Posted on 08/18/2005 4:21:25 PM PDT by Alouette
As Israel struggled Thursday to evacuate the Gush Katif settlements, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it must take further steps.
"Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing," she said in an interview with The New York Times. But, she added, "It cannot be Gaza only."
Rice said this is "really quite a dramatic moment in the history of the Middle East," and praised Sharon for proving himself "enormously courageous."
According to the Times, Rice said that while the withdrawal would take several weeks, Israel must take further steps soon afterward, including loosening travel restrictions in the West Bank and withdrawing from more Palestinian cities.
She also said the Palestinian Authority must disarm Hamas. "That is their obligation under the road map," she said.
Rice's comments prompted Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, a disengagement opponent, to call on Sharon to hold an emergency cabinet discussion on the matter.
"Rice's comments prove there is no basis to the prime minister's statement that there will not be an additional disengagement," he said.
"To my dismay, the unilateral evacuation of settlements from Gaza and northern Samaria creates a dangerous precedent which endangers the legitimacy of Israeli settlement in Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights and neighborhoods in east Jerusalem," Katz said.
But a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office warned against blowing Rice's words "out of proportion."
The official said that whereas some would automatically want to interpret her words as evidence that the US would now begin pressuring Israel to begin a second stage of disengagement, this was not what she said.
He said Rice was interested in seeing the implementation of the security plan put together by her envoy, Lt.-Gen. William Ward, which called for Israel to transfer control of the West Bank cities to the PA, but which Israel halted because of security considerations.
The official said Israel would transfer the cities to the PA when the security situation on the ground would make such a step possible. Furthermore, he repeated the government's well-known position that Israel would move ahead with the road map when the Palestinians fulfilled their obligations under the plan, first and foremost the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure.
Some officials in Jerusalem have warned in recent weeks that once disengagement was complete, the US would once again begin pressuring Israel to remove the unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank. The US backed off of this issue in recent months, so as not to create any additional domestic problems for Sharon as he was gearing up for disengagement.
While Rice said she expected Israel to take further steps immediately, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam that Gaza would serve as a "model," and if the PA dismantled the terrorist infrastructure and "peace and quiet reign in the region, we will be able to move forward and return to the road map."
But, he said in comments published Thursday, "If Gaza turns into a base for shooting missiles at Israel and increasing Palestinian attacks, it will be impossible to move on to another step and take a new risk."
During the interview with the paper, conducted in Shalom's office on Wednesday, he said Israel was now expecting Palestinian "actions," not excuses. He said Israel was focused on the day after disengagement, and waiting to see whether the PA would rise to the occasion and – when it gains control of Gaza – dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and govern responsibly.
Shalom said PA Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's first order of business after disengagement should be to arrest Hamas activists. "Abbas should do this not to protect Israel, but to safeguard his own power," he said.
Shalom's interview with the Kuwaiti paper was one of four interviews he gave key Arabic media outlets over the last two days to signal to the Arab world that the disengagement momentum should be seized upon, and that Israel was serious about peace.
He told the Kuwaiti paper that Gaza would not become a "prison," and that negotiations with the Palestinians regarding border crossings and safe passage were ongoing.
Asked about the long-disrupted peace talks with Syria, and whether Israel would be willing to give up the settlements in the Golan Heights as it did in Gaza, Shalom said: "Every party can come to the negotiation table with the topics they want, and we have to talk about everything."
AP contributed to this report.
I've emailed the President till I am blue in the face....I feel like a ram butting a Dam....but what else can I do
Does Condi have an email address???
Alouette, I just can't get too mad at Secretary Rice for her comments, as tactless as they are.
Prime Minister Sharon created this unilateral disengagement plan and sent his aide Dov Weisglass to Washington to convince the administration that it is the right thing. According to news accounts, the Bush Administration was opposed to the plan. I believe that they finally agreed to throw half-hearted support behind the plan when they understood that Prime Minister Sharon was dead set on moving forward.
But you can't expect the US to let this plan replace the US agenda in Israel, particularly if the administration believes that the plan is misguided and will not result in peace.
It's an ugly situation, any way you slice it.
President Clinton did far worse for Israel than President Bush is doing.
President Clinton endorsed the Oslo process, and even sent James Carville to Israel to campaign for the Labor Party.
He made things very, very difficult for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
He had Yassir Arafat to the White House more than any other foreign leader. He did more to legitimize Yassir Arafat and the PLO than any other administration, including Bush 41.
