PM Sharon concedes claimed key US promise vague in Makor Rishon interview
Aaron Lerner Date: 24
April 2005

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon conceded in a holiday interview with Makor
Rishon (22 April)
www.makorrishon.net/article.php?id=3619 that the "large settlement blocs"
that he claims the Bush letter promises Israel would retain as the major
pay-off and justification for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and northern
Samaria have never been delineated:

"With regards to settlement blocs - people claim against me that I did not
set which blocs, or the sizes of the blocs, and thus I wish to clarify: it
is not by chance that I have not set the size of the blocs. No one knows
how things will develop."

Sharon also repeated a claim in this interview that he made without
challenge in several other holiday interviews: "in no plan in the past, in
no plan, was it said that we would remain in the Gaza Strip".

When the Makor Rishon reporters pointed out to him that when he participated
in the ceremony founding Kfar Darom in the fall of 1989 he promised that
they would remain there "forever" and asked him if he had not been serious
when he said it.

Sharon replied "Look. It isn't that I have changed, the conditions have
changed."

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