Sharon announces new 'Victory through Retreat" plan
Addressing the nation Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave new details of his plan for defeating Palestinian terrorism. Here is what he said.
"My Brothers and Sisters,
For many years we have suffered in the grip of terrorists who have murderered our loved ones, set off bombs in our streets and cities and murdered mothers and children together. I speak to you now to announce that we have a plan for defeating terrorism. A plan of which the withdrawal from Gush Katif is but the first of many steps that will ensure a secure state for ourselves and our children.
The plan is called 'Victory through Retreat.' In the past the Palestinians have attempted to force us to retreat through terrorism. We will retreat on our own to show that terrorism has no power over us and that only our government has the power to retreat and drive out Israelis out of their homes and no other.
In the past the Israeli people have feared Palestinian terror as the greatest threat to their homes and loved ones. Now as the government terrorizes them we will demonstrate our qualitative superiority to Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in terrorizing our own people.
Today as we prepeare for the first of many retreats I tell you this, we have only begun to retreat. We shall retreat from Yehuda and Shomron and then from Yerushalayim. We shall retreat from the Galilee and then the Negev to which we are sending those same families we are expelling from Gush Katif, only so that we may expell them yet again. We will retreat from every town and every city which is adjacent in any way to large arab populations and as the arab populations grow larger, we shall retreat even further.
Some extremists inciting against this democratic government and its policies claim that this is an unsustainable approach and I tell you that my ancestors in Russia during the second world war excercised exactly this approach to defeat the Nazi armies and we shall utilize this approach to defeat the Palestinians as well.
We shall withdraw, expell and retreat and let the arabs advance. And then we shall wait for winter.
Le'Shana Haba Be'Siberia"