http://www.smh.com.au/news/Middle-East-Conflict/Israel-says-its-willing-to-transfer-security/2005/01/06/1104832241787.html
Israel is prepared to hand security responsibility for the Gaza Strip and the main population centres of the West Bank to a newly elected Palestinian leadership as soon as it is able to handle the task, Israel's Defence Minister has said. "The moment they can take responsibility over certain areas, I am willing to give them this responsibility," the minister, Shaul Mofaz, said on Wednesday. "It could be Gaza; it could be areas in the West Bank, population centres like Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Hebron. "We're willing to do it as soon as they are ready," he said, which could be months before Israel dismantles its settlements in Gaza by the end of this year. The final parliamentary piece in the plan by the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to remove the Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip fell into place on Wednesday when a small ultra-Orthodox political party agreed to join his coalition government. United Torah Judaism's decision should give Mr Sharon a working majority to push both the disengagement plan and this year's state budget through parliament. At the same time Mr Sharon issued his toughest warning yet to settlers and their supporters who are threatening to physically resist the evacuation of the communities. AdvertisementAdvertisement Earlier in the week troops arrived to dismantle an illegal settlement outpost in the northern West Bank and found themselves caught up in an ugly clash with young settlers. Israelis were shocked by images of the settlers, most of them affiliated with a loosely organised extremist movement known as the "hilltop youth", shrieking "Nazis" and throwing rocks and punches at soldiers and police. Unease over the incident was magnified by the fact that an off-duty soldier donned his uniform, rushed to the scene and urged the troops to disobey orders to dismantle the outpost near the settlement of Yitzhar. The soldier, Sergeant Yosef Filant, was swiftly court-martialled and sentenced on Wednesday to 28 days in the stockade for conduct unbecoming a soldier, Israeli media reported. In a speech to soldiers at a Jerusalem base, Mr Sharon said that for any citizen to take up arms against the military was "a crime against Israeli society". However, in a letter published in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth yesterday a group of 34 Israeli reserve officers, all of them settlers, said they believed any order to implement the "disengagement" was illegal, and threatened to disobey any order to do so, raising the spectre of mass dissent in the ranks. The comments of Mr Mofaz, a conservative member of Mr Sharon's Likud party, were the strongest so far by a senior official about Israel's hopes for partnership with a new Palestinian government. What Israel wants in return, he said, is a "100 per cent effort to break the cycle of terrorist activity and dismantle the terrorist groups". He conceded that it could not happen all at once, but said it was the consistent effort by a committed Palestinian partner that really mattered. "I believe they can do it step by step, not in one day or one week." While careful not to endorse Mahmoud Abbas, the likely victor in the Palestinian presidential election on Sunday, Mr Mofaz said that he knew him very well and that he, like Mr Sharon, would be eager to meet the new Palestinian leader as soon as possible after the election. Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian gunman who infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip yesterday. He opened fire and threw grenades at an Israeli force on patrol, the army said. The New York Times, Reuters, Los Angeles Times ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. 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