Powell calls Abu Ala (PLO "PM"): The disengagement plan is a step in the roadmap

NFC ^ | 4/24/2004 | Yoah Yizhak

[yonif]

Translation from Hebrew to English by me

The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, called Saturday night the Palestinian Prime Minister, Abu Ala, and asked him to look at the disengagement plan as a good way of getting territories. Powell told Abu Ala that this program is being done in the context of the roadmap, and it gives an opportunity for moving the peace. Powell asked Abu Ala to join in negotiation on this matter - so that the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, will be the one that gets the territories Israel will be leaving in Gaza and northern Samaria ("West Bank").

[Southack]

OK, you won't like *any* retreat from territory, I know and respect how you feel on that...but this is beautiful from a realpolitik angle. Powell is essentially saying "Negotiate with us politically while we hunt down and kill your Hamas forces."

It's awesome.

[yonif]

The problem is the Palestinian Authority is no different then Hamas.

[Southack]

No, that's the beauty of it. Powell is telling them to negotiate peacefully while we are killing them.

[yonif]

So why didn't we do that in the case of the Taliban?

[thoughtomator]

It's what they have been doing to us.

[Southack]

Because Europe, South America, South Africa, Russia, and China weren't backing the Taliban.

Realpolitiks is more than just killing those who are shooting at you and bombing you.

[yonif]

It is more than killing, of course. But if we are to stick to principle, and that is what this war on terrorism is about, we must call the kettle black. There is no principle in safeguarding Arafat and his regime, or continuing to send it money every year as the US has been doing.

What about Saddam? Europe and most of the world supported him and his regime, and yet the US called it what it was.

[Robert_Paulson2]

So why didn't we do that in the case of the Taliban?

---

actually... we sorta did... and several times.
worked too.
several different cities, villages, territories...
one side against the other. both sides against the middle.
we effed em up pretty bad.
We kicked their asses.

Doing now in fallujah and najif.
It's slow. I don't like the price tag in lives.
I have my OWN doubts just like you.

BUT... I think we have a bunch of folks running the show that are a LOT more patient than I. You too. We seem to be winning.

I for one, would be trying to foster a civil war between the parties... and agitating the heck out of them... cutting double deals.

Right now, KILLING HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH, helps us get at IRAN more directly than killing off arafatties cronies.
It's not the way I would want to do it, because I hate all that sneaking around stuff. Having said that, it's the ONLY game in town that is cashing out some of the bad guys.

Remaining bad guys see their backers getting aced... they have to wonder... "Whose got MY six?"

nobody abdullah!

[Southack]

This is *NOT* about principle.

It is about survival. We've got to be smart. One way to be smart is to kill your enemies one group at a time, rather than eraging all of them to rally against you simulataneously.

Sharon and Bush are doing great, by the way. Even though you can't stand seeing land given up and can't stand to see known murderers and terrorists left standing, our enemies are being slaughtered one by one with little to nothing that they can do about it...all because Sharon and Bush are being smart, vis-a-vis realpolitiks.

[yonif]

Right now, KILLING HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH, helps us get at IRAN more directly than killing off arafatties cronies.

Leaving Arafat's regime in place, will simply lead to more groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to quickly rebuild under its auspices.

[yonif]

It is about survival. We've got to be smart. One way to be smart is to kill your enemies one group at a time, rather than eraging all of them to rally against you simulataneously.

In the case of Israel, they are all rallied up against it already.

Even though you can't stand seeing land given up and can't stand to see known murderers and terrorists left standing,

Its not really about terrorists left standing, its about the fact it shows terrorism has worked. After years of terror and murder, they are finally getting more land. It is just like the argument against leaving Iraq. Leaving Iraq is a victory to terror.

This Gaza Plan is just like Oslo.

The terrorists are getting another piece of land, and Israel is getting nothing at all out of this.

[Southack]

You are thinking in old terms. Hamas and Hezbollah aren't going to "quickly" rebuild anything. This fight is beyond the tipping point. Hamas is so battered that it has to get its remaining bomb makers out of prison. They have to resort to using crude rockets for attacks, and rely upon children and women for suicide bombings.

