JERUSALEM [MENL] -- The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in an attempt to prevent massive resistance, has ordered the military to prepare for an early withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Officials said Sharon has ordered Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz to prepare the military for an operation that would rapidly remove most of the estimated 10,000 people from the Gaza Strip within days. They said the plans were meant to foil efforts by withdrawal opponents to join residents in resisting their evacuation.
The government has set an Aug. 17 deadline for the start of the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. But officials said Sharon and his senior aides have been alarmed by the capability of withdrawal opponents to recruit tens of thousands of people to stop the military operation.

Read More

by David Bedein
The Sharon Plan remains a threat to all of Israel. The Sharon Plan isn't the Sharon Gaza Plan. It isn't the Sharon Disengagement Plan. It's the Sharon Retreat Plan.
The people of Gush Katif made it an agenda item for all of the people of Israel when they brought buses from all over the country on Israel Independence Day, generated by the strategy that reached homes throughout Israel before the Likud referendum. The demonstrations organized since then at the Knesset have destroyed that image of a national revulsion against the Sharon plan and have instead transformed the impression into a concern expressed only by the people of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, making it into a sectoral issue rather than a national emergency.

Read More