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David Bedein is the Bureau Chief for in Jerusalem - IsraelBehindTheNews.com (the Center for Near East Policy Research in Wellesley, Massachusetts).
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By David Bedein
February 16, 2005
In a generation of fast sound bytes and instant news, neither proponents nor opponents know what the Sharon Plan is all about.
It is hard to find anyone who has read the plan.
What I have found from covering of the Knesset is that most MKs, reporters who cover the Knesset and even Israeli government ministers have not read the Sharon Plan.
Instead, people throughout Israel and throughout the world assume that the Sharon plan only concerns whether Israelis should continue to live in the Katif district of Gaza and some seemingly distant Jewish communities in Northern Samaria.
Hence the term "disengagement" plan.
However, if anyone had bothered to READ The Disengagement Plan on the official website of the Prime Minister's Office, the reality of the Sharon Plan would appear in an entirely different light.
While the Sharon Plan is presented as a "disengagement plan," it does anything but that. Despite the premise in Clause One that there is no Palestinian peace partner, the Sharon Plan involves a PLO empowerment process.
14 clauses of the Sharon Plan strengthen every aspect of the PLO to belie Clause One that that there is "no reliable Palestinian partner."
While the premise of the Sharon Plan mandates that the Gaza Strip "be demilitarized and shall be devoid of weaponry", the Sharon Plan provides "advice, assistance and training" to "the Palestinian security forces by American, British, Egyptian, Jordanian or other experts, as agreed with Israel."
The Sharon Plan ignores how military training of the PLO facilitated by Israel and the western democracies was abused to conduct a terror campaign against Israel in every part of the country for the past four years.
The Sharon Plan goes on to say that "Israel will be willing to consider the possibility of the establishment of a seaport and airport in the Gaza Strip, in accordance with arrangements to be agreed with Israel."
The Sharon plan obligates Israel to "provide water pipes, electricity, industrial zones, markets, employment and an industrial zone to sustain the Palestinian Arab economy of Gaza"?
The Sharon Plan mandates that "other existing arrangements, such as those relating to water and the electro-magnetic sphere shall remain in force" while "economic arrangements currently in operation between Israel and the Palestinians shall, in the meantime, remain in force."
According to the Sharon Plan, these arrangements will include:
1. The entry of workers into Israel in accordance with the existing criteria.
2. The entry and exit of goods between the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel and abroad.
3. The monetary regime.
4. Tax and customs envelope arrangements.
5. Postal and telecommunications arrangements.
Finally, the Sharon Plan envisions international support for the PLO, " to bring the Palestinians to implement in practice their obligations to combat terrorism and effect reforms, thus enabling the parties to return to the path of negotiation."
And if the PLO does not "implement in practice their obligations to combat terrorism"?
The Sharon Plan does not address that possibility.
The Sharon Plan does not provide even include a minimal demand that the PLO not endorse the cold-blooded murder of Jews on official media outlets of the PLO..
The way in which the official media of Palestinian Authority praised the October 26th 2004 Knesset approval of the Sharon Plan is indicative.
In the words of Nabil Shaath, "May this be only one step in the liberation of all of Palestine." Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Moshir Al-Masri declared that "the Knesset vote proves that the Hamas has forced the Zionist enemy to retreat."
Since no one bothered to read the Sharon Plan, spin masters were left in charge, to sell it as a "disengagement from Gaza" program.
Ariel Sharon knows that the very mention of the word "withdrawal from Gaza" makes him very popular.
Meanwhile, opponents of the Sharon Plan fall right into the trap that Ariel Sharon has laid for the them, and scream loudly against "the Sharon Disengagement Plan from Gaza", and earn the enmity of Israeli public opinion.
What the opposition to Sharon should be doing is to educate the population of Israel as to the inherent dangers of the "PLO EMPOWERMENT PLAN" to every citizen of Israel.
"Disengagement"? Gee, it sounds so good.
Imagine if Ariel Sharon had tried to sell his plan for what it really is: Engaging with and empowering the PLO.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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