Even the Saudi's are pissed off now. Jordan is enraged, too. The terrorists have hit both kingdoms, and that's just foolhardy. Ditto for trying to assasinate Mushariff in Pakistan. The terrorists have made enemies out of their formerly strongest supporters and financiers. Their leadership is clearly not thinking rationally.

In other words, Bush and Sharon have got them rattled.

[yonif]

What I mean is that terrorists have an easy time starting up as groups under such a Palestinian Authority terrorist regime. It is just like going in Afghanistan, going after Al Queda, and leaving the Taliban in place. The Saudis are pissed at Al Queda, not because they murder Americans, but because they seek to overthrow their family business monarchy. In reality, Saudi Arabia continues to fund Arab terror groups fighting Israel and it isn't going to stop, because it knows it will not be touched by the free world as long as it has the oil.

[Robert_Paulson2]

He won't be left in place.
His regime won't either.

God willing.

[yonif]

Powell urges Qureia to view pullout plan as peace process 'opportunity'

By Shlomo Shamir, Mazal Mualem and Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia on Friday to support the plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and some parts of the West Bank.

In a telephone call, Powell asked Qureia to view Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan as an "opportunity" to move forward on the peace process, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Powell "emphasized our desire to take the opportunity that was presented by Israeli withdrawal from territory and withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza, as well as from some places on the West Bank," he said.

Israel says it doesn't want an int'l force to ensure withdrawal from Gaza
Israel's deputy ambassador to the United Nations Arye Mekel said Friday that Israel does not want an international force to ensure its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but might consider assistance from friendly countries like the United States.

Mekel was responding to a proposal made earlier Friday by the top UN envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, who called for international security arrangements to ensure Israel's complete pullout and handover of authority in Gaza to the Palestinians.

"We don't think that international forces is a good idea, and this is based on our experience in the past, although we could consider assistance from friendly countries such as the United States," Mekel said.

There was no immediate reaction from the Palestinians.

In one of his most forceful briefings to the UN Security Council, Roed-Larsen said the Middle East is at a crucial crossroads and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza "if carried out in the right way, can usher in a new era of peacemaking in the Middle East."

Israel says it plans to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements and all troops from the Gaza Strip by late 2005, but to continue to control Gaza's airspace, coastal waters and the border between Gaza and Egypt until it is confident the Palestinian Authority is stamping out militant activity.

"I also continue to maintain that if such a withdrawal is implemented the wrong way it will lead to more violence, quite possibly bringing us to a new low in the dismal annals of the Palestinian-Israeli tragedy," Roed-Larsen said.

Roed-Larsen told the council that for the Gaza withdrawal "to mark the beginning of an era of peace and security and a departure from decades of violence," it must not merely be "a military redeployment" but a complete Israeli withdrawal recognized by the international community.

Deployment of an international security presence in Gaza would help because a withdrawal in the current atmosphere of hostility and mistrust could still leave Gaza a "launching pad" for more attacks on Israeli territory, he said.

At the same time, he said, Israelis and the Palestinians must take immediate steps to start implementing the road map peace plan to ensure "that the withdrawal constitutes the beginning - not the end - of a peace process."

Roed-Larsen said "temporary and internationally supervised security arrangements," instituted with the consent of both parties, would ensure Israel's security, enabling it to withdraw completely.

An "international presence" would also enable the Palestinians "to live normally, free from Israeli controls," he said.

Roed-Larsen suggested that Israel could follow the same procedure it did when it withdrew from southern Lebanon: It asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to help facilitate the pullout which led to the Security Council defining the parameters of the withdrawal and certifying afterwards that the occupation had ended.

After briefing the council, he told reporters that it was too early to discuss whether there will be an international presence or what form it might take - soldiers, monitors, observers, or some other scenario.

Mekel made clear that Israel doesn't want a military force and doesn't want the issue brought to the Security Council, as Roed-Larsen suggested.

"On the other hand, we do accept the notion that the implementation of this plan should be done in cooperation with the international community, especially in order to guarantee an improvement in the humanitarian aspect of the Palestinians during and after Israel's withdrawal," he said.

Roed-Larsen said the Israelis and Palestinians will "make the right choice" only if the international community, led by the four sponsors of the road map and the Security Council, becomes engaged.

