It appears that Tuesday night’s big winner of the Kadima party
primary vote, like the Royal house of Bourbon, has not forgotten
anything and has not learned anything. On November 11, 2009, the
Israel Policy Forum (a NY based American Jewish organization which
has been criticized for being pro-Palestinian) hosted a conference
call discussion with former Defense Minister and former IDF Chief of
Staff Shaul Mofaz, in which he laid down his plan for a Permanent
Palestinian State. If you or your loved ones reside in Judea and
Samaria – be afraid, be very afraid.
Indeed, over the past few years, Mofaz has been visiting the parts of
Judea and Samaria located within the security fence, to reassure
residents that their future is safe. Ynet quotes him as saying, in
late 2005: “I intend to operate on two issues: The first is to
continue to promote the building of the fence in order to provide the
citizens with maximum security, and the second is to strengthen
settlement blocs, because I believe that the settlement blocs must be
strong, together with the Jordan Valley.”
But anyone else, apparently, is fair game. On a visit to Ma’ale
Adumim, days before the Kadima vote, Mofaz reiterated that he
considered this settlement with its 39,000 residents, near Jerusalem,
as “an integral part of Israel’s political agenda.” Meaning, this one
gets to stay, others – not so.
The truth is that Shaul Mofaz, who may become Israel’s next prime
minister, is as firm on uprooting thousands of Jewish families from
Judea and Samaria as he was about doing the same to the Jews of the
Gaza strip.
And it is clear that he acted in Gaza’s Gush Katif with the full
expectation that once the settlements were cleared, a reign of terror
and attacks on Israel were likely to follow.
Back in June, 2005, the Jerusalem Post’s David Horovitz reported that
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was preparing to hand over to the
Palestinian Authority written information on the location of
settlements and on settlement infrastructure in Gush Katif, to keep
the PA (which still ruled in Gaza) in the know and help coordinate
with them the uprooting of the Jewish settlers.
Briefing reporters, Mofaz “took a swipe at former chief of General
Staff Moshe Ya’alon,” whose term at the helm of the IDF was not
renewed because Mofaz did not trust him to carry out the removal of
Jews from their homes.
The week before that June briefing, Ya’alon had “warned of an upsurge
in terrorism and ultimately war with the Palestinians in the
aftermath of disengagement,” recorded Horovitz. Mofaz declared,
without mentioning Ya’alon by name, that some people were
inventing “radical scenarios about what will happen the day after,”
when in reality, there were “lots of possibilities” and Israel had to
be “ready to deal with any and all of them.”
But then, at the very same briefing, Mofaz warned that Hamas was
growing stronger in Gaza, outpacing the PA, and that—as Horovitz put
it—he “envisaged a possibility of Hamas becoming the dominant player
there.”
With prophetic foresight, Mofaz said: “An alternative leadership is
rising up under the noses of the PA.” He warned that Hamas had “a
people’s army” which was bringing weapons in clandestine ways into
Gaza. Indeed, all of Hamas’ soldiers were now armed and trained,
unmolested by the PA’s security forces.
On a different occasion, during a tour of Gush Katif that summer,
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told reporters that Ashkelon was within
the range that needed extra protection from terrorist rockets.
But with all this prophetic insight, Mofaz still did not hesitate to
move in on the Jews of Gush Katif and plant the seeds for the very
scenario about which he was so worried. Deprived of a base within
Gaza, the IDF was later forced to employ a great deal more power than
would have been necessary to curtail rocket attacks on Israel — just
as Mofaz had predicted.
A brilliant analyst he is — if only he listened to his own analysis.
There is no love lost between Shaul Mofaz and the settlement movement.
Two years after the annihilation of Jewish Gaza, in his capacity as
Transportation Minister in the Kadima government led by PM Ehud
Olmert, Mofaz was invited by the Gush Etzion municipality to
participate in a ceremony naming the intersection at Efrat’s northern
entrance after the convoys that brought aid to the Jews of Gush
Etzion and Jerusalem, who were under Jordanian siege during the 1948-
49 War of Independence.
Mofaz was welcomed with whistles, boos and shouts, which drowned out
his short speech. The crowd yelled: Lo Shachachnu – we haven’t
forgotten.
With all of the above in mind, here are Shaul Mofaz’s plans for a
permanent Palestinian state, as laid down before the Israel Policy
Forum in 2009:
My proposal is to move in two phases to a peace agreement with the
Palestinians. I propose the immediate establishment of an independent
disarmed Palestinian state in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Simultaneously, we will engage in dialogue with the Palestinians on
the final status issues.
I believe that a permanent Palestinian state with temporary borders
and simultaneous negotiations on the core issues: borders, refugees
and Jerusalem, will allow us to rebuild the trust between the two
sides, and totally change the atmosphere in our region. In this
process, we must have the support of the moderate Arab countries, the
European countries and the leadership of the United States.
When asked about negotiating with the Hamas government, Mofaz first
states that “We cannot accept terror organizations living side-by-
side with Israel and launching missiles against our people.”
Having said that, Mofaz proceeds:
But, if Hamas accepts the Quartet requirements: stop terror activity
and incitement; accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish
democratic country; and implement all the agreements achieved so far,
we will sit with them at the negotiation table, if they are elected
by the Palestinian people. In my proposal I agree to negotiate with
the elected Palestinian leadership. If the Palestinian people vote
for Hamas and Hamas wins the election I will respect their decision
and will return to the negotiating table with Hamas as a partner.
When asked what will happen to the settlers outside the “approved”
Jewish settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, once the state is
declared in your first phase? Does Israel remove them, Mofaz shows
just how little he has learned from the Gush Katif tragedy:
I believe that in the first year we should pass an evacuation-
compensation law in the Knesset and to prepare the civilian
infrastructure for the people moving from these settlements to the
Galilee or the Negev. We cannot predict the size or the percentage of
the people that will move by their own will, but I believe that
giving them the infrastructure, giving them the time, knowing that
the Palestinian state with temporary borders was approved in a
referendum in Israel, will make it easier for them to make the right
decision. But we cannot predict how many people will stay in any case
in their houses, in their settlements. In the end, we should ask them
or remove them to other areas.
Should the reader presume from reading Mofaz’s well disguised plan
that he is essentially looking to act in democratic ways, based on a
recognized process which would be approved by the voters, the last
statement should turn on the red alert. Back in May, 2004, the Likud
party held a referendum on the Gush Katif plan which ended with 65%
of the voters against the plan. So PM Sharon ordered Minister of
Defense Shaul Mofaz to create an amended plan, which the cabinet
approved without the tedious process of offering it up for another
vote. And as to the care to be given to Jewish refugees from the
evacuated settlements, Ynet reported on a Knesset committee hearing
in 2006 on a report on “Suicide attempts, heart attacks, and
deterioration of family life” which were “among the symptoms
affecting the lives of former Gush Katif settlers evacuated from Gaza
last summer.” Also, in the same report, it was stated that “about 51
percent of the evacuees are unemployed” one year after their forced
removal.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the suffering of
Gush Katif Jews, who had been given the very same promises by the
very same man.
