Barak: Support Sharon's Attacks, Opposes "Dangerous" Roadmap
Aaron Lerner Date: 25 August 2003

Former prime minister Ehud Barak supported the Sharon Administration's
operations against terrorists in a live interview broadcast on Israel Radio
this morning. Barak said that the PA is not fighting terror.

Barak then said that "Netanyahu and Lieberman are correct in opposing the
Roadmap". He called the Roadmap a "dangerous program" that creates a
sovereign Palestinian state without resolving key issues. Barak noted that
the sovereign Palestinian state provided by the Roadmap in Stage II - before
the end of 2003 and before the issues of Jerusalem, settlements, refugees,
etc. are resolved, is within "temporary boundaries" much as Israel has been
within "temporary boundaries' for over half a century.

Barak warned that if this dangerous program of creating a "temporary"
Palestinian state, that he identified with Peres and Sharon, is implemented,
Israel will find itself without any negotiating assets before any of the key
issues have been resolved and facing a sovereign state against whom security
operations will be considerably more costly because it is a sovereign state.

Barak recommended that Israel unilaterally withdraw from most of the
territories and build a fence.

MK Yuval Steinmetz (Likud), head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, warned that if Israel were to implement Barak's recommendation to
repeat Barak's retreat from Lebanon in the territories that this will lead
to a situation that Israel's heavily populated coastal plain and Jerusalem
will be within range of Palestinian rockets and missiles just as all of
northern Israel is now threatened by many thousands of Katyushas since Barak
's retreat from Lebanon.

Steinmetz proposed that the "Tunis leadership" running the PA be expelled to
Tunis and new elections be held to create a PA leadership of local
Palestinians who will operate with the knowledge of the consequences of
noncompliance as demonstrated by the expulsion of the Tunis leadership.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
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