The new Israeli strategy is being advanced unilaterally by the Zionist rulers to legitimize their long-term grab of Palestinian lands in the occupied territories and make the Israeli state more secure from “terrorist attacks.”

The plan—which has Washington’s backing—includes not only pulling out the settlements from Gaza, but annexing to Israel a number of the largest West Bank settlement blocks and refusing the right of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees to return to their land. Under this plan, Israeli military forces will continue patrolling Gaza’s coastline, air space, and land borders. They will also retain military control over the West Bank.

Sharon obtained a 67-45 majority for the measure with the votes of the opposition Labor Party. In an earlier vote in May, the majority of the membership of the governing Likud Party had rejected Sharon’s “disengagement plan.” After that vote, which had been expected, Sharon made it clear he would push for its passage in parliament.

There are 7,500 Israeli settlers in Gaza, less than 1 percent of the population on more than 20 percent of the strip’s land. The settlers live in 21 fortified enclaves built up since Tel Aviv captured the territory in 1967. About 20,000 Israeli soldiers are there. Some 1.3 million Palestinians are jammed into the remainder of Gaza.

The dismantling of the settlements would be carried out in phases over the next year, and each phase will require approval from the prime minister’s cabinet. Sharon fired two of his cabinet members for voting against “disengagement” in the parliamentary vote. Four other Likud ministers, led by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, voted for the proposal but threatened to resign unless Sharon agrees to hold a national referendum on the pullout. The Israeli prime minister has rejected calls for a referendum on a withdrawal from Gaza, saying it would “lead to terrible tensions and a rupture in the public.”

The task of maintaining a permanent military cordon around the settlements in Gaza, a center of political and military resistance to the Israeli occupation, has proven to be an insoluble headache for Tel Aviv. The Israeli government aims to turn over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority in order to wipe its hands clean of this problem and establish “peace” on its own terms.

A key advisor to Sharon, Dov Weisglas, told the Israeli daily Haaretz that Sharon’s plan for Gaza is “formaldehyde…so there will be no political process with the Palestinians.”

Tel Aviv’s initiative around a pullout from Gaza has been accompanied by a step up in its brutalization of the Palestinian population there. Haaretz as well as Palestinian organizations report that Israeli forces killed more than 150 Palestinians in October, the largest number in a single month since April 2002. The overwhelming majority of these were killed in Gaza, largely during the occupation of the northern part of the territory.

At the same time, Tel Aviv has continued to make progress in building a wall around and into the West Bank. The more than 400-mile “security wall” will secure a substantial land grab for the Israeli rulers by redrawing the map of the territory that is home to nearly 2 million Palestinians. It is a central feature of what the Israeli and U.S. imperialist rulers term the “two-state solution,” a set-up they will try to impose on the Palestinian population on Tel Aviv and Washington’s terms.  
 
 
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