Your answers to questions 28 to 32 must be based
on the text below, which is entitled "Sharon pushes
ahead, regardless":
Sharon pushes ahead, regardless
Source: www.economist.co.uk
April 19, 2004 (Adapted)
Following his fruitful visit to the White House last
week, Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has returned
home to push ahead with his plan for a "unilateral
disengagement". The plan involves abandoning the
Gaza strip by the end of next year while keeping "for all
eternity" some chunks of the West Bank where there
are already large Jewish settlements. It also includes
continuing (in public at least) to express an interest in
reaching a diplomatic solution with Palestinian
moderates but striking hard at military groups. In pursuit
of the latter part of Sharon's plan, on Saturday April
17th, an Israeli attack helicopter blew up a car carrying
Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, who had become Hamas's chief
after an Israeli attack last month killed the Islamist
militant group's previous leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
Since Saturday's attack, Mr Sharon has won the
backing of three influential Israeli ministers for the
proposed Gaza pull-out.
The assassination of Dr Rantisi (shortly after a
Palestinian suicide bomber had killed an Israeli soldier
at the main crossing into Gaza) drew outright
condemnation from the United Nations, the European
Union and Russia - three of the four members of the
"Quartet" that drew up the now-tattered "road map"
towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to Ariel Sharon's plan, the Gaza strip is supposed to be