Jerusalem – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip at a memorial ceremony marking two years since Sharon’s death Monday evening at the Knesset.
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Netanyahu, who quit Sharon’s government to protest the withdrawal, said leaving the Gaza Strip did not achieve Sharon’s goals of bringing about security and peace.
“In Gaza, we received a base for Hamas terror adjacent to our territory,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, transferring control over and responsibility for Gaza to the Palestinians not only did not set us on the path to peace, it enhanced the arming of terror organizations. Our obligation is to at least learn the necessary lessons from this episode.”
Netanyahu said one of the lessons was that any land Israel leaves in the future must be demilitarized. But he did not rule out further withdrawals or speak against the creation of a Palestinian state.
Former Kadima MKs who attended the event said it was inappropriate that Netanyahu attacked the former prime minister at a memorial ceremony. MK Nachman Shai, who is currently in Zionist Union, said Netanyahu’s behavior was “tasteless” but that he was not surprised due to the bad blood between the two former Likud rivals who fought politically for decades.
But the former prime minister’s son, former MK Omri Sharon, said after the event that he did not notice that Netanyahu had attacked his father.
“I thought he was respectful and that it was a good speech,” Sharon said. “He presented his viewpoint. It was fine, not too extreme.”
Netanyahu did praise Sharon’s army career and said his legacy would be his success fighting terror in 2002’s Operation Defensive Shield.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog painted Sharon as the father of his own ideas of separating from the Palestinians. Herzog, who served as Sharon’s housing minister, said that were he still alive, he would have completed the construction of the West Bank security fence
“Israel must continue the path Sharon started,” Herzog said. “I hear all those who attack Sharon for withdrawing from Gaza. But it is interesting that I do not hear any of them recommend that we return to Gaza.”
Bibi is an Israeli version of Donald Trump . He can’t shut his fat mouth.
It seems though that he keeps winning elections. So he must be favored by the ppeople who he represents.
Neither can you, obviously; but at least Bibi doesn’t hide behind a mask of anonymity!
It seems Mr. Sharon wasn’t halachicly Jewish. Regardless, no need to get all worked up over kavod for Zionist leaders, past or present.
The headline is divisive and inaccurate. He didn’t “blast” Sharon, he used the occasion to softly extract a lesson that needed to be learned
Though lets be realistic, Sharon’s ridiculous decision to give away land and throw yehudim out of Gaza caused untold death and destruction…lets at least learn a lesson from this.
Sharon, Begin, BIBI are all the same just like Rabin and Peres. They are weak and ready to send Jewish boys to die in order to preserve “their legacy”.
What a hypocrite! Although Netanyahu resigned in protest over the expulsion, he voted 4 times FOR the expulsion: on June 6, 2004, on Feb 20, 2005, on Oct 26, 2004, and Feb 16, 2005. He was absent on the vote held on July 20, 2005 most probably in order challenge Sharon for the Likud leadership later.