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Goodbye Gaza: Sharon is Challenging the Israelis and Palestinians

(Times-UK) Editorial - Ariel Sharon is often presented outside of Israel as simply a belligerent and uncompromising political hawk and thus an obstacle to the Middle East peace process. That caricature has never been fair and has rarely been more misplaced than at the moment. It cannot be overstressed just how radical the Gaza withdrawal scheme is and the high price that Mr. Sharon has already paid for it. None of the Labor prime ministers since the 1967 war has dared to attempt to extract Israel from this territory. If the vote is carried, then international reaction should not be churlish. The open contempt for Israel has, alas, acquired a momentum that any concession of whatever substance is dismissed as a ruse or a cunning ploy to entrench authority over the Palestinian people. Political leaders should be willing to acknowledge publicly the scale of the political wager that Mr. Sharon has accepted. His critics have insisted that he would never pursue a pull-out - he is proving them wrong.
2004-10-25 00:00:00
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