Sharon Plan Looking Like Border Blueprint


AP
 Date: 03-31-05

By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ? in spectacular fashion and with both overt and tacit support from Washington ? is fast imposing a blueprint for Israel's permanent borders that would extend beyond the 1967 frontiers the Palestinians say should frame their future state.

Two parliamentary votes this week cleared the final hurdles to Sharon's plan to vacate the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer. The government also plans to expand the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement, vowing to encompass it and others on the Israeli side of a massive separation barrier.

Many Israelis hope that Sharon's "disengagement" plan ? quitting some Palestinian land and building the barrier in the West Bank ? will be the beginning of the end of Israel's occupation of land captured in the 1967 Mideast war and possibly pave the way for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But critics say Sharon's go-it-alone approach ? imposing realities on the ground even before negotiations begin ? is likely to hurt peace prospects, torpedo hopes for a contiguous Palestinian state and undermine efforts by the new Palestinian leadership to show their people that moderation pays.

Palestinians say that Washington's unwavering support for controversial Israeli policies ? all in the name of shoring up Sharon as he tries to push through "disengagement" ? damages efforts to build confidence just as peace hopes are at their highest level in years following the Nov. 11 death of Yasser Arafat.

"If there is any change to the 1967 borders, it must be within the framework of negotiations and it must be through an equal exchange of land ... and not by enforcing realities on the ground," Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qidwa told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

Sharon will meet with President Bush in Texas next month, and several Israeli officials said they expect the prime minister to seek further U.S. support for Israel's plan to hold on to large tracts of West Bank land near Jerusalem in any future peace deal.

Citing fierce domestic opposition to disengagement, Israel has quietly asked the United States to refrain from criticizing it about settlement expansion or any other issue until after the pullouts are complete this summer, Israeli officials confirmed.

That request ? and the apparent U.S. acquiescence to it ? highlights the enormous importance both nations are placing on the withdrawal plan.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has sent conflicting signals about Israel's plans to build 3,650 homes around the Maaleh Adumim settlement near Jerusalem, which if completed would effectively cut off West Bank Palestinians from their intended capital in East Jerusalem.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rice said the expansion was "at odds" with U.S. policy, her sharpest criticism of Israel since taking office in January. Then she appeared to step back, declining in a subsequent interview with the Washington Post to repeat the assertion.

Later, she reaffirmed Washington's support for Israel to retain major West Bank settlements under an eventual peace deal, telling Israel Radio that "the changes on the ground, the existing major Israeli population centers will have to be taken into account in any final status negotiation."

Meanwhile, a joint U.S.-Israeli project to delineate settlement "building lines" beyond which no new houses can be constructed has been suspended, ostensibly over technical disagreements. Israeli officials concede, however, that the main reason for the suspension were the U.S. allowances to Sharon in the run-up to disengagement.

Israeli columnist Gershom Gorenberg said the U.S. failure to enforce its official policy opposing Israeli settlement expansion serves as an incentive "for Sharon to try to draw his map on the hillsides."

It's also "a further factor weakening Abu Mazen," said Gorenberg, referring to the nickname of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

In recent days Israeli officials have played down the Maaleh Adumim expansion, saying it's still a long way from implementation and pointing out that Israel is constructing a major junction that would allow Palestinians to access east Jerusalem.

Other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that Israeli policy is to be deliberately vague about the settlement issue to avoid a domestic or international outcry that could imperil disengagement.

Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the world must understand that Israel is going through "a painful process" with its planned evacuation of Jewish settlers this summer.

"The scenes you are going to see on TV are not going to be nice scenes," he said. "Therefore this process has to be dealt with in a delicate way."

Increasingly virulent opponents on the Israeli right are denouncing Sharon as a traitor and a sellout for his plan to give up land after a lifetime championing Jewish settlements.

Others, however, hail him as the Jewish state's strongest leader since David Ben-Gurion. Wrote columnist Yoel Marcus in the Haaretz daily: "With Sharon's bold and single-minded efforts to create permanent borders for Israel, he is imposing on this country its most important national agenda since the (1967) Six-Day War."

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