Settlers vowed on Monday they will not allow Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to drag Israel towards ”disaster” after the historic vote to leave the Gaza Strip, as hundreds of Palestinians were released from prison.
While United States President George Bush pledged a united effort with Europe to bring peace to the region, the settlers said they are prepared to fight to the death to prevent Jews being uprooted from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.
”The disaster that Sharon plans on bringing on to Israel is immoral for human beings,” Eran Sternberg, the chief spokesperson of the main Yesha settlers council, told a news conference.
”I don’t consider Ariel Sharon an enemy because he’s doing what he’s doing with good intentions, but as we say in Hebrew, ‘the way to hell is paved with good intentions”’.
Sharon’s Cabinet voted by 17 to five at a marathon session on Sunday to begin evacuating the 8 000 settlers of Gaza from July 20, in what will be Israel’s first withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory.
The vote also sounds the death knell for four isolated settlements in the West Bank as part of a wider disengagement plan that Sharon hopes will reduce pressure on Israel to conduct a more comprehensive pull-out from the West Bank.
Pinhas Wallerstein, a prominent member of the Yesha council, said Israel is ”heading towards a rift in the people”.
”This is a dire and complex situation, and I hope that we have the emotional ability to stand and face this reality. Even at the cost of people’s lives and of my life, we won’t let the evacuation be implemented,” he said.
In a speech after the vote, Sharon said the decision was the hardest of his entire career.
”But there are moments which demand leadership and responsibility for decisions to be made even if they are unpopular,” Sharon said.
His top adviser, Dov Weisglass, one of the chief architects of disengagement, said the Gaza pull-out is only the first of a series of ”painful concessions” by Israel.
”The withdrawal from the four Jewish communities in northern Samaria [the northern West Bank] … is an important symbolic act showing that the withdrawal from Gaza is not the end of the road,” he added.
In another move designed to improve relations with the Palestinians, Israel released 500 prisoners who had emotional reunions with their families after being delivered to checkpoints across the West Bank and Gaza.
Farha al-Diq said it was the happiest day of her life as she clapped eyes on two of her sons for the first time in years.
”I haven’t tasted joy for four years,” said the 43-year-old as she embraced sons Rami and Mohammed at the Tulkarem checkpoint in the northern West Bank.
Mohammed stressed that ”we won’t have peace in the region” until the release of all 7 600 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel.
Prisoners freed near Ramallah travelled to the Palestinian Authority’s leadership compound for a meeting with leader Mahmoud Abbas.
”I am delighted that these heroic prisoners can return to their families and enjoy their liberty once more in a country which is also going to be freed,” Abbas told them. ”We are very happy with the release of this first group but it is only the start.”
The prospect of a pull-out from Gaza and last month’s election of the moderate Abbas has raised hope of a breakthrough in the peace process.
On a visit to Brussels, Bush said the US and Europe share the ”immediate goal” of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
”America and Europe have made a moral commitment that we will not stand by as another generation in the holy land grows up in an atmosphere of violence,” Bush said.
Meanwhile, attempts to form a new Palestinian Cabinet were plunged into chaos when a session of Parliament convened to approve a new line-up was halted amid disputes over the list of ministers.
Parliamentary Speaker Rawhi Fattuh said the session will resume on Tuesday in the middle of debate after Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia unveiled his prospective line-up and the top priorities of his administration.
A senior government official said the vote was being shelved amid continued dispute among deputies from the dominant Fatah faction over the line-up. — Sapa-AFP