Sunday, June 05, 2005 15:00 IST
JNW HEADLINE NEWSNetanyahu flip-flops, vows to fight retreat
By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial StaffJune 3rd, 2005
Despite voting in favor of “disengagement” from Gaza and northern Samaria in six cabinet and Knesset votes, Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Friday told Army Radio he would firmly oppose the plan he helped make law from this point forward.
Speaking a day earlier to Likud Party members in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan “will come up again for a cabinet vote, and how will I vote? I will vote against.”
Netanyahu noted that the pullout had been hijacked by Hamas, which had convinced the Palestinian Arabs that terrorism drove the Jews from Gaza.
“Palestinian terrorists don't view our departure as a reasonable move but as a flight from terror and a sign that terrorism works. If you flee from terror, then terror continues to chase you,” he said in a separate interview with WorldNetDaily.
Sharon's plan, Netanyahu explained, “simply emboldens the terrorists to continue their tactics until the completion of their ultimate goal: the destruction of Israel.”
The plan to forcibly uproot some 10,000 Jews and abandon tens of villages to the PLO has already been voted on three times by the cabinet and four times by the Knesset plenum. Netanyahu voted in favor in all but the last poll.
Analysts saw Netanyahu's remarks this week as nothing more than part of his campaign to regain leadership of his party ahead of the general elections that are expected to follow the withdrawal.
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