Dear Colleagues:



On October 14, the Conference of Presidents will be meeting to discuss the issue of unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the midst of the Palestinian Arab terror war against Israel, and the forcible transfer of all 8,300 Jews from that region.



The Conference, as an umbrella group representing more than fifty organizations with a variety of viewpoints, should not allow itself to be drawn into a dispute that has deeply divided the Israeli public, and that would put the Conference on record in support of principles that it has traditionally opposed, such as forcible transfer. Please take a few moments to read, below, about the reasons why it would be highly inappropriate for the Conference to inject itself into this partisan dispute.



Sincerely,

Morton A. Klein, National President

Dr. Alan Mazurek, Chairman of the Board

Dr. Michael Goldblatt, Chair, Nat’l. Exec. Committee

Zionist Organization of America



  1. The Israeli public is deeply divided on this issue. A recent survey by the respected Israeli polling agency Geocartography found only 49% of Israelis favor the Sharon plan for unilateral withdrawal, while 44% are opposed and 7% have no opinion. (The margin of error was plus or minus 4%.) Other polls have likewise shown more than 40% of Israelis opposed to unilateral retreat – far from any clear consensus. The Israeli public is about evenly divided on this issue. How can the Conference of Presidents take sides?



  2. The Conference has always opposed rewarding terrorists. The Conference has always recognized that terrorists should be punished for their crimes, not rewarded. How can the Conference now call for rewarding the terrorists by giving them Gaza in the midst of the Palestinian Arab terrorist war against Israel?



  3. The Conference has always opposed transfer. The Conference has always opposed calls for transferring Arabs out of Israel. How can the Conference now endorse the immoral and unjust idea of transferring Jews out of Gaza?



  4. There is no “demographic threat” at stake. Israel, under Yitzhak Rabin, already withdrew from about 80% of Gaza in 1994. In the remaining 20%, there are over 8,300 Jewish residents and about 2,000 Arab residents. An Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will not affect any demographic concerns. Prof. Shai Feldman of Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, said in his speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference this spring that “there is no demographic issue involved in leaving Gaza.”



  5. Leaving Gaza is a victory for the terrorists.



    The prospect of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is being seen by the terrorists as a victory and will inspire them to murder even more Jews in the belief that terrorism will lead to even more Israeli concessions.



    Mohammed Dief, a Hamas leader in Gaza said in March 2004 that Israel leaving Gaza is “one of the biggest signs of victory and Israel’s fall is near.” Mohammed Dahlan, former Minister of Security for the Palestinian Authority, said: “The Israeli withdrawal is a victory for us and we must celebrate it. Hezbollah turned Israel’s retreat from Lebanon into victory. The withdrawal of the Israeli Army from the Gaza Strip is one of the most important achievements of the intifada.” (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 22, 2004)



  6. Leaving Gaza will increase the missile threat.



    The Palestinian Authority will control Gaza’s ports and its border with Egypt, which will make it much easier to smuggle weapons into Gaza. Two years ago, Israel intercepted the Karinne A, a PA ship that tried to bring 50 tons of weapons to Gaza. If Israel leaves the area, there could be a Karinne A arriving in Gaza’s ports every week.



    In addition, Israeli intelligence-gathering capabilities in Gaza will be severely reduced, making it easier for the Palestinian Arabs to develop deadlier and longer-range missiles to fire at Israeli cities. Last year, their Kassam rocket had a range of four to six miles and could only hit Jewish communities within the Gaza Strip. By this year, they had doubled their range and now regularly hit the Israeli city of Sderot. If Israel leaves Gaza, the rocket factories will flourish and more Israeli cities will be within target range of their advanced Nasser and Fajr missiles.



  7. Israeli jurists have raised serious questions about the legality of the plan. A group of prominent Israeli jurists, headed by Prof. Eliav Schochetman (professor emeritus at Hebrew University), have found serious legal problems with the Gaza plan, including the fact that “the transfer of a group of people from one part of the land to another, against their will, contradicts international law as well as the local Israeli law,” and “contradicts The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom since it contravenes the ownership rights of thousands of the Gaza residents.” The Conference should not be taking a position on an issue that is a matter of legal controversy. (Jerusalem Post, Oct.4, 2004)



  8. There is no danger of losing U.S. support. President Bush, the Congress, and the overwhelming majority of Americans (according to all polls) strongly support Israel, even when there is occasional disagreement about a specific policy. Some prominent members of the House and Senate have even said privately that they cannot understand how Israel could make major concessions to the enemy in the midst of a terrorist war. We do not need to endorse unilateral retreat and transfer in order to obtain American support.



  9. Leaving Gaza will not result in international support for Israel. Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin recently revealed (Hatzofeh, Sept.15, 2004) that he met with a group of leaders of the French Parliament and said Gaza retreat supporters believe that if Israel leaves Gaza, “Europe will give us at least 15 years of quiet and won’t put pressure on us [to make further concessions] ... They started to laugh ... I asked them if they would give us 15 months of quiet. They laughed. I said, ‘How about 15 weeks?’ and they continued to laugh. ‘15 hours?’ – and they still laughed. Regarding 15 minutes, they didn't laugh, but neither did they nod...”



  10. ADL’s Foxman previously said “no concessions until terror ends”; what has changed?



    Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism say the Conference should endorse a Gaza retreat, including the forcible transfer of 8,300 Jews. Yet Foxman wrote last year that Israel should only make concessions “after the Palestinians demonstrate they have finally changed, through new leaders and reformed institutions and through the cessation of terrorism.” Yoffie has said the Palestinian Authority’s media are “anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi.” How can Foxman and Yoffie now say that the Conference should call for Israel to make these major unilateral concessions to a terrorist, anti-Semitic regime?



  11. Gaza has deep Jewish roots: Gaza has been a part of the Land of Israel since biblical times. The borders of Israel specified in Genesis 15 clearly include Gaza, and it is described in Joshua 15:47 and Judges 1:18 as part of the inheritance of the tribe of Judah, and in Kings it is included in the areas ruled by King Solomon. The area came under foreign occupation during some periods, but the Jewish king Yochanan, brother of Judah the Maccabee, recaptured Gaza in 145 CE and sent Jews to rebuild the community there. Throughout the centuries, there was a large Jewish presence in Gaza – in fact, it was the largest Jewish community in the country at the time of the Muslim invasion (7th century CE). Many medieval Christian visitors to the area mentioned the Jewish community in Gaza.



    The Jews of Gaza were forced to leave the area when Napoleon’s army marched through in 1799, but they later returned. The Jewish community in Gaza was destroyed during the British bombardment in 1917, but later it was rebuilt again. When Palestinian Arabs threatened to slaughter the Jews of Gaza during the 1929 pogroms, the British ruling authorities forced the Jews to leave. But in 1946, the Jews returned, establishing the town of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip, which lasted until 1948, when Egypt occupied the area.