- (AFP) -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dropped a new bombshell
with plans to swap control of Arab Israeli towns in exchange for West Bank
settlements after his shock proposal to evacuate all settlers from Gaza.
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- And he warned in the face of a threat by an extreme right-wing
minister to resign that he was prepared to form a new government to see
his plans through.
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- "Mr Sharon envisages territorial exchanges with
the Palestinians as part of future permanent arrangements, under which
Arab Israeli localities would pass under the sovereignty of the latter,
while Jewish settlements (in the West Bank) would be integrated into Israeli
territory," a spokesman for Sharon told AFP.
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- The comments came as members of Sharon's government digested
his announcement on Tuesday that all Jews would be pulled out of Gaza,
a move which the premier said was vital to the survival of Israel.
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- Speaking on a visit to the southern city of Ashkelon
on Tuesday, Sharon said evacuations would be "without doubt painful."
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- "But I have come to the conclusion that it is necessary
to proceed with this step to assure the security of the state of Israel,"
he said.
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- "I have taken this decision and I intend to apply
it."
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- Settlers' leaders in Gaza threatened to try to bring
down Sharon's coalition government after he revealed the plans to dismantle
settlements in Gaza that are home to 7,500 Jews.
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- Sharon, who was long regarded as the settlers' champion,
said that he needed to "look ahead, not backwards" and was prepared
for any confrontation with his traditional right-wing supporters.
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- But Eran Sternberg, official spokesman of the Gush Khatif
regional council of settlements in southern Gaza, said they would defy
Sharon by any legal means possible.
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- "We will implement the most extremist things we
can within the limits of the law," he told AFP.
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- Sternberg said that the settlers' struggle to save their
homes in Gaza was comparable to the fight for civil rights by black Americans
in the deep south.
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- If a law to enforce the evacuations was passed, "maybe
it would be legal but it would be immoral", he said.
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- Palestinian residents in Gaza also voiced scepticism
about whether Sharon would deliver on his pledges.
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- "It's a political game to appease public opinion.
Sharon won't leave Gaza nor an inch of Palestinian land," said Awni
Abu Shahen, a farmer living close to the settlement of Kfar Darom in central
Gaza.
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- Sharon's number two Ehud Olmert refused to put a timetable
on the Gaza pullout but said it was becoming inevitable that Israel implement
its own unilateral measures amid the continuing impasse in the roadmap
peace plan agreed with the Palestinians.
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- "There's a growing realisation in Israel and among
Israel's friends ... that it (the roadmap) does not move forward and something
has to be done," he told an audience of journalists and diplomats.
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- "My personal assessment is that some time around
June or July this will become the unavoidable reality.
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- "To say by the end of the year that there will be
no Jews in Gaza is too far at this point but we will have to start the
process of unilateral moves by June or July."
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- Olmert was convinced that the pullout would win backing
of a majority in parliament and the cabinet, but admitted that some coalition
partners could quit.
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- "If some of them (the coalition partners) may not
be happy and might reach the conclusions, that they have already, that
they will the leave the coalition ... there's always room in the cabinet
for more partners or new partners."
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- Infrastructure Minister Effi Eitam, whose hard-right
National Religious Party is one of the junior coalition partners, threatened
to quit the government Tuesday over Sharon's proposals.
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- "If Mr Sharon goes to Washington in the next few
weeks to present this programme of dismantling Jewish communities in Gaza
or even part of this programme, our departure from government would only
be a question of time," he told public radio.
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- But Sharon retorted in an interview with the Maariv daily
that if ministers "make the mistake of leaving the government, I will
have to form another coalition, because there is a country that must be
governed."
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- An opinion poll published in the Yediot Aharonot daily
showed 59 percent support for the Gaza pullout, against 37 percent opposed
to the move.
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