On the fifteenth anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli (Kan) channel revealed the real reason that prompted the then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw.
The channel mentioned in its series of reports on the anniversary of the withdrawal, that the reason for the defeat of Sharon and his withdrawal from the Strip is the operation (Netzarim) in which three Israeli soldiers were killed, and the channel considered it “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
The channel said: “During the occupation of the Gaza Strip, several painful operations took place there, although they were intermittent and sometimes spaced temporarily, but they were continuing, so that during that period, the operations in the West Bank almost also led them to withdraw from them due to the accumulation of the ongoing Palestinian struggle
For many years, Israeli writers tended to obfuscate the reason for the Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, and they said that Sharon announced the withdrawal suddenly, without introductions, and without anyone knowing the reason for that withdrawal.
During the report, Moshe Yaalon, the army’s chief of staff, during that period, stated that he opposed the idea of withdrawing and leaving Gaza, indicating that the matter was forgotten until 2004, until he read an article to Yoel Marcos, that Sharon intends to leave completely from Gaza, following up. Marcus heard about this decision before me. “
The President of the National Security Council , retired Gen. Giora Eiland, said : “When I heard separation (withdrawal) understood that Sharon himself does not know where it’s heading, explaining” that were not to have a clear plan. “
Sharon , the man who was known for siding with the settlement more than all, And what he was saying several months before the withdrawal was that (Netzarim) was like “Tel Aviv”, it was he who announced that it was time to leave the settlements in the Gaza Strip.
“A portion of the settlements will be transferred in order to reduce friction, and in order to defend in the very correct way our soldiers, the settlers, the residents of Jerusalem, and the center of the country,” Sharon said during the announcement of the withdrawal.
Retired General Yaqoub Amdour, the former head of the National Security Council, said that his surprise was very big when he heard the decision to withdraw, especially since Sharon changed his mind in an extreme and in contradiction to his electoral promises.
Among the series of reports, the Kan channel showed the changes that occurred in the Gaza Strip settlements 15 years after their evacuation.
A similar withdrawal from the West Bank
He revealed a similar plan to withdraw from large parts of the West Bank, at which time Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began preparing it, and that a committee of senior government officials prepared to approve it, but his illness and complete paralysis prevented its implementation. This disclosure came in a lengthy report, in the Israeli newspaper (Israel Hume), and was conveyed by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was a partner in the plan, and tried to develop it when he succeeded Sharon as prime minister, as well as by Dennis Ross, the former US envoy to the East. The Middle East, which has managed negotiations for many years between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Olmert said that after his understanding with Sharon to go to separate from the West Bank, he traveled to the United States, and it occurred to him that he would inform the Americans of the plan.
Although Sharon did not like the idea, he did not prevent him from putting it up in Washington. Olmert told her, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying: “The disengagement plan from Gaza was only a prelude to a more significant withdrawal in the West Bank. Rice was impressed with the idea, and cared about the reaction of the Palestinians.” Then Olmert informed Sharon of the results of the meeting with American officials after his return from the United States, confirming that they were with him in launching it.
Olmert confirmed that Sharon began thinking about a “disengagement” plan with the West Bank, should the “road map” plan proposed by the administration of former US President George Bush in 2002 to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict fail, and negotiations with the Palestinian side reached a dead end. He said that the deliberations on the matter were not completed due to Sharon’s illness and his long coma. Ross said that before Sharon suffered a coma after suffering a stroke, he appointed a crew to determine the framework on which the next withdrawal inside the West Bank would take place, noting that his Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was a partner in making this decision. The crew consisted of: Aharon Abramovich, Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office, General Moshe Kaplinsky, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the IDF, and Dr. Shabit Matthias, Deputy Judicial Adviser to the Government, specializing in international law affairs. He was charged with developing a detailed plan for the limits of withdrawal from large sections of the West Bank, and the implications for this in the security, economic and legal fields. It is mentioned that Sharon started to present the withdrawal plan from the Gaza Strip since 2003, after the failure of the (road map), and he started rolling it into the institutions of the Likud party at the beginning, and when he saw that the party was obstructing its path, he withdrew from it, and in parallel, Shimon Peres withdrew from the Labor Party, Together they established the Kadima party, which approved and implemented the plan in early September 2005, and was called the Disengagement Plan. Under it, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, and evacuated the settlers and destroyed the settlements that existed throughout the strip (21 settlements in which 8,500 settlers lived), in addition to the evacuation of 4 other settlements in the northern West Bank