As Israel marks the 15th anniversary of the disengagement, in which Israel uprooted 26 settlements in the Gush Katif region of the northern Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sheds some light on what then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wanted to do in the summer of 2005, and how differently things might have played out.
Speaking to Israel Hayom, Olmert says that "In the cabinet, we were supposed to vote on the disengagement plan. I get a telephone call from Arik [Sharon]. I was in the North, and Arik says to me, 'Listen. I'm thinking of changing the whole disengagement. I'll pull out of five settlements around Gaza.' I asked him, 'What?' and Arik says, 'I can't anymore. I'm sick of this.'"
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Q: What was he sick of?
Olmert: "The pressure on him from inside the Likud camp was unbearable. I asked him, 'Arik – will you have a majority for five settlements?' and he answered, 'I think so.'
"I told him: 'Don't be so sure. I, for example, won't vote for that. I won't make a fool of myself. We set up a plan, and now to pull out of only five settlements? That's ridiculous. I won't play any part in it.' And Arik told me: 'Come to the ranch, and we'll talk.'"
Olmert says he went to visit Sharon's ranch, where he told the prime minister he could not cave to the anti-disengagement pressure.
Olmert says he told Sharon he must not "give in to this gang of nothings," that he had opted for a historic move that was the "right thing to do," and he had to stick to it.
According to Olmert, he told Sharon: "If you pull back now, you'll just bring on more pressure. Two weeks from now, you'll come to a faction meeting and the back benches will rise up against you. They smell weakness."
Olmert says that Sharon's son Gilad said, "Ehud is right."
Sharon was convinced. He called cabinet secretary Israel Maimon and instructed him to pull Sharon's revised plan to raze only five settlements, and work according to the original plan that would encompass all the settlements in Gush Katif, as well as four in northern Samaria.
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