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Peace Process

'Gaza first won't be Gaza last' ? Peres


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
May 31, 2005

Vice Premier Shimon Peres Monday kicked off his Labor Party leadership reelection campaign by reminding Israelis that the upcoming retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria would not be the last withdrawal in the name of ?peace.?

?We must tell the truth: the disengagement plan is just the start,? Peres said at the opening of a Labor Party convention at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds.

?Gaza first will not be Gaza last. We have to continue the peace process or we will lose the fruits of disengagement,? the leftist leader said.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly told Israelis there would be no more major uprooting of Jewish settlers, and that quitting Gaza and northern Samaria would in fact strengthen Israel's hold over other settlement blocs, while reducing international pressure.

But the man Sharon insists has guaranteed his premise for retreat, US President George W. Bush, indicated last week that Peres's take on the situation was more realistic.

To the shock of most Israelis, Bush told reporters following his meeting with PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas Thursday that any final status changes to the 1949 Armistice lines would have to be mutually agreed upon.

Analysts noted the apparent shift in US policy, with Bush in essence saying that continued Israeli control over Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Katif and even eastern Jerusalem (including the Old City) required the approval of the PLO.

Naturally, no one in Israel expects the ?Palestinians? to relinquish their claims to these areas, therefore destroying Sharon's stated premise for retreat, explained longtime Israeli Foreign Service official Yossi Ben-Aharon.

Bush's statement ?emptied of all content that which Sharon has bragged about the US recognizing for the first time - Israel's right to annex settlement blocs,? Ben-Aharon said in an interview with Arutz 7.

Former-Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently told Ha'aretz, ?A campaign is under way here whose gist is to mislead the nation about substantive issues in order to prevent it from asking what the quid pro quo for the disengagement is.?

?Sharon?s claim that he made painful decisions in Gaza and in return obtained an unprecedented achievement in Judea and Samaria is not correct,? Barak said.

Barak explained that Washington does not support any Jewish settlements, including Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem, because its primary focus brokering a peace agreement, and the Bush Administration knows the Arabs won't sign a final status treaty before all of Judea and Samaria are ethnically cleansed of Jews.

?Sharon is not telling the people the truth. He is treating us all as though we are infantile and incapable of debating our own fate.?

Barak said in the interview that after regaining control of the government, his Labor Party would use Sharon's policies as a precedent for more sweeping withdrawals.

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