FROM:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1083043663915&p=1078027574121

PM: "Much harsher" response to violence after pulloutAssociated Press
Apr. 27, 2004
Israel's response to Palestinian violence after a pullout from the Gaza Strip
would be even harsher than its present military operations, Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said Tuesday.

Interviewed on Channel 10 TV for Independence Day, Sharon defended his
unilateral disengagement plan, including a pullout from the Gaza Strip.

Members of his Likud Party vote on the plan in a referendum on Sunday.
(It's interesting that this is EXACTLY 7 days past the abortion rally!!!  cwm)

After a pullout, Palestinians could no longer explain violence by saying that
Israel was occupying their land, Sharon said, "and Israel's responses (to
violence) would be much harsher."

He refused to give specifics, beyond noting that Israel is already taking stiff
measures, an apparent reference to the killing of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed
Yassin on March 22 and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, three weeks later.

In the TV interview, Sharon warned Likud skeptics that voting down the plan
would also negate US guarantees that Israel could keep parts of the West
Bank and deny entry to Palestinian refugees.

Palestinians suspect Sharon's real intention is to trade Gaza for a permanent
hold over large areas of the West Bank.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, about 1,500 backers of the radical Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine demonstrated against the change in US policy.
"Bush does not own a house in Jaffa or Acre for him to give away to the Israelis,"
one PFLP member shouted, and actors played out a scene in which masked
gunmen kidnapped an American soldier and killed him.