My Op-ed in New York's "The Forward"
- - - - by YMedad
Here's how it starts:
Sharon's Disengagement From Democracy
By Yisrael Medad
May 20, 2005
This summer, Israel will withdraw its troops from Gaza and the northern West Bank [I wrote Samaria but their editorial policy is WB] and remove the 9,000 Jewish civilians who call those places home. While much has been written about Prime Minister Sharon's disengagement process already, it is worth revisiting how this ill-advised decision was taken, for it holds a very real and threatening lesson for the future of the State of Israel.
Last year, Sharon succeeded in maneuvering the country into adopting the bold, even surprising, unilateral disengagement plan. First the Cabinet voted approvingly, and then the Knesset voted 59-32 in favor. On the way to legislating the plan, however, Sharon lost his own Likud Party's internal referendum and fired two ministers in order to gain a majority in the Cabinet. He also refused to extend military chief of staff Moshe Ayalon's term of service after he expressed misgivings about the plan..
The disengagement policy and the lengths to which Sharon has been willing to go in order to ram it through make a remarkable turnabout for the prime minister...
If interested, read on...