cease-fire. It reverses Oslo. In the Oslo accords, Israel gave land in return for a promise of peace, which was broken. Here, Sharon may be saying, we will not give land except in return for the reality of peace.
Note that Gaza is not part of the West Bank; the West Bank is a land mass many times the size of Gaza, on Israel’s east side, and to the west of Jordan. (Map). It contains over 200,000 Israelis, vs. just 9,000 Israelis in Gaza. Gaza has great military and economic value to Israel, and the Israelis there passionately want to stay. Having halted withdrawal from the West Bank in response to terrorist attacks on Gaza, it appears unlikely that Sharon would yet withdraw from Gaza.
This alternate explanation is more than sheer speculation on my part. It makes more sense than a repetition of the errors of Oslo, about which Ariel Sharon himself said, as recently as last month, “First of all I understand that the Oslo agreements were the greatest disaster Israel ever had.” In fact, in that same article, Sharon stated explicitly that his strategy is that of the alternative I have suggested:
In a meeting with American Jewish leaders in Washington, DC yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon said several times that “We are in the pre-Road Map phase, we are not in the phase of the Road Map and there will be no compromise and the Road Map won’t start until there is full compliance by the Palestinian Authority (PA), until PA leader Mazen dismantles and disarms the terror group, ends all incitement, shows more cooperation between the Palestinian security force and the Israel security force, and starts educating the Arabs for peace.” Sharon added that “the PA security organizations are really security terror organizations,” and strongly proclaimed “the main reason for the problems between the Arabs and Israel is that the Arab world does not recognize the right of Israel to have a Jewish state in the homeland and cradle of the Jewish people.”
The only surprise would be, that he may have meant it.
Update 5-9-05, from commenter Moshe:
just a small correction: alot of us live here for 30 years already! (not 20) the state of israel is not even twice as old, which means that gush katif is no “new settlement” here. no one lived here before,they couldn’t. it was considered “cursed land”. the arabs were not able to grow anything in the sand dunes, and there were no birds or insects etc. only since we “came home” did the land respond – and it is now a garden of eden.
He’s not exaggerating. The history of Israel is dramatized in the international best-seller, Exodus.
#1
#2Moshe, thanks very much for the info. I have offered to help SaveGushKatif.org, by training people in Israel and in Gush Katif in how to blog. I think it can make a significant contribution to have more blogs in Israel, in which people just talk about what's going on around them, and about their lives, and their thoughts.
It doesn't cost anything, because there are blogging systems like Blogger that don't charge for the blogging system or even for the servers the system runs on. All you need to be a blogger is to have some thoughts or views to share with the world.
A blog could be run by one person, or by two or three people, so that one person doesn't have to do all the posting.
Would you be interested in blogging from Israel? Do you know anyone else who might be interested as well? Please let me know. I would be happy to help get you started. Thanks!
#3I also believe that jeolosy is a factor of antagonism againt Israel and if Moshe had a blog he could tell the world a few censored truths about what Israel has accomplished. I have talked to many Israelies on Sabbatical here in Davis and the picture I get from them is nothing like what I see on the news.
DW
just a small correction: alot of us live here for 30 years already! (not 20) the state of israel is not even twice as old, which means that gush katif is no "new settlement" here. no one lived here before,they couldn't. it was considered "cursed land". the arabs were not able to grow anything in the sand dunes, and there were no birds or insects etc. only since we "came home" did the land respond - and it is now a garden of eden.