The road map was drafted by the Quartet - the UN, the United States, the European Union and Russia - and calls for both sides to take reciprocal steps with the goal of two independent states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace in 2005. The plan has been stymied for months amid sustained violence by both parties.

Roed-Larsen told the 15-nation UN Security Council on Friday that the credibility of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was dwindling because of the authority's failure to prevent terror attacks on Israelis.

Roed-Larsen said the possibility of an international presence to monitor the Gaza withdrawal would be one of the main subjects for discussion at a meeting of the Quartet on May 4 hosted by Annan.

PM asks Likud leaders to help get pro-pullout votes
Sharon met with dozens of Likud branch heads at his Jerusalem residence Friday morning to ask their help in soliciting more votes for the disengagement plan ahead of the May 2 party referendum.

At the meeting, Sharon told his guests that he would accept the decision of the party membership, apparently backtracking on comments Thursday, in which he stated that the referendum would not be legally binding.

If the plan fails to secure a majority of votes, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Friday that the country would suffer dire consequences.

"I don't even want to think about what will happen if... we lose the vote," Olmert told Israel Radio. "I have no doubt there will be extremely dire consequences for the State of Israel, from a diplomatic perspective, a security perspective and an economic perspective."

Olmert also criticized Likud officials for paying lip service to the plan without helping the campaign, saying, "As soon as a person makes a decision, he must stand behind the decision with all his might, since it's impossible to leave the prime minister to fight alone."

Meanwhile, opponents of the disengagement plan are concerned that Sharon is searching for ways to get out of holding the referendum or to avoid being bound by the results if he loses the vote.

The concerns arose following Sharon's comments Thursday, in which he defined his commitment to the poll as "public and moral, and not legal and contractual." Shaul Goldstein, local council head for the West Bank settlement bloc of Gush Etzion, said Thursday he hopes Sharon will not "zigzag according to democratic opportunism."

Likud MK David Levy, who opposes the disengagement plan, accused Sharon on Friday of skirting around democratic institutions as well as his own political party in debating the plan only after endorsing it. Speaking to Israel Radio, Levy said Likud officials were supporting the plan only so they could keep their seats in government.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/419447.html

[yonif]

Let me also say on the record that my main reasons for not leaving Gaza (and northern "West Bank" which is also part of this plan) are:

It is because

1. Israel gets nothing out of leaving Gaza and northern "West Bank"

2. Increase in terrorism, murder of Israelis will occur

3. Shows that terrorism pays

4. US policy towards Israel has not changed in the effect that it can allow Israel to leave Gaza.

5. Security risk. For one, leaving Gaza increases the range of rockets, and qassams. Now they will be able to reach Ashkelon and other Israeli cities.

6. Israel will never be able to return to Gaza and northern Samaria. Most likely after it leaves there will be international presence on the ground, specifically in Gaza.

[meenie]

Does Israel have a military-industrial complex such as the United States? I tend to think that far more has been spent to stay in the Gaza than the Gaza Strip is worth from an economic standpoint. Sand does not return much from an economic sense.

[Southack]

"The terrorists are getting another piece of land, and Israel is getting nothing at all out of this."

Nonsense. Sharon is setting them up to fail. They can't run their own state. They will fight amongst themselves and run it and their poor people into the ground. Israel will be able to declare war against a sovereign state, and there will actually be a nation to conquer soon. You don't *want* Israelis to be left in that land right now, but after the next major war it will be Israel's again anyway. Besides, it's much easier to wall off your country from theirs than it is to wall off parts of your own country. Let them suffer from their own "leadership" on the wrong side of that wall. Let it be a defensive wall rather than a self-divisive wall.

[yonif]

Does Israel have a military-industrial complex such as the United States? I tend to think that far more has been spent to stay in the Gaza than the Gaza Strip is worth from an economic standpoint. Sand does not return much from an economic sense.

Yes. Sand? All of Israel was sand in the beginning. Almost 2/3rds of Israel is still sand (Negev). Does it mean Israel should leave the Negev?

Also, it takes a lot of money for Israel to be in existence anyways...5million Jews in a sea of hundreds of millions of Arabs. Does this mean Israel's Jews should go back to Europe?