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Israel OKs Egyptian troops on Gaza border
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-01 08:58
Israel's parliament on Wednesday approved a plan to post Egyptian troops on
the Gaza border, setting the stage for an Israeli military pullout from the
sensitive coastal frontier it has held for 38 years, AP reported.
But the stormy debate over giving up control to a former enemy and the
possibility of Palestinian arms smuggling added fuel to the rivalry between
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu.
The parliamentary vote was not close — 53 to 28. It came as Netanyahu, who
quit the Cabinet just three weeks ago, opened a campaign to unseat Sharon as the
leader of the ruling Likud Party.
The challenge was based on opposition to the pullout among registered Likud
members. While the evacuation of all 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the West
Bank had widespread public support, many ideologues in the traditionally
pro-settlement party were opposed. They control party institutions, giving
Netanyahu a solid chance to oust Sharon from the helm.
The split in Israel's largest party has called into question whether Sharon's
government can live out its term until November 2006 and move ahead on
peacemaking with the Palestinians after the Gaza pullout. Israel is expected to
turn over control of Gaza to the Palestinians in mid-September.
Opening his campaign, Netanyahu visited one of the most contentious areas in
a trilateral dispute involving Israel, the Palestinians and the United States —
the three-mile corridor between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, Israel's largest
West Bank settlement.
Netanyahu criticized Sharon for freezing a government plan to construct 3,650
homes in the area to block a Palestinian hold there and on nearby east
Jerusalem.
"He has created a precedent that will lead to the division of Jerusalem,"
Netanyahu told reporters during the tour. "My starting (my campaign) here is not
coincidental because Jerusalem is in danger."
Sharon said this week that more West Bank settlements would be dismantled
under a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. But he hopes to keep
Israeli control over Maaleh Adumim and at least two other settlement blocs,
where most of the West Bank's 246,000 settlers live.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that all settlements "should
be removed, from the first stone to the last stone," singling out the ones
around Jerusalem.
Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of the state they want to
create in the West Bank and Gaza. They charge that the Israeli plan to build in
the Maaleh Adumim corridor is a way of cutting off the West Bank from east
Jerusalem.
The United States often criticized expansion of Maaleh Adumim, also worrying
about unilateral steps that could pre-empt negotiations or even prevent a peace
deal.
During the parliamentary debate on the agreement with Egypt, Netanyahu
displayed his basic distrust of both the Palestinians and the Egyptians,
insisting on Israeli control of the Egypt-Gaza border, as well as the Gaza
seacoast and air space.
"It is important that we keep the Philadelphi road in our hands," he said,
referring to the border access route, "and certainly not give a port or airport
to the Islamic terror base which is going to arise in Gaza."
During more than four years of Palestinian-Israeli violence, Israeli forces
have uncovered and destroyed dozens of tunnels under the border, used by
Palestinians for smuggling arms and contraband into Gaza.
But Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, an ex-army chief of staff and Sharon ally,
dismissed fears about turning the task over to Egypt.
"I want to tell all the members of the house who don't understand — reality
has changed," Mofaz said, adding that the decision to allow Egyptian border
police along the eight-mile stretch of desert "does not endanger Israel's
security."
The parliamentary action was little more than a technicality, changing the
1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty to allow for posting 750 lightly armed Egyptian
border police.
In Gaza, meanwhile, dozens of Palestinian youths stormed an empty Israeli
army watchtower guarding the evacuated Gush Katif settlement bloc.
Police struggling to control the crowd fired shots in the air. One policeman
was beaten by youths. The scuffle raised questions about the ability of
Palestinian police to maintain control over Gaza once the Israeli withdrawal is
completed in the coming weeks.
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