Sharon's Disengagement Plan

- Azmi Bishara: Q & A on Disengagement Plan
  http://www.azmibishara.info/news/nd_20041027.html
  http://al-awda.org/azmibisharaqaondisengagementplan/
- Israel's Gaza ''Disengagement'' Plan; June 14, 2004
  PLO Negotiations Affairs Department

  http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=4000&CategoryId=4

 

Recent

- Iman al-Hams: Executing Another Child in Rafah

  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20041028064233328

  http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=5373&CategoryId=14

10/18/04

U.S. Presbyterian Church mulls economic pressure on Israel

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=490384&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Last Update: 19/10/2004 00:51

U.S. Presbyterian Church mulls economic pressure on Israel

By The Associated Press

DAMASCUS, Syria - The head of a visiting U.S. Presbyterian Church
delegation called on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian
territories and said Monday that his church is studying the possibility of
withholding investments to increase pressure on Israel.

The occupation by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza must end because it is
oppressive and destructive for the Palestinian people," the Rev. Nile
Harper said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He criticized as "unhelpful" the barrier Israel is building in the West
Bank to prevent Palestinian suicide bombings.

Harper, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, warned that the General Assembly of his
church, whose investments in U.S. firms total $8 billion, had instructed
its investment agency to study the possibility of withdrawing its money
from U.S. corporations whose products "are being destructively used against
the Palestinians" by Israel.

The 24-member delegation traveled to Lebanon on Sunday and met with the
south Lebanon commander of Hezbollah, a group Washington calls terrorist
but Lebanon sees as a legitimate resistance movement against Israeli
occupation of Arab lands.

On Monday, they traveled to Syria, where they met with the minister of
expatriates. They were scheduled to meet with President Bashar Assad on
Tuesday, and travel to Jordan on Wednesday.

The meeting will aim to gauge the Syrian president's views on Syria's
relationship with the United States, said the delegation's coordinator,
Peter Sulyok.

"We are interested in peace and justice for Palestinians as well as in the
relationship between Syria and Lebanon and Syria and Israel," Sulyok said.
"We will be looking to see what new initiatives there might be, what
possibilities there might be for peace."

Syria and Lebanon have rejected demands by the UN Security Council that
Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon. The issue has created new tensions
between Washington and Damascus, and the United States and France are
trying to get the Security Council to repeat the demands.

-----------------
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Al Geiersbach
An AMERICAN for AMERICA
Tell President George Busharon this is the
"USA" not the "USI"
Milwaukee WI
USA

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Azmi Bishara: Q & A on Disengagement Plan

Questions and Answers about Sharon's Disengagement Plan
http://www.azmibishara.info/news/nd_20041027.html
http://al-awda.org/azmibisharaqaondisengagementplan/

What is your position with regards to Sharon's Disengagement plan?

Sharon's disengagement plan is part of a comprehensive political plan aimed
at continuing the status quo of occupation under conditions more favorable
to Israel. The dismantling of Gaza settlements and what is called the
unilateral disengagement plan is one step in a larger project aimed at the
wholesale freezing of the peace process and putting it on the back burner
until Israel finishes imposing its unilateral plan on the ground.  In
particular Israel aims to expand and secure settlements in the West Bank,
and to consolidate the occupation of parts of the west bank. The logic of
the plan is twofold a. a political solution of the conflict is an
impossibility. b. the use of military force is vital and instrumental for
breaking the will of the Palestinian people. Until then Israel should
implement unilateral disengagement from problematic areas that Israel does
not want to annex anyway.

We oppose this plan because it is not intended to make a step towards the
reaching of a final settlement but rather it is an alternative to one.
Moreover, it is an alternative that is favorable to Israel, making it
possible to delay a final settlement by decades, as its designers state
publicly.  The National Democratic Assembly has made this position clear a
number of times, among them by way of the comprehensive report published in
April 2004 under the title of "Questions and Answers about the Bush-Sharon
Agreement."

Isn't it important that the Gaza settlements be dismantled and that Israel
pull out of the Gaza Strip?

The Israeli news media focuses on the dismantling of settlements in Gaza
when it has been proven that this is in Sharons interests globally and
regionally.  However, this is not the most important clause of the Sharon
plan.  The plan also includes fortification of settlements in the West Bank
and the incorporation of a large settlement block and a great deal of land
from the West Bank into Israel.  Quoting from the third cause in the first
section of the plan:  "It is clear that various regions in the West Bank
will remain part of Israel.  Israel will annex the central Jewish settlement
blocs, towns, security areas, and other lands which Israel has an interest
in keeping." For the first time since the annexation of East Jerusalem, the
Knesset will approve in law the annexation of parts of Palestinian occupied
lands into Israel.

