WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Posted on 02/28/2005 1:23:02 PM PST by M 91 u2 K
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to reassess a decision to demolish homes vacated by Jewish settlers during Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip later this year.
"Our recommendation is not to destroy the houses," Giora Eiland, head of Israel's National Security Council, which advises Mr Sharon, told Israel Radio.
Government sources said Mr Sharon would hold discussions in the next few days to re-examine plans to raze homes the Government is purchasing from the 8000 Israelis in all 21 settlements slated for evacuation from July 20.
"Destruction of the houses prolongs the [withdrawal] operation," Mr Eiland said.
"Secondly, if you destroy the structures, there is a question what you do with the rubble," he said.
"If you try to bury it, it takes a long time ... and if you want to remove it to Israeli territory, it would border on the absurd to start investing in hundreds of trucks to transport it."
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz aims to complete the pullout in four weeks instead of the original seven, fearing prolonged confrontations with settlers who refuse to leave and their supporters, government officials said last week.
Advertisement AdvertisementIn the radio interview, Mr Eiland raised the possibility of transferring homes and other structures in the settlements to international ownership for eventual handover to the Palestinians.
He said demolishing houses in the settlements would also inadvertently wreck "water, electricity, communications and road infrastructure, and all the other things which we have no prior intention of destroying".
A Gulf property tycoon, Mohamed Ali al-Abbar, chairman of the Dubai-based Emmar Properties, held talks earlier this month with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on development projects in the settlement blocs after the withdrawal.
It is not clear how the red-roofed, single-family settler homes would fit into any future project to provide housing for Palestinians in the densely populated Gaza Strip where high-rise buildings would most likely prove more practical.
About 1.3 million Palestinians live in the impoverished territory, which Israel captured along with the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.
Mr Sharon originally proposed the pullout from Gaza and parts of the West Bank as a unilateral disengagement from conflict with the Palestinians in areas he said Israel had no chance of keeping in any final peace agreement.
Destroying settlers' homes, officials said at the time, would prevent them from falling into the hands of Palestinian militants rushing into areas vacated by the withdrawing Israeli military.
Mr Sharon now aims to co-ordinate the pullout with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate elected on January 9 to succeed the late Yasser Arafat.
However, Vice-Premier Shimon Peres, who advocates leaving the homes intact, has acknowledged that to do so could stir more anger among settlers, whose leaders are co-ordinating an emotional protest campaign against the Gaza pullout.
Israel last evacuated settlements in 1982, leaving behind mounds of rubble from settler homes it demolished in the occupied Sinai peninsula before returning the territory to Egypt under a 1979 peace treaty.
Reuters
Like Parasites the so called Palestinians will take whatever is left and turn it into waste. Sharon and all the Peace mongering monkeys know that the Palesites will come rushing in with Rockets to fire deeper into Israel and with an even great confidence they can win. After all after a few bombings they get freed prisoners and evacuated settlemets. A few more bombings and they will get the whole state of Israel.
Funny to see Sharon labelled a peace monkey. Interesting times.
Because Palestinians don't want to BUY them! They want them to be GIVEN to them and then other Palestinians will say, "Well, you gave them houses so you're obligated to give us houses." Then, Israel gets to build housing projects for any and all Palestinians who follow up on their "right of return".
A good sensible business-like plan, but have you ever tried to do business with these people?
let them stand. they may want to move back someday.
Ping Information Thank you
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Palestinians have been bitching since 1949 that some of their number were driven from their homes in what is now Israel by war.
Let them apply for these spots with full documentation for their previous homes. Might not get all of them housed but should help in the peace negotiations.
Apartments are cheaper than war.
It bothers me that Sharon is more concerned about what to do with the houses than what to do with the settlers. He's worried about where to dispose of the rubble, but not worried about where to dispose of the babies taken away from their mothers.
Cash up front or demolition. There should be no in between. Arabs are the biggest consumers on the planet and the smallest producers. If not for a couple of countries with oil they wouldn't even be able to finance their murder campaigns. Time for them to start paying for what they take for once.
Interestingly there have been a couple of threads indicating the palestinians don't want them. If stable, productive communities were the objective, they wouldn't be expelling the Jews. There's room in Gaza for 8,000 Jews. And if they're "sold" to the palestinians, the US will be paying for them.
NP. Demolish them. Why can't the Saudis buy them? It would be "charitable", would it not?
Hmmm... My teeny, weeny opinion and suggestion is to leave the houses intact in Gaza if they are not physically reinforced. Destroy them if they are.
But finish building the fence, continue to improve the fence from now on, without ceasing.
And BTW, that "suggestion" was from occupational experience with reinforcing and clearing "positions."
Any "right of return" would be the destruction of Israel.
I wouldn't leave them jack. In fact, If forced to leave, I'd leave them the same presents they left in Joseph's tomb and the Church of Nativity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.