President Clinton followed the Oslo process, but then got behind it and pushed it forward. President Bush followed Prime Minister Sharon's disengagement plan, but he never was a big fan of it and Secretary Rice is making clear that the Bush administration does not accept it as a means to refocus US policy in Israel. It's not Bush/Rice's fault that Prime Minister Sharon blundered forward blindly with this lame plan.
Well said. This is the kind of crap we used to get from Jimmy Carter and Andrew Young.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
You take Christ's name in vain so flippantly. You have no understanding. This land was given to the people of Israel by the most high God during the days of Abraham. It is sacred ground.
You insult the name of the Son of God and defend cretins like Bush and Rice. You do not understand that Christians and Jews answer to a far higher power than your Bush and your Rice. Away with them. They deserve the same fate as Sharon's gang of traitors.
Was it a terrible disappointment to you when the President became the first American President to actually officially call for a Palestinian state?
"Were you riotously indignant when Hillary called for the same thing, during the Clinton tenure?"
It's immaterial as to indignation when Hillary called for the same thing. That was then, this is now. And it's Bush that is doing it. Condi Rice does speak for the President, and what she is saying nauseates me. It nauseates me because this policy of withdrawal from settlements on land won from Israel's enemies during war, and therefore legitimately theirs, is Bush's policy.
Bush is a globalist like his old man, and he is deep down inside, not pro-Israel, just like his old man who was an Arabist. The old man and James Baker (another big Arabist, and I might add all three of them, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and Baker, are big oil men, and friends of the Saudi royal family) are influencing Bush Jr's policy, I can smell it. The acorn falls close to the tree. I don't trust (and didn't from the start of his term as Prez) Bush Jr on his Israel policy and neither should the Israeli's trust him. He speaks with forked tongue on this issue and wants to create a terrorist state right next to Israel. If he thinks that state will be democratic, he is delusional. Forty-nine percent of Pali's are under the age of fifteen. Prime Jihad age, as it's primarily their young who are fanatical and irrational (although most of them are irrational, now that I think about it).
I hope Sharon loses to Netanyahu, whom at least has seen the light, unlike Ariel. And I hope this happens soon, before Sharon, whom seems to be smitten by Bush Jr, causes more harm to the State of Israel, in conjunction with Bush. Otherwise, Israel may be doomed, with only the nuclear option card to play when the situation becomes totally untenable.
So when is this part supposed to happen exactly? Before or after they follow through with the previous promise of putting the state of Israel on their maps?
I am sick as I listen to the Israel National Radio. I cannot believe my own government and my own president have taken part in the betrayal of God's people. The rabbi's are ripping their garments as in the days of Biblical travail.
This reminds me of a cross between the Elian Gonzalez raid and the Sudeten crisis of 1938. Soldiers and lies. I listened to Michael Medved today spouting the same arguments that the defenders of Hitler used before World War 2. "Why govern 1 million people who hate your guts?" He said this over and over. Hitler used the Sudeten Germans as a trojan horse within Czechoslovakia in similar fashion.
I am so sick and appalled. I am ashamed of this foolish president and his foolish secretary of state.
Although I opposed and continue to oppose the Road Map, at least it required the Palestinian Arabs to crack down on terrorism before Israel was required to take action.
As your post demonstrates, while the US was pushing forward with the Road Map, Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally invented this Gaza "disengagement" and reluctantly got President Bush and Secretary Rice behind it. It was not required by the Road Map and, indeed, was inconsistent with the Road Map since it did not require Palestinian Arab actions against terrorism.
My sentiments, exactly.
ML/NJ
She's twisted and your just plain ignorant.
You might want to check this out:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45845
I am so disappointed in Bush, et al, about this.
No wonder his approval rating is falling. I am simply speechless.
And although anything democrat is far worse, I expected greatness from this man, Bush.
The only thing I can think and hope is that once the PA moves into Gaza and turns it into a terror factory, Sharon can squash them like bugs and spare the settlers from what he must do.
God bless Israel!
Forced Israel ? I thought that majority of Israelis and their government support this pull out.
"The land extends from the sea on the west to the west bank of the Euphrates."
wow
Thanks.
I first came across the piece while reading a book by Alan B Jones who's done some fine writing in his own right.
Caldwell's essay The Middle Class Must Not Fail is also available on line. Feel free to direct all interested parties to it.
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.