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Peace Process

Netanyahu: 'Time for Israel to wake up'

Notes 'disengagement' has brought exact opposite of promised results


By Ryan Jones
January 05, 2006

All of the warnings brushed aside by the international community and the Sharon government prior to Israel's ?disengagement? from the Gaza Strip last summer are now becoming reality, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu told supporters Wednesday.

?We see how the warnings that were talked about before the disengagement are coming true,? he told a gathering of Likud activists in Jerusalem. ?It encouraged terrorism, the Kassams are reaching Ashkelon, the Hamas is getting stronger, [PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas] is getting weaker, and the Philadelphi Route [between Gaza and Egypt] is full of holes.?

With the extent of the blunder now apparent, and national elections only months away, Netanyahu said now is the time for Israelis to wake up and stem the tide of death and destruction racing towards them.

?There have been many periods in history when the [Jewish people] did not identify the dangers in time. It's not enough to be strong; we must see the danger and act sensibly.?

And ?common sense,? Netanyahu said, ?dictates that you fight terrorism and not give in to it.?

It is the same strong policy US President George W. Bush employs against threats to America, but rarely supports the use of in Israel's case.

Echoing recent comments by the American president, Netanyahu said attempts to ?appease terrorism and to respond to some of its demands merely encourages more terrorism.?

He has been saying that since Israel signed the fateful ?Oslo Accords? with what was then the world's leading terrorist organization: Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

If, as analysts are predicting following Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke, Netanyahu manages to become Israel's next leader, he will have ample opportunity to turn his words into action.

Providing a possible glimpse of what his security policies would entail, Netanyahu stated, ?If Eli Moyal [mayor of hard-hit Sderot] is unable to sleep at night [because of the rockets], then neither will the residents of Gaza be able to sleep.?

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