Abbas to Palestinians: Today Gaza, Tomorrow Jerusalem
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas vowed yesterday the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip marked a huge step in his people’s quest for an independent state, with a capital in Jerusalem. “Today Gaza and tomorrow Jerusalem if God wills it,” Abbas told a demonstration, attended by thousands, on Gaza City’s Mediterranean coastline. “Today, our march to freedom begins. Tomorrow, it will be Jenin’s turn and after that Jerusalem,” Abbas told the crowd at the gathering, called “the Festival of Victory and Freedom.” The crowd roared back Abbas’ popular name: “Abu Mazen, Abu Mazen”. The Israeli Army’s evacuation of 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip is due to begin Monday, followed by the dismantlement of four Jewish settlements near Jenin in the northern West Bank. The withdrawal has launched a period of political jockeying between Abbas and his political rivals, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Abbas said the departure of the Israelis from Gaza offered the Palestinian people “a point of departure for the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital”. In his address delivered at a small fishing port in Gaza City, he said: “Today we are beginning the march of the fishermen toward freedom. Soon you will be able to fish along the whole coast of Palestine.” During a speech earlier this week before the Parliament, Abbas urged the Palestinian people to ensure the pullout took place free of violence in order to bolster their case for independence.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon raised the prospect yesterday that Israel could eventually uproot more settlements on occupied land after it evacuates its enclaves in Gaza and a pocket of the West Bank in coming weeks. Sharon, in an interview with the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, reiterated that his “disengagement plan” was meant to strengthen Israel’s hold on West Bank settlement blocs, which it intends to keep under any future peace deal with Palestinians. However, asked about the fate of some of the more isolated West Bank settlements, Sharon said: “Not everything will remain. That issue will be raised during the final stage of negotiations with the Palestinians.” With five days to go before the start of Israel’s eviction of Gaza settlers, Sharon’s comments hinted at a softening of his stance against further withdrawals. In the face of fierce rightist opposition to his pullout plan, Sharon had recently insisted he has no intention of giving up any more settlements beyond the 21 in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank already scheduled for evacuation.
***In the Gush Katif settlement at Neve Dekalim, demontrators, mostly young people, turned on three Israeli army Jeeps. The settlers, many brandishing M-16 assault rifles, smashed windows and slashed tires on the Jeeps, ripping what appeared to be aerial maps of the settlement from the vehicles and setting them on fire. ***
They could have chosen to do years and decades ago, as well. The Palestinian people remain undefeated, just as the Hezbollah who very certainly did drive Isreal out of Lebanon.
Greater Israel no more, take your rubble with you.
No one withdraws especially after building houses, roads etc.. and burying their dead.. Always remember in the end its the danda that does the bidding. Remember how brave Jews ran from S. Lebanon…
Yeap! It is the Israeli danda that has been doing the “bidding” to Arrabob behinds. MAToos beware. This is not the time to empty slogans. Palistinians need all the patience, hardwork, and above all peace to get out of their miserable lives.
Do not even bring Hizballah in this discussion. They did more demage to Palestinian cause than anyone else.
lagta haey mirchi lag gai haey… LOL… Yep its the danda that did the trick for the Jews in Europe…Hizb danda did the trick in S. Lebanon and its doing the trick in Ghaza.
Truth must prevail. There was never any Palestine state in the entire history………
And what is Arab unity? A comedy of many errors….
‘Even the word “Palestine” has no meaning in Arabic - every word in Arabic has some meaning deriving from the Koran, but the word “Palestine” does not. If anything, the name “Palestine” was associated with Jews. In the years leading up to the rebirth of Israel in 1948, those who spoke of “Palestinians” were nearly always referring to the region’s Jewish residents. For example, the “Palestine Post” [forerunner of today’s Jerusalem Post] newspaper and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra were all-Jewish. The “Palestine Brigade Regiment” was composed exclusively of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army. In fact, Arab leaders rejected the notion of a unique “Palestinian Arab” identity, insisting that Palestine was merely a part of “Greater Syria.” ‘
‘There was no “Arab Palestinian” history before the Arabs manufactured one shortly after 1948, and then especially after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War! In an interview with the Dutch newspaper “Trau” (March 31, 1977), PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said, "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism. It is also been a “conceptual” war for ownership of the term “Palestinian” which has been transferred over to the Arabs whereas, before 1967, “Palestine” has always been synonymous with Eretz Israel and the Land of Israel.’
Israel has negotiated ceding East Jeusalem in previous years, in case you forgot about it. Israel under estimated the ability of the Palestinian’s to withstand 40 years of occupation, but they did, just as they under estimated the Hezbollah in Lebanon for 20 years.
