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Address to the Israeli Public on the Eve of the Gaza Withdrawal

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (Prime Minister's Office)- * Citizens of Israel, the day has arrived. We are beginning the most difficult and painful step of all - evacuating our communities from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria. * Gaza cannot be held onto forever. Over one million Palestinians live there, and they double their numbers with every generation. They live in incredibly cramped refugee camps, in poverty and squalor, in hotbeds of ever-increasing hatred, with no hope whatsoever on the horizon. * It is out of strength and not weakness that we are taking this step. We tried to reach agreements with the Palestinians which would move the two peoples towards the path of peace. These were crushed against a wall of hatred and fanaticism. * The unilateral Disengagement Plan is the Israeli answer to this reality. We are reducing the day-to-day friction and its victims on both sides. * Now the Palestinians bear the burden of proof. They must fight terror organizations, dismantle its infrastructure, and show sincere intentions of peace in order to sit with us at the negotiating table. * The world awaits the Palestinian response - a hand offered in peace or continued terrorist fire. To a hand offered in peace, we will respond with an olive branch. But if they chose fire, we will respond with fire, more severe than ever. * Residents of the Gaza Strip, today marks the end of a glorious chapter in the story of Israel, and a central chapter in the story of your lives as pioneers, as realizers of a dream, and as those who bore the security and settlement burden for all of us. Your pain and your tears are an inseparable part of the history of this country.
2005-08-16 00:00:00
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