U.S. Group Backs Israeli Settlers
NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
JERUSALEM - Forty Americans arrived Monday to show solidarity with Jewish settlers living in the Gaza Strip who are facing eviction by Israel's government.
The group is protesting the planned evacuation of the 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, scheduled for this summer. Under the plan, Israel will pull out of the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements.
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"Why can't Jews and Palestinians live together if there is going to be peace?" asked the group's leader, New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat from Brooklyn. "Why should we throw Jews out of their homes? The only people who have thrown Jews out of their homes are the enemy."
Hikind said the three-day trip was the first of many in which thousands of American Jews would come to Gaza to protest the pullout.
About 8,500 settlers live in the Gaza enclaves, and Sharon has defended his plan by saying such a small number of Israelis living among more than 1 million hostile Palestinians is an untenable situation.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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