Much attention was paid to Barak's condemnation of the Sharon family. Barak said that "in any other normal country, Sharon would have no longer been in power." He said this just days after the decision was made to indict Sharon's son, MK Omri Sharon, on several felony counts relating to his financing of his father's 1999 campaign to head the Likud.
The remarks caused such a stir that the Prime Minister even deigned to respond, saying that Barak could benefit from medical help.
However, Barak made several statements during the interview that were very critical of the disengagement plan – and these were barely reported, if at all. He said that the impression that Sharon has caved in to terrorism, "shared by [Uzi] Landau, [Effie] Eitam and Hamas," is in fact grounded in reality. "After all," Barak said, "this plan is not something that Sharon promised during his election campaign," but rather something that took form after he saw that he was not defeating terrorism.
Barak also gave marks of approval to Moshe Feiglin and Landau in their observations that "even after the disengagement, we will have withdrawn our forces and residents, but we will not have disengaged – for we will continue to be responsible for everything that goes on in Gaza, from the standpoint of international law."
Barak didn't stop there, however. "It's not true that Bush promised Sharon that we [Israel] will be able to remain in Gush Etzion, Givat Zev, Ariel, and Maaleh Adumim. Get the Americans in a closed room and they will say that this is not true. The public is being deceived. Sharon is not strong enough to tell the Israeli public the truth. He and Mofaz have replaced people like [former Mossad chief Ephraim] Halevy, [outgoing GSS head Avi] Dichter, [outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe] Yaalon, and [former National Security Advisor Gen.] Uzi Dayan."
Despite this, Barak hedged his bets by repeating several times that Sharon deserved much credit for initiating the disengagement. "But," he continued, "Sharon is not telling the public the truth... He's not telling the truth about the fence, that the communities behind the fence will be lost, and because he wasn't strong enough to say that, he left the fence open in several places, and that caused people in Hadera, Afula, Be'er Sheva and Tel Aviv to be buried [killed]. He has lost [the city of] Ariel, and now he's about to lose Maaleh Adumim, because there's a little Arab village between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim that's creeping up on it..."
The remarks caused such a stir that the Prime Minister even deigned to respond, saying that Barak could benefit from medical help.
However, Barak made several statements during the interview that were very critical of the disengagement plan – and these were barely reported, if at all. He said that the impression that Sharon has caved in to terrorism, "shared by [Uzi] Landau, [Effie] Eitam and Hamas," is in fact grounded in reality. "After all," Barak said, "this plan is not something that Sharon promised during his election campaign," but rather something that took form after he saw that he was not defeating terrorism.
Barak also gave marks of approval to Moshe Feiglin and Landau in their observations that "even after the disengagement, we will have withdrawn our forces and residents, but we will not have disengaged – for we will continue to be responsible for everything that goes on in Gaza, from the standpoint of international law."
Barak didn't stop there, however. "It's not true that Bush promised Sharon that we [Israel] will be able to remain in Gush Etzion, Givat Zev, Ariel, and Maaleh Adumim. Get the Americans in a closed room and they will say that this is not true. The public is being deceived. Sharon is not strong enough to tell the Israeli public the truth. He and Mofaz have replaced people like [former Mossad chief Ephraim] Halevy, [outgoing GSS head Avi] Dichter, [outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe] Yaalon, and [former National Security Advisor Gen.] Uzi Dayan."
Despite this, Barak hedged his bets by repeating several times that Sharon deserved much credit for initiating the disengagement. "But," he continued, "Sharon is not telling the public the truth... He's not telling the truth about the fence, that the communities behind the fence will be lost, and because he wasn't strong enough to say that, he left the fence open in several places, and that caused people in Hadera, Afula, Be'er Sheva and Tel Aviv to be buried [killed]. He has lost [the city of] Ariel, and now he's about to lose Maaleh Adumim, because there's a little Arab village between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim that's creeping up on it..."