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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (180305)	1/10/2004 1:45:20 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1578184

Jan. 8, 2004 It's Sharon's duty Ariel Sharon could hardly have been more explicit this week when he looked thousands of Likud activists in the eyes and said in a familiarly loud and resolute tone: Settlements will have to be evacuated. Following the prime minister's early pronouncements, back in 2002, favoring the establishment of a Palestinian state, a lively public debate emerged, focusing on the roots and nature of Sharon's political transformation. However, few so far have said much in terms of the most obvious repercussion that Sharon's plan has in store, namely the stranding of thousands of Israelis beyond the separation fence, in the midst of a hostile Palestinian population. The reasons for this silence are understandable. First, it took a long time for Sharon to make plain his embrace of the fence idea, and longer yet for the public to realize that this idea is actually fast becoming fact. Then, the people who could be expected to raise the loudest outcry in the face of the approaching separation, namely the settler leaders themselves, have failed to focus on the threat it poses to them personally. Yet the plan obviously exposes the settlers to serious dangers, and it is imperative that those be perceived and treated as a national challenge. In the longer term, judging by what Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said in recent weeks, the plan is apparently to have all settlers somehow gravitate within the fence, itself a very unclear proposition that sooner or later will have to be made clearer. In the shorter term, however, thousands of settlers will soon realize that in addition to the ideological wall that has long separated them and some Israelis, a physical wall has arisen to separate them as well. By all criteria, this might prove to have been a recipe for catastrophe. Militarily, it might complicate the IDF's defense of the settlements beyond the fence; emotionally, it is likely to further deepen the abyss that is already yawning between some settlers and some Israelis; and politically, it might generate pressures that will destabilize coalitions. For our part, we are not averse to the principle of territorial compromise. We are, however, opposed to national schism. If we have arrived at a point where we must undergo some kind of territorial retreat, this does not mean we should risk a civil war, much less treat the settlers as outcasts. And the settlers, all of them, are a limb of this nation. The people who went to live beyond the Green Line did so on behalf of 13 successive governments, six of them Labor-led. That alone is reason enough for them to be offered serious information, and solutions, for the challenges that await them once they are stranded beyond the fence. Moreover, the people who went to live beyond the Green Line were some of Israel's most dedicated idealists. Abandoning them would send a message to future idealists that in Israel, idealism, pioneering, and self-sacrifice are no longer appreciated. Conversely, if treated generously by the government and respectfully by the public, the settlers' moral dignity and positive energies can be preserved. As the man who more than anyone else built and populated the settlements, Ariel Sharon has a particular responsibility. If he is to keep the settlers in their place, he must defend them with every political, diplomatic and military tool he's got. If he's going to ask them to leave, he must ensure they have as good a deal going out as they had going in. jpost.com