- The Palestinian has not yet been born who will oppose
evacuation of settlements. This is the essence of the remarks made by many
Palestinian spokesmen at the end of last weekend's Feast of the Sacrifice
when the Palestinian media initially reported Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
plan to evacuate most settlements in the Gaza Strip. However, there is
also no Palestinian who thinks that Sharon has articulated his plan in
order to conciliate the Palestinians, or that this is an attempt on his
part to improve relations between the State of Israel and the Palestinian
Authority.
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- Many people, particularly from extremist opposition circles
and leftist fronts, believe Sharon's plan is clearly due to the crisis
in his government as a result of the intifada and continued Palestinian
resistance to Israeli occupation. Among those who spoke in this spirit
were Said Siyam of Hamas, Sheikh Nafez Azam of Islamic Jihad, Sallah Zaidan
of the Democratic Front, and Yihyeh Ralban of the Popular Front. Their
conclusion is that the struggle is succeeding and should be continued to
further weaken the Israeli regime. It was hard to find any signs of joy
in their remarks, but there was definitely satisfaction with what appears
to them as the beginning of Israel's folding.
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- In contrast, most reactions by the top echelons of the
Palestinian regime differed greatly. Nearly all of them viewed the plan
as a sophisticated maneuver by Sharon to win over the American administration
prior to his upcoming trip to Washington. In a cartoon in the newspaper
Al Quds on Friday, Sharon is seen dragging with his feet the Gaza Strip
Jewish settlements that he is going to evacuate, while with his right hand
he is energetically building West Bank Jewish settlements. This, according
to most Palestinian commentators, is the essence of the deal Sharon is
now offering. He will tell U.S. President George W. Bush: I am evacuating
the settlements in Gaza and asking in return U.S. support for construction
of the separation fence and strengthening of the West Bank Jewish settlements
that will become a part of Israel through the disengagement plan. The editor
of The Jerusalem Times, Hanna Siniora, believes this is a clear attempt
by Sharon to bargain with the Americans on the precedent of Menachem Begin's
agreement to evacuate Israeli settlements in Yamit in return for (at least
tacit) U.S. support over the strengthening of Israeli settlements in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
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- What will transpire when Israel evacuates the settlements
in Gaza? The head of the international relations and diplomacy department
at Al Quds University, Mounzer Dajani, said Saturday that the Israeli withdrawal
will lead to huge chaos in the Gaza Strip. The heads of the various security
branches who are vying with one another for positions of power in the Gaza
Strip will embark on a violent struggle to take up the post abandoned by
the Israel Defense Forces and Jewish settlers. "Ariel Sharon knows
this, and is even interested in this, so that he will be able to say: Look
at who the Palestinians are - there's nothing to talk about with them,"
he wrote.
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- Further support for Dajani's statements could be found
in Thursday's shooting incident at the Gaza headquarters of Razi Jabali,
the supreme commander of the police in Gaza. Jabali's people said the incident
was an assassination attempt made by members of the Preventive Security
organization. The shooting lasted for half an hour and led to the death
of one policeman and the wounding of 11 other policemen and security personnel.
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- Regardless of Palestinian reactions and assessments,
it is possible to implement the evacuation plan without any connection
to the separation fence and Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Moreover,
it does not appear that there will be serious problems in reaching an agreement
with the Palestinian Authority on evacuating the settlements and transfering
them in an orderly fashion to the Palestinian administration. If there
is such an agreement, the PA's status vis-a-vis Hamas in Gaza could be
somewhat strengthened. And the opposite also holds true: Without an agreement,
Gaza will continue to sink into the chaos from which only Jihad and Hamas
will benefit. Who knows what interests Sharon in this context? Strengthening
the PA, or eliminating it?
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