Likewise, the plan does not constitute a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip.  Rather, one kind of domination will take the place of an older one.
It will be a re-distribution of occupation forces such that the Gaza Strip
will be transformed into a huge detention camp, under siege from all sides.
This is the practical meaning of the third section of Sharon's plan:
"Israel will honor and guard the external land borders, and will have
complete control over the airspace of Gaza.  Israel will also continue its
military activities on the coast of the Gaza Strip." As stipulated in the
plan, Israeli forces will maintain control over the Philadelphi road, along
the border of the Gaza Strip with Egypt, and Israel will maintain the right
to widen the security zone in this area when it chooses to do so.

But won't the people of Gaza enjoy an end to invasions, attacks, killings,
and acts of demolition?

The separation plan itself includes the idea that Israel will continue
military invasions inside Gaza.  The third part of the plan states that
Israel will have the right to continue these military operations under the
title of self defense: "among them are the taking of pre-emptive and
reactive steps to use force against threats posed from within the Gaza
Strip."  This means that killing operations, assassinations, and demolition
will continue after the implementation of the separation plan. This is in
harmony with Sharon's intentions in leaving burned land behind in Gaza, and
with the goal of continuing to destroy the Palestinian national movement,
which is Sharons historical goal since the Lebanese invasion.  Likewise, it
is clear that Israel is not pulling out of the Gaza Strip out of weakness.
Sharon is trying to secure Israeli omnipotence by way of killings,
assassinations, and demolition.

The case of Gaza is not a case of unilateral withdrawal yet, it is still an
Israeli redeployment of forces. Unlike the case of the withdrawal from
Lebanon one sovereignty  is not replacing another.

Why is Sharon in a hurry to dismantle Gazan settlements and to pull his army
out of the inside of the Gaza Strip?

In order to present an alternative to the political stagnation under
conditions of protracted Israel aggression in Gaza without accepting a just
solution. The overwhelming majority of Israeli society and its decision
makers want to be done with the Gaza Strip, which has constituted a serious
security and demographic burden on Israel.  There are only seven thousand
settlers in an ocean of more than one million Palestinians, and there is no
future for this settlement project from the Israeli perspective.  However,
Sharon has tried to steal international political gains for its withdrawal,
which also includes plans for strengthening settlements in the West Bank in
exchange for what is called disengagement from Gaza.

Isn't the dismantling of settlements an important precedent to set?

The evacuation of Gaza settlements does not establish a precedent.  Sharon
has dismantled the Sinai settlements in the past, and planted much more of
them in the West Bank since then.  His current plan includes in no uncertain
terms the strengthening, and not the dismantling, of settlements in the West
Bank, in exchange for the evacuation of Gaza settlements.

What about the Bush-Sharon agreement?

The letters exchanged between Sharon and Bush in April 2004 have become an
integral part of the plan.  Israel has obtained from the United States
funding for the plan.  The United States has supported the erasure of the
right of return and the annexation of settlement blocs into Israel.  The
United States has also committed itself to the consolidation of the state of
Israel as a Jewish state.  Whoever supports the Sharon plan also supports
this consolidation.

What is the relationship between the disengagement plan and the peace
process?

Sharon's disengagement plan is not part of the peace process, but rather is
part of a long process of establishing a security framework that aims to
make occupation of parts of the west bank more sustainable.   The only
relationship these letters have with the peace process is a negative one.
As Sharon's advisor Dov Weisglass said clearly in an interview with
Ha'aretz, the plan is intended to freeze the peace process and to cut off
the path to a national initiative.  Weisglass considered the greatest
accomplishment of the plan to be the placing of the political process and
the question of a Palestine state on the sidelines for a long time.

To put it in short,

The plan is one package containing the dismantling of settlements in Gaza
and four in the northern part of the West Bank, but in exchange for this,
the plan:  (1) is intended to freeze the peace process and prevent the
establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza; (2)
stipulates the fortification of settlements in the West Bank; (3) includes a
plan for annexing settlement blocs and large swaths of land from the West
Bank into Israel; (4) secures the siege of the Gaza Strip by land, sea, and
air, and preserves Israels right to continue invasions and attacks in Gaza;
(5) includes the Bush-Sharon correspondence which negates the right of
return, certifies that Israel will remain a Jewish state, and acknowledges
that settlement blocs will be annexed to Israel.

A package of this kind is unsupportable, and must be rejected. We decided to
reject and to abstain in the vote in the  Knesset because we wanted to
distinguish our opposition from that of the far right.

Jerusalem. October 27, 2004.

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