Posted on 08/10/2005 6:23:01 AM PDT by Esther Ruth
Sharon admits that American pressure determines retreat policy By David Bedein August 9, 2005
The U.S. Department has made it clear to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: It wants the Jews out of the Katif district of Gaza by August 15th, with no delays or excuses.
The Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, came to Jerusalem and pleaded with Sharon to reconsider his plan to retreat from Katif, which involves Israel's obliteration of the 21 Jewish communities there, including 325 thriving Israeli farms and 86 synagogues and Jewish study centers
Sharon's answer to Rabbi Cohen: "This is what the U.S. State Department is demanding that I do, and I must do it."
It does not matter that half of the 9000 Jews who live in Katif have nowhere to go, their relocation plans still left up in the air by the poor planning of the government.
It does not matter that the Israeli government cannot offer more than two containers to each family to remove their possessions.
(Excerpt) Read more at web.israelinsider.com ...
It does not seem to matter that the experts in Israel's security establishment are warning that the result of Israel's hasty retreat will be the creation of a new Islamic terror base.
Sharon is now making it clear that he is under pressure from the U.S. government, and that is that.
Yet one of the common assumptions over the past two years is that The Sharon government's plan to expel Jews from Gaza and the Northern Samaria and unilaterally hand the area over to an independent Palestinian entity had been an entirely autonomous Israeli decision.
Yet it can now be determined that the US government was behind it all along.
In meetings with concerned American citizens, Danny Ayalon, Israeli ambassador to the U.S, clearly states that Sharon's disengagement plan is part of an overall Israeli-American agreement.
In late June, Ayalon met with representatives of the Orthodox Union, one of the largest contingents of United States Orthodox Jews, and told them clearly that "Prime Minister Sharon is left with no choice. He is doing exactly what the U.S. expects him to do."
In an interview with the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles published on June 22nd, 2005, Ayalon reversed earlier Israeli government statements, saying that Israel does not expect the Palestinian Authority (PA) to dismantle terrorist infrastructure until after the planned expulsion. Ending terrorism and anti-Israel incitement, he acknowledged, had been conditions Israel had demanded from the PA before carrying out the plan. However, Ayalon indicated that the agreement with the U.S. was more important than an agreement with the PA.
Furthermore, the Israeli ambassador asserted that "Disengagement has to be viewed in the context of Israel-United States relations. "This pullout did not follow an agreement with the Palestinians, but it followed something which is much more important, an agreement with the United States. Disengagement is something that creates a common agenda between us and the United States."
When asked how much the withdrawal depends on the Arabs, since the Israeli agreement is with Washington, Ayalon altered previous Israeli government demands that the PA control terrorism before the pullout.
This week's sudden announcement of the resignation of Israel Finance Minister Netanyahu was aimed at the US State Department more than the Israeli public.
In the final interview given by Netanyahu to the Jerusalem Post on August 5th, 2005, two days before his resignation, he indicated that the current policy pursued by the government of Israel should be perceived as a threat to the security interests of the U.S. and of all western countries, since it creates a terror base in Gaza, since the Palestinian Authority has incorporated Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations instead of dismantling them.
Yet despite this, the position of the U.S. State Department remains unchanged: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon must dismantle and withdraw any and all Israeli presence from every community in the Katif district of Gaza by mid-August.
Sources in the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. government confirm that the U.S. now urges that Palestinian armed forces be immediately moved into these Jewish communities in mid-August, as Israel forcibly removes Israeli Jewish citizens, some of whom have lived there for more than thirty years. That could mean that the Palestinian Authority armed forces will be allowed to pursue and punish any Jews who cling to their property as the Israeli army is retreating.
U.S. Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice also demands that Israel find a way to assure Palestinian Arabs some kind of safe passage that will enable Palestinian residents of Gaza to traverse Israel to reach their compatriots in the other parts of the PA-ruled areas in Judea and Samaria.
Rice is also demanding that Israel allow additional arms and ammunition to flow to the Palestinian Authority, ignoring the fact that the arms and ammunition supplied to the PA between 1993 and 2000 were turned against Israeli citizens since the fall of 2000, with a human toll of 1,073 people murdered by Arab terrorists.
And when special U.S. presidential envoy, General William Ward, was asked two weeks ago by the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee if the U.S. could account for the weapons that it had supplied to the Palestinian Authority in the mid-nineties, Ward's answer was in the negative. He would look into it.
