Israel’s deputy prime minister said Sunday that separating Israel from the Palestinians could mean relocating tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and probably would spark confrontations with settlers and their supporters.
Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he envisioned “a very painful, difficult, heartbreaking process and a confrontation of unknown proportion in the life of the country,” according to Israeli media reports.
“It’s a serious crisis. . . . I expect it to be very emotional,” he said.
Olmert was referring to a so-called disengagement plan outlined last week by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who warned that Israel would act unilaterally to separate itself from the Palestinians if there was no real progress in peace talks within a few months.
Among the actions proposed by Sharon is withdrawal from a number of settlements in the heart of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He did not say which would be evacuated or when.
Soldiers take stand
The political scene was further roiled Sunday when 13 members of the country’s elite special operations force, known as Sayeret Matkal, signed a letter refusing to serve in the Israeli-occupied territories. The group says Israel’s military operations in the West Bank and Gaza infringe on the human rights of Palestinians.
The soldiers’ letter was similar to one signed in September by a group of Air Force pilots who said they would no longer take part in aerial strikes on Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza.
The officers’ disenchantment comes amid rising frustration in Israel over the inability of the two sides to make peace and end the Palestinian uprising.
It was this sentiment that Sharon hoped to address last week. In his speech, he said he remained committed to the U.S.-backed diplomatic blueprint known as the road map, but he warned that unless the Palestinians took steps to halt violence, Israel would withdraw to an undefined “security line,” a boundary likely to carve into territories claimed by the Palestinians.
The proposal has been assailed by Palestinian leaders who say any peace deal must come through negotiations.
Jewish settler groups also oppose Sharon’s proposal, saying evacuation is tantamount to rewarding terrorism. Some of the harshest criticism has come from within Sharon’s Likud Party, which has long taken a hard line against giving up settlements, home to about 220,000 Israeli Jews, or any other territory to the Palestinians.
One Likud member, Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, said he would demand that the proposal be debated during a Likud meeting next month. Katz said the proposal could prompt two right-wing, pro-settler parties to abandon Sharon’s governing coalition, forcing the prime minister to forge a new coalition.
On Sunday, Sharon turned back an effort to debate the plan during the weekly Cabinet meeting, saying the matter had not been scheduled for discussion.
Olmert’s comments after the Cabinet session echoed remarks he made last week before Sharon’s address predicting that thousands of settlers would have to be moved for Israel to carry out a unilateral pullout from Gaza and much of the West Bank.
Olmert, a close ally of Sharon, drew fire when he proposed two weeks ago that Israel would have to concede territory to maintain the Jewish character of the lands it controlled. Demographers say the day isn’t far off when Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli Arabs in Israel proper will outnumber Jews.
An arrest and a death
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reported Sunday that the Israeli army continued a crackdown in the West Bank city of Nablus, arresting Hamas leader Adnan Asfour. His brother, Said Asfour, told the AP that troops also seized a computer and maps.
Later Sunday, an Israeli soldier shot and killed a 5-year-old Palestinian boy in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The army said soldiers opened fire in Balata after being attacked by a crowd that threw rocks, bottles and an explosive device. It had no information on a boy being shot but said it was investigating.
