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Inside Israel

Tense cabinet meeting follows expulsions


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
August 21, 2005

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet met Sunday to approve the final phase of the forced expulsion of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria, but the Israeli leader did not escape without some harsh criticism from his fellow Likud ministers.

During the meeting, Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz briefed the cabinet on what he called PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas' exemplary efforts to ensure a quiet and smooth withdrawal.

Health Minister and disengagement opponent Danny Naveh shot back, asking Sharon's unelected defense minister if he had even bothered listening to Abbas' latest public remarks.

Abbas at the weekend told high school students in Gaza that the ?smaller jihad of freeing [Gaza] had ended, and big jihad of building our homeland? - a reference to all Israel ? has begun.

The Palestinian Arabs will settle for nothing less than a Jew-free ?West Bank,? and the right to flood Israel with millions of so-called ?refugees,? insisted Abbas.

Naveh also slammed the government over its apparent failure to remember that Abbas continues to shirk the PLO's decade-old unfulfilled peace obligation to disarm terrorist groups such as Hamas.

Agriculture Minister Israel Katz took issue with the fact many Jewish refugees from Gaza have been left without housing solutions.

?To say that there is a solution for every evacuee is an outright lie,? said Katz, countering Sharon's tirade against the ?ministers who have accused the government of not being sufficiently prepared for [the] evacuation process.?

Last week, many of the families uprooted from Gaza were sent to hotels throughout the country. Over the weekend, most were turned out to find other accommodations on their own.

Opposition Shas Party leader Eli Yishai reported seeing one refugee family left at a bus stop on the side of a highway to fend for themselves.

Many in Israel see the current tension within the government leading to a collapse of the Sharon regime once the removal of all Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria is complete.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres Friday confirmed that is indeed the case, stating that he will pullout his Labor Party out of the ruling coalition following the ?disengagement.?

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