a_unique_person
9th June 2003, 05:03 PM
Sharon promise sparks security fear
June 7 2003
By Ed O'Loughlin
Amman
Israeli intelligence chiefs are stepping up security for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after his promise at Wednesday's Aqaba summit to immediately begin dismantling "unauthorised" Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The security services fear that following his Aqaba statement Mr Sharon could fall victim to armed extremists among the ultra-nationalist, messianic Jewish settler movement.
Jewish settlers living on Arab land forcibly seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war believe that only Jews have the right to live in the biblical land of Israel.
It was a supporter of the settler movement who shot and killed the late prime minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995, after he signed the Oslo agreements to withdraw from most or all of the occupied territories.
The fate of the Jewish settlements is fast emerging as the first test of the "road map" for peace launched at Aqaba by Mr Sharon, US President George Bush and the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/06/1054700387818.html
He helped create them, now he will have to live with them. Sharon as Jerry Springer, complete with bouncers.
In scenes reminiscent of the Jerry Springer show, Mr Sharon ploughed ahead with his speech as hundreds of delegates jeered and blew whistles, while burly bouncers waded into the scuffling crowd.
Mr Sharon repeated his belief that the peace process could bring an end to terror, but said: "We will not give anything as long as the terror, violence and incitement continues."
With the majority of the Likud's 3000 registered delegates staying, Mr Sharon faced a hall whose rear half was packed with right-wingers, many representing the fundamentalist and ultra-nationalist settler movement.
His opponents chanted "traitor" and held up signs accusing him of surrendering to terrorism. At the front of the hall, Sharon loyalists launched their own sporadic chants of "Arik (Ariel) is the King of Israel".
Watching the chaos from the podium, Mr Sharon could take comfort in that a majority of Likud apparatchiks have always opposed peace deals, but the same is not true of the Israeli population in general. A poll published in yesterday's Ha'aretz newspaper showed that 69 per cent of Israelis were now willing to give up most of the settlements in return for peace.
June 7 2003
By Ed O'Loughlin
Amman
Israeli intelligence chiefs are stepping up security for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after his promise at Wednesday's Aqaba summit to immediately begin dismantling "unauthorised" Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The security services fear that following his Aqaba statement Mr Sharon could fall victim to armed extremists among the ultra-nationalist, messianic Jewish settler movement.
Jewish settlers living on Arab land forcibly seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war believe that only Jews have the right to live in the biblical land of Israel.
It was a supporter of the settler movement who shot and killed the late prime minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995, after he signed the Oslo agreements to withdraw from most or all of the occupied territories.
The fate of the Jewish settlements is fast emerging as the first test of the "road map" for peace launched at Aqaba by Mr Sharon, US President George Bush and the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/06/1054700387818.html
He helped create them, now he will have to live with them. Sharon as Jerry Springer, complete with bouncers.
In scenes reminiscent of the Jerry Springer show, Mr Sharon ploughed ahead with his speech as hundreds of delegates jeered and blew whistles, while burly bouncers waded into the scuffling crowd.
Mr Sharon repeated his belief that the peace process could bring an end to terror, but said: "We will not give anything as long as the terror, violence and incitement continues."
With the majority of the Likud's 3000 registered delegates staying, Mr Sharon faced a hall whose rear half was packed with right-wingers, many representing the fundamentalist and ultra-nationalist settler movement.
His opponents chanted "traitor" and held up signs accusing him of surrendering to terrorism. At the front of the hall, Sharon loyalists launched their own sporadic chants of "Arik (Ariel) is the King of Israel".
Watching the chaos from the podium, Mr Sharon could take comfort in that a majority of Likud apparatchiks have always opposed peace deals, but the same is not true of the Israeli population in general. A poll published in yesterday's Ha'aretz newspaper showed that 69 per cent of Israelis were now willing to give up most of the settlements in return for peace.