More than 120,000 Israelis gathered Sunday night in Tel Aviv for a mass demonstration organized by right-wing movements to protest the planned evacuation of Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank as well as unilateral steps in the occupied Palestinian territories, which were recently announced by the Israeli prime minister, Arial Sharon.
Minister Uzi Landau, from Sharon's own Likud party, said that the prime minister's plan "wasn't the way to build an agreement." Landau told crowds that unilateral withdrawals would not solve Israel's demographic problems. "If Israeli settlements can be moved, " he said, "so can Arab ones."
"Any plan that involved concessions to Palestinians in the past has only brought us more terror," he continued.
Deputy Education Minister Zvi Hendel called on Ariel Sharon to enable the Israeli Army to prevail. "Let's destroy the Palestinian Authority, send them back to Tunisia. Thin is our country. Let them return to where they came from, just as we have done."
On his part, Sharon said during a press conference "The government has adopted the Road Map and although it is not an easy thing to say, to gain peace, I believe we may have to relinquish some Jewish settlements."
Sharon added "I believe that in order to reach peace, Israel will not be able to hold all the Jewish settlements." He said this is something that "will not be easy" for people who have lived there, some of them for three generations, but it is necessary "in order to provide more security for the citizens of Israel," The Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying.
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
