Cabinet vote to evacuate communities advanced to January

Aaron Lerner Date: 17 December 2004

Maariv correspondent Ben Caspit reports today that Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon plans to advance the four cabinet votes to remove groupings of
Israeli communities in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria to a single vote
in January. Sharon decided to advance the vote after legal experts in the
Ministry of Justice explained that the original plan to vote immediately
before uprooting the communities would not stand up in court and that,
realistically, half a year would be required to overcome the legal
challenges after the vote.

Caspit notes that disengagement director Bassi also told Sharon at the
meeting this week that he cannot send out evacuation letters until there is
a final cabinet vote.s

It should be noted that Ministers Netanyahu, Livnat and others justified
their support for the plan by arguing that the final votes would only take
place close to each round of evacuations - thus making the operations
subject to the situation at the time.

Ben Caspit does not indicate if there was any "soul searching" in the Sharon
team as to why it took until now for them to consider the timing issue - and
if the lack of thought that this failure indicates may also reflect the
overall absence of thinking in the plan.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il