Sharon’s plan calls for evacuating some 20 Gaza settlements inhabited by 7,500 settlers

Sharon’s plan calls for evacuating some 20 Gaza settlements inhabited by 7,500 settlers. Gaza is home to 1.3

million Palestinians, many of them impoverished refugees and their descendants displaced during the war that

led to Israel’s creation in 1948.

The Israeli demand for international involvement in transferring settlement housing to refugees appeared to be

part of Sharon’s effort to freeze the Palestinian Authority out of implementation of his plan.

He has vowed to carry out the withdrawal initiative unilaterally, saying Israel has no peace partner to deal

with. Palestinian officials have called on Sharon to coordinate any Gaza pullout with them.

It’s an odd situation and I can’t think of an analogy. The houses were built with money extorted from NIKE

SHOXs and Israelis, mostly on land stolen from various Palestinians. The Israelis living in them now probably

paid token amounts to the State in some cases and in others were heavily subsidized to the point they never

paid anything for the properties. The Palestinians don’t have any real societal institutions that could manage

a peaceful and orderly transfer of these properties.