Three U.S. envoys met aides to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)
on his plan to evacuate settlers from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), also
occupied by Israel. The Palestinians proposed international
peacekeepers move into Gaza once the Israelis move out.
Sharon says his unilateral strategy aims to defuse conflict
with a U.S.-backed peace plan in tatters from persistent
violence. But Israel has also kept building the barrier taking
in land Palestinians want for a state, raising U.S. concern.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) said the barrier in its current form, winding well
inside the West Bank and trapping thousands of Palestinians in
enclaves, violated international humanitarian law.
Israel's Geneva ambassador, Yaakov Levy, repeated its
position that the barrier was a "self-defense" measure against
suicide bombers penetrating the Jewish state, not a new border.
Palestinians call it a veiled bid to annex occupied territory.
Sharon planned to pitch unilateral "disengagement" steps to
Elliot Abrams and Stephen Hadley, two national security
advisers to President Bush (news - web sites), and State Department official
William Burns, in talks running through Thursday. The trio
first met Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, Thursday.
SHARON SEEKS BUSH APPROVAL
Political sources close to Sharon said he wanted to pave
the way to a White House meeting with Bush to obtain his
backing for removing around 7,500 settlers from Gaza, which
Israel captured along with the West Bank in the 1967 Middle
East war.
They said the right-wing premier had also decided to alter
parts of the barrier's route at the behest of Washington to
remove elongated loops around some West Bank settlements and
avoid caging entire Palestinian cities in the future.
"The envoys will try to keep Israel as much as possible on
the path of reciprocal steps outlined by the road map, which
remains U.S. policy, " a diplomatic source said.
The road map requires Israel to stop expanding settlements,
especially in the West Bank, and Palestinians to rein in
militants to enable a viable Palestinian state to emerge in the
West Bank and Gaza by 2005.
"But the envoys will also want to listen to what Sharon has
to say about the unilateral plan given a lot of conflicting
reports about what it entails," the diplomat told Reuters.
Citing leaks from Sharon's office, Palestinians fear Israel
expects to trade in Gaza for permanent control over wide
swathes of the West Bank within the course of the barrier where
the vast majority of the 230,000 Jewish settlers live.
Israeli political sources said evacuations were unlikely to
begin until October or November given many hurdles in Sharon's
way, including expected Supreme Court battles by settlers and
the need for legislation to compensate and relocate them.
"This will be a long story," said one Sharon confidant.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie called for
international peacekeepers in Gaza if Israel left without a
peace deal. Muslim militants sworn to Israel's destruction
dominate the small Mediterranean territory.
Israeli and U.S. officials dismissed the idea.
"He's asking others to do his work for him," a State
Department official said in Washington. "It's not that the
Palestinians can't do it, it's that they won't ... act against
terrorists in areas they are supposed to be responsible for."
