While the right-wing parties say they will stymie the disengagement plan in the Cabinet, Ariel Sharon continues efforts to turn the program into "facts on the ground." Journalist David Bedein of Israel Resource News Agency reports, based on "highly placed sources in the US Defense Department," that Sharon has informed the U.S. government that he intends to implement the retreat from Gush Katif as of May 1, 2004.
Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz is due to meet with US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington today. Tomorrow, three US envoys will arrive in Israel to hear further details about the disengagement plan from Prime Minister Sharon.
Many countries have been brought into the circle of those supporting the pullback in one form or another. Jordan, Egypt, and France have lately expressed various measures of support for an Israeli retreat from Gaza. Close to 8,000 Jews live in close to 20 communities in Gaza.
A report prepared by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff after the Six Day War concluded that for self-defense reasons, Israel should retain the entire Gaza Strip, which "serves as a salient for introduction of Arab subversion and terrorism." "Subsequent US security assessments since then have supported the same conclusion," writes Dr. Menachem Kovacs of Montgomery College in Maryland, "as have independent Israeli assessments - including then-IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak, who said in 1993, 'The 1967 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum is still applicable ... If Israel has to retake the territories proposed to be given up, we cannot do it without tremendous casualties.'"
Prime Minister Sharon himself said in 2002 that "evacuating Netzarim [in Jewish Gaza] will only encourage terrorism and increase the pressure upon us."
Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz is due to meet with US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington today. Tomorrow, three US envoys will arrive in Israel to hear further details about the disengagement plan from Prime Minister Sharon.
Many countries have been brought into the circle of those supporting the pullback in one form or another. Jordan, Egypt, and France have lately expressed various measures of support for an Israeli retreat from Gaza. Close to 8,000 Jews live in close to 20 communities in Gaza.
A report prepared by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff after the Six Day War concluded that for self-defense reasons, Israel should retain the entire Gaza Strip, which "serves as a salient for introduction of Arab subversion and terrorism." "Subsequent US security assessments since then have supported the same conclusion," writes Dr. Menachem Kovacs of Montgomery College in Maryland, "as have independent Israeli assessments - including then-IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak, who said in 1993, 'The 1967 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum is still applicable ... If Israel has to retake the territories proposed to be given up, we cannot do it without tremendous casualties.'"
Prime Minister Sharon himself said in 2002 that "evacuating Netzarim [in Jewish Gaza] will only encourage terrorism and increase the pressure upon us."