Israel is prepared to use force to remove the Jewish settlers who refuse to leave their homes along the Gaza strip.
Just hours before Wednesday's deadline for settlers to leave Gaza, MSNBC's Lester Holt spoke with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the pullout in Gaza. Netanyahu, who opposes the pullout, resigned as Israeli finance minister over the situation.
To read an excerpt of their conversation, continue to the text below. To watch the video, click on the "Launch" button to the right.
LESTER HOLT: Why don’t you think the Palestinians will take advantage of this opportunity?
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Because they haven’t lifted a finger against the terrorists, because Hamas terrorists and Hezbollah are saying that this is a great victory for terrorism, and they intend to continue, they say so openly. In fact, the Palestinian authorities, a collection of armed bands, and they don’t lift a finger against terrorists. These people do not disarm themselves, they say they will continue to rocket our cities and send suicide bombers to kill our men, women and children. So, unfortunately, this is viewed on the Palestinian side as a great victory and a great justification for terrorism. And the victory of terrorism in one place enables terrorism elsewhere and here to. This is the tragedy of something that probably was well intentioned, but I think will be played out badly.
HOLT: But Mr. Netanyahu, all that not withstanding, we’re just a few hours away from the forced removal of those settlers and supporters. You’ve seen the pictures of the extremist supporters vowing to stay there; do you support their resistance?
NETANYAHU: Absolutely not, I think that we have to draw the line. We have legitimate differences of opinion in a democracy, but the decisions are made by the government, supported by the majority in the Knesset, our parliament. It’s true that I’ve called for a referendum on this thing, because this was not an issue raised in the previous elections, in fact the Likut Party and Mr. Sharon promised to do the very opposite, so I thought that it was morally bound to ask for a referendum, but he’s in legal grounds, there’s no question about that, whatever you may think about whether he had the moral mandate he certainly had the Knesset majority and the obliges everyone in a democracy. I call on the people, maybe they’re hearing me now, I don’t know if they getting MSNBC in the communities over their around the cities in Gaza, but I call on them not to resist in any way. And in fact, get out, because the unity of our people is no less important than all other considerations, I don’t even want to talk about civil war, but we certainly can’t have an armed resistance to a legal government decision, its unacceptable.
HOLT: The Knesset incidentally went along with the prime minister, but the polls, if you believe the polls suggest that Israelis tend to be in favor of the pull out, one poll showed 54 percent were in support of the pullout, 38 oppose, is Sharon simply reacting and acting to a public that is fed up with the status quo and is looking for some sort of bold initiative?
NETANYAHU: Look, I would have wanted to leave Gaza as well, but within an agreement in which we got something for it, in which we were sure that terrorists would not flow in from all over the world, as I suspect they will. Our chief of intelligence said today in the Knesset, in our parliamentary defense and foreign affairs committee this afternoon, he said, terror will increase; it may not happen for a couple months, I say it will happen in a year or two. But there’s no question that this is viewed as a great victory for terror.
The U.S. wants to pull out of Iraq as badly as we want to pull out of Gaza, Iraq is thousands of miles away from the U.S., Gaza is right next to Tel Aviv, you don’t pull out, despite the fact that you want to get out because you know that Zarqawi would fill the vacuum, you know that, and we are pulling out and Hamas will fill the vacuum, Hamas and it’s ally al-Qaida. And that’s the problem, it’s not a question of wanting to leave Gaza, it’s how you leave, under what conditions. And I think we’re going to do it in such a way where we have no reciprocity, we have no built in security, in fact we’ve giving Gaza a port, can you imagine giving al-Qaida a port on the Hudson?
HOLT: I have to ask you, you no doubt read some thoughts of pundits who your decision to resign from the government over the pullout of Gaza was really based upon your own political aspirations, to eventually take the leadership of Likut, how do you respond to that?
NETANYAHU: You know I’ve been advocating policy of fight terrorism, not rewarding terrorism for the last 20 years, probably actually a little more than that, during my days as ambassador in the U.N., I think I’ve carved out a thoroughly consistent record, as a did also as prime minister, what works is when you stand up to terror, what doesn’t work is when you give it rewards. Unfortunately, and probably for good intentions, we’re giving terror a reward which will result in bad consequences. Not only for us by the way, because I think Gaza could very well be, over the next couple of years, may turn out to be an invaluable base for terror, just as Lebanon used to be, because there is no government, and this I fully agree with our ambassador in Washington, you’re really going to see whether Abu Masin does anything to terrorists. He hasn’t lifted a finger, and I suspect he’s not going to lift a finger and the result will be far from advancing the cause of peace, which I fervently want, this will set peace back and set terror forward.
