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Last laugh? Left-wingers say Sharon is giving up Gaza just so he can consolidate Israel's hold on Judea and Samaria (AP photo)
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| By Jerusalem Newswire February 25, 2005 |
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Radical leftist leader Yossi Beilin Friday said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" plan was a carefully crafted scheme to surrender a lesser asset in order to strengthen Israel's hold over something greater.
Beilin's accusation came in response to a report that, while plans to withdraw from the Gaza Strip are moving ahead, the government is set to approve thousands of new homes in "West Bank" settlements and may retroactively legitimize some 120 "illegal" outposts.
Labor ministers and settler leaders later said the report was inaccurate.
The incident, however, highlighted Sharon's continued belief that quitting Gaza would elicit US support for annexing large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria.
Former Sharon allies, meanwhile, said they believe the prime minister had simply gone mad, and that even if his retreat were some kind of clever ruse, it would nonetheless set a dangerous precedent that would threaten the future of the Jewish state.
Quit Gaza, tighten grip on Samaria
Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported Friday that the Sharon government was planning a construction boom in Judea and Samaria that included legitimizing some 120 "illegal" outposts.
Those outposts have been a source of tension between Jerusalem and Washington, and the Bush administration insists Israel remove them.
The reported plan would see thousands of new homes added to Jewish settlements, especially those in the Jerusalem area.
Labor minister: Inaccurate report
Housing Minister Yitzhak Herzog of the leftist Labor Party responded to the report with surprise. "I have no intention to authorize illegal outposts in my ministry," he said.
The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) also said that, unfortunately, the report was inaccurate. "If only that were the case," Arutz 7 quoted from a statement released by the council.
"For several months already building plans in all communities have been frozen. Not one neighborhood, even within current municipal boundaries, has been approved and no agreement has been reached on this matter," the statement continued.
Beilin: Sharon unmasked
Regardless of the report's veracity, the entire affair unmasked Sharon's true motivation for surrendering the Gaza Strip, Beilin accused.
The leader of the ultra-leftist Yahad Party said Sharon was only abandoning Gaza in order to reinforce Israel's hold on Judea and Samaria, the nation's biblical heartland.
It was never a secret
Sharon has in fact made no secret of his desire to utilize the political capital he thinks Israel will gain by quitting Gaza to one day annex large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria.
The prime minister continues to believe US President George W. Bush will support him in this endeavor.
Just last week, Sharon again asserted that Israel had not "made compromise or concessions without getting anything in return."
"In the agreement between Bush and myself we [received] tremendous achievements that Israel never had since its establishment," the prime minister was quoted as saying in his annual address to the foreign press corps.
Following up on Sharon's comments, David Bedein of Israel Resource News Agency queried the US Embassy in Tel Aviv over the prime minister's declaration that "the government of Israel has reached an agreement with the US government to allow settlement blocs to remain in Judea and Samaria."
When asked if the US government could confirm such an agreement, US Embassy press attaché Paul Patin firmly answered, "No."
A dangerous precedent
Even if the "disengagement" plan is some kind of clever ruse, it is setting a dangerous precedent that will result in a wave of pressure that even the great general may not be able to withstand, former Sharon aide Ra'anan Levy wrote this week.
Levy explained that the planned withdrawal "is sending the world the worst message: 'We are fixing an old misconduct. We are giving the Palestinians what is theirs and we are taking out our own people who settled on Arab territory.'"
And the world's reaction to the pullout, Levy notes, will be to "simply say, 'Well, nice step in the right direction. But what about the rest of the 250,000 Jews who live illegally on Arab land taken in 1967? When will you start moving them out?'"
Sharon "will further harm the Jewish claim of historic rights to the land, and he will cement even further the international claim that only Jews moving in one direction, over the rubble of their own homes, can be the foundation for peace."
At any rate, the former advisor on World Jewish Affairs pointed out, the conflict is "not some argument about this settlement or that valley -- but a clash of cultures."
"The Zionist cause as a whole, the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, is the core of the Israeli-Arab conflict," Levy clarified for friends and supporters.
"This is what people must understand in order to be able to talk about this conflict."
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