Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
There were lots of Jews who wanted to stay. The Israeli government removed them because it was not safe for them to stay without military protection.
Leavign under the threat of violence hardly qualifies as a choice.
|
Although there was much violence by Palestinian terrorists, it wasn't this threat of violence toward the settlers that caused them to be removed. Sharon forced them to move primarily to gain political leverage with the US, which was successful in the letter that Bush sent two months later, backing several tenants of Sharon's proposed resolution, including the relocation of Palistinian refugees into Gaza rather than into their previous homelands throughout Israel. Essentially, Sharon was advocating population exchange as a solution to the violence. You can dispute whether population exchange counts as ethnic cleansing (borderline, but I don't think it does), but that solution came entirely from Sharon. The Palestinian solution has always been in support of the Arab Peace Initiative, which has a lot of flaws, but allows for Israel to maintain some settlements inside Palestine and for Palestine to maintain settlements inside Israel.