Doing Something About It
While Aunt Agatha and I bitch and moan about the Palestinians, at least one Israeli is proposing to do something about them:
In his plan, the deputy prime minister [Avigdor Lieberman] refers to the West Bank and Gaza as two separate entities, both on the political level and on the practical level.
Israel will address both entities separately. Any negotiation with the Palestinian Authority will only apply to the West Bank. “Gaza will be defined as a hostile independent political entity for all intents and purposes,” Lieberman explained.
Lieberman suggested practical steps toward the implementation of his plan: There will be no movement between Gaza and the West Bank, not of goods, and not of people. This restriction of movement includes the Palestinian president’s aides and Palestinians VIPs.
Workers will not be permitted to leave Gaza to work in Israel. Taxes for the Gaza Strip will not be collected. The Ashdod port will not transfer any goods to the Strip. All crossings, including Karni crossing will be sealed.
Israel will not provide Gaza authorities with any type of infrastructure or resource. The Gazans will have to find their own solutions to problems of fuel, water, and electricity.
Lieberman said that the process of complete severance of ties will begin in 2008, when all contact between Israel and Gaza will be cut off.
“Gaza’s fate will be like that of Sinai,” Lieberman’s plan said. “Just as Israel did not continue to provide anything to Sinai after it withdrew, there is no reason why it should act any differently toward Gaza, especially in the current situation.”
I know I’m supposed to recoil in horror at the very mention of Liberman’s name, and that he is the devil incarnate—but tell me more, Satan.
Israel will treat any security threat coming from the Strip very severely. Israel will work toward thwarting the threat by any means available, just as any sovereign country is meant to do in order to protect its citizens from an enemy attack.
“It’s very simple,” said Lieberman, “Sderot’s fate will be similar to that of the Gazan neighborhood of Rimal, if Sderot is hit, the Rimal neighborhood will be hit just as hard at the very least.”
I’m sorry, but I agree.
“Protect its citizens from an enemy attack”: How is that not the first and overriding responsibility of any government?
Hell, if they’re going to call you an apartheid state anyway… I’m joking.