Disengagement=PLO Empowerment - David Bedein
"Disengagement" is not being voted on in the Knesset on Wednesday -
"PLO Empowerment" is on the agenda
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By: David Bedein media@actcom.co.il
ISRAEL RESOURCE NEWS AGENCY
Beit Agron Press Center, 37 Hillel St., Jerusalem Tel: 02-5300125
Fax: 02-6236470
www.israelbehindthenews.com

In a generation of fast sound bytes and instant news, neither
proponents nor opponents know what the Sharon Plan is all about.

It is hard to find anyone who has read the plan. .

What I have found from covering of the Knesset is that most Knesset
members, reporters who cover the Knesset and even Israeli government
ministers have not read the Sharon Plan.
Instead, people throughout Israel and throughout the world assume
that the Sharon plan only concerns whether Israelis should continue
to live in the Katif district of Gaza and some seemingly distant
Jewish communities in Northern Samaria.

Hence the term "disengagement".

However, if anyone had bothered to READ the Sharon Plan, posted at
www.pmo.gov.il, the reality of the Sharon Plan would unfold in an
entirely different direction.

While the Sharon Plan is described as a "disengagement plan", it does
anything but that..
Despite the premise in clause one of the Sharon Plan that there is no
Palestinian peace partner, the Sharon Plan involves a PLO empowerment
process.

14 clauses of the Sharon Plan strengthen every aspect of the PLO to
belie clause one that that there is "no reliable Palestinian partner"

While the premise of the Sharon Plan mandates that the Gaza Strip "be
demilitarized and shall be devoid of weaponry", the Sharon Plan
provides "advice, assistance and training" to "the Palestinian
security forces? by American, British, Egyptian, Jordanian or other
experts, as agreed with Israel."

The Sharon Plan ignores how military training of the PLO facilitated
by Israel and the western democracies was abused to conduct a terror
campaign against Israel in every part of the country for the past
four years.

The Sharon Plan goes on to say that "Israel will be willing to
consider the possibility of the establishment of a seaport and
airport in the Gaza Strip, in accordance with arrangements to be
agreed with Israel."

The Sharon plan obligates Israel to "provide water pipes,
electricity, industrial zones, markets, employment and an industrial
zone to sustain the Palestinian Arab economy of Gaza"?

The Sharon Plan mandates that "other existing arrangements, such as
those relating to water and the electro-magnetic sphere shall remain
in force" while "economic arrangements currently in operation between
Israel and the Palestinians shall, in the meantime, remain in force."

According to the Sharon Plan, these arrangements will include:
i. The entry of workers into Israel in accordance with the existing
criteria.
ii. The entry and exit of goods between the Gaza Strip, the West
Bank, Israel and abroad.
iii. The monetary regime.
iv. Tax and customs envelope arrangements.
v. Postal and telecommunications arrangements.

Finally, the Sharon Plan envisions international support for the PLO,
"in order to bring the Palestinians to implement in practice their
obligations to combat terrorism and effect reforms, thus enabling the
parties to return to the path of negotiation."

And if the PLO does not "implement in practice their obligations to
combat terrorism"

The Sharon Plan provides no answer to that possibility.

The Sharon Plan does not provide even include a minimal demand that
the PLO not endorse the cold blooded murder of Jews on the official
media outlets of the PLO..

The way in which the official media of Palestinian Authority praised
the October 26th 2004 Knesset approval of the Sharon Plan is
indicative.

In the words of Nabil Shaath, "May this be only one step in the
liberation of all of Palestine." Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Moshir
Al-Masri declared that "the Knesset vote proves that the Hamas has
forced the Zionist enemy to retreat."

To make a long story short, the Sharon Plan, far from being a plan of
disengagement from the PLO, is nothing less than a program of
empowerment for the PLO.

Since no one bothered to read the Sharon Plan, spin masters were left
in charge, to sell it as a "disengagement from Gaza" program.

Ariel Sharon knows that the very mention of the word "withdrawal from
Gaza" makes him very popular.

Opponents of the Sharon Plan fall right into the trap that Ariel
Sharon has laid for the them, and they scream loudly against "the
Sharon Disengagement Plan from Gaza", and earn the enmity of Israeli
public opinion. What the opposition to Sharon could have done would
have been to educate the population of Israel as to the inherent
dangers of the "PLO EMPOWERMENT PLAN" to every citizen of Israel.

"Disengagement"? It sounded good.

Imagine if Ariel Sharon had tried to sell his plan for what it really
is: Aiding the PLO, which in the media mind set is Sharon's arch
enemy.