Rice seems to not know or nor care that the Palestinian Authority and its ruling Fatah organization remain at war with the state of Israel, with one purpose in mind: the liberation of Palestine, from the Jordan River until the Mediterranean Sea.
When Israel Minister of Defence Shaul Mofaz objected to Rice's demand for a safe passage for Palestinian Arab residents from Gaza to the West Bank, sources at the Israel Ministry of Defence confirmed to the media that a screaming fit ensued, with the U.S. Secretary of State clarifying that she will not accept "no" for an answer in this regard.
Another recently resigned Israel government minister, Natan Sharansky, confirms that the motivating factor for Sharon's retreat remains the pressure that the Prime Minister is under from the American and European governments.
Sharansky wonders why it is that the world's democracies, led by the United States of America, are so keen to witness the creation of a new anti-democratic and anti-western and anti-American Islamic state in the Middle East.
Questions to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv as to why the U.S. State Department would push Sharon in this direction have remain unanswered.
Israeli government officials do report that they are inundated with calls and e-mails from thousands of American Jews and Christians who question the judgment of Israel's Prime Minister in regards to the inherent dangers of his disengagement policy.
The time has come to ask the question: Why do U.S. citizens not challenge the pressures that the U.S. State Department brings against Israel in this regard?
If the U.S. State Department relents on its pressure against the government of Israel, Israel will reconsider its plans for a hasty retreat from the Jewish communities of Gaza and Samaria.
The ball lies with the citizens and the Congress of the United States of America. Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider
Is it possible that it's part of a strategy to get all the terrorists to gather in one place? Flypaper again?
I agree with you. This whole thing has Bush Strategery written all over it. U.S. State Dept. wants Israel to go ahead with its part of the peace plan and if Palestine doesn't follow suit, which it won't, Buh-Bye!
Any objective analysis of the situation in Gaza would indicate that Israel couldn't possibly keep those settlements there, and the folks in the Israeli government who have pushed this Gaza withdrawal forward are no fools.
Because most U.S. citizens really don't give a damn about Gaza one way or another. It's hardly a pressing issue for the vast majority of people in the United States.
Sharon can go straight to Sheol.
More likely it is what it appears to be. A sell out of Israel by the Bush Administration. I do not understand this President...If Iraq forms an Islamic Republic with their new constitution, terrorists will have two new bases to work out of that they did not have prior to 2000. Our enemy will see this for what it is...a blink on our part. Appeasement thy name is the U.S. State Dept. George Bush is no Conservative and him mouthing platitudes about Jesus Christ doesn't make him one either. I have voted straight ticket Republican since Nixon's first run and after 36 years I am thinking that a no vote in the next election is still a vote...for none of the above.
I would be interested in your thoughts on this article.
That is that. What do you expect him to do - defy the United States? In the real world, power rules. That's why it's called power.
He would better have been served sending the IDF to protect those 325 farms and let them feed the people and to tell Rice to go scream at someone who is not a sovereign nation.
Israel cannot need 4 bill annually from the US so badly as to sell its soul this way. If it does it needs to wean itself and fast.
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Sharon hiding behind Condi's skirt
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1460065/posts
Pray! 10 am Central
I would say the time for "pre" conditions have passed. The question now becomes will they EVER be required to dismantle terrorist infrastructure. I would bet my retirement savings that the answer to that is "no", unless Israel dismantles it for them.
Every Administration seems to favor the Palestinian side. I don't understand. Israel and the U.S. have a common enemy in the jihadists and a retreat from anywhere for any reason will only embolden our enemies, who will rightly perceive this as a victory for their cause...a cause which they do not hesitate to say is the extermination of Israel.
imo a truly unilateral separation makes sense.
Israel should rout em...and send the survivors packing to any Islamic State they can make it to. I know the problem is much more complex then that but it seems to me that this action by Israel is not a positive step in our worldwide war on terror. What am I missing?
That was the underlying premise of unilateral separation, the fact that there is no "peace partner", and given the educational and social conditions, one isn't likely to emerge for decades.
If they don't dismantle and disarm the terror groups and stop incitement, the road map hasn't begun.
Then there's the palestinian position, that after the withdrawal you go to final negotiations. We'll see which side the administration comes down on. My guess, they turn a blind eye to palestinian non compliance and push for negotiations.
Simple, Arab positions are non-negotiable and Israel can be pressured.
yup.
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