Israel Defends Settlement Plan in Face of Bush Demands
Reuters
Date: 04-06-05
By Matt Spetalnick
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel signaled on Wednesday it was sticking to a plan to extend its largest West Bank settlement to Jerusalem, despite President Bush's demand for a halt to all Jewish settlement expansion.
The controversy threatened to raise tensions between the two close allies ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's talks with Bush in the United States next week.
Palestinians fear the expansion would largely cut off the West Bank, which would form the bulk of a future state, from the eastern part of Jerusalem, which they want as its capital -- a demand Israel rejects.
Hoping to keep the matter from clouding the summit at Bush's Texas ranch, Israeli diplomats were quick to assure Washington that no building was imminent under a blueprint for 3,500 new homes between the Maale Adumim settlement and Jerusalem.
But that did not stop Bush from taking an apparent swipe at the plan.
"The 'road map' is important. And the road map calls for no expansion of the settlements," he said in Washington on Tuesday, referring to a U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace plan.
But Bush, who has pledged to press Israel to make "sacrifices" to bolster peace moves after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's death, did not mention the Maale Adumim project and stopped short of criticizing the Israeli leader.
On Wednesday, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni signaled that Israel was ready to press ahead with its settlement plans.
"The U.S. is refraining from supporting Israel's plans for future building (in settlements), but that does not mean that Israel should not strengthen them (the settlements)," she told Army Radio.
Sharon heightened White House concern over Maale Adumim when he told a parliamentary committee on Monday that the settlement, a sprawling, suburban-style enclave of 30,000 people, should be linked to Jerusalem.
Israeli officials said the government had not opened bidding for construction and no building was likely for up to two years. But government sources said Sharon had no intention of dropping the project.
TRYING TO MOLLIFY SETTLERS?
Sharon's sudden emphasis on his backing for the Maale Adumim expansion was widely seen in Israel as an attempt to mollify Jewish settlers and other right-wing opponents of his planned pullout from the Gaza Strip this summer.
He has made clear that while quitting impoverished Gaza, he intends to cement Israeli control over large swathes of West Bank land where the vast majority of 240,000 settlers live.
Israel regards all of Jerusalem, including the eastern part of the city it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as its capital, a claim that is not accepted internationally.
Sharon has frequently cited Bush's assurances last year that Israel would not be expected to give up some large West Bank settlement blocs under any future peace deal with Palestinians.
While welcoming an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, many Palestinians fear Sharon's strategy for the West Bank will deny them a viable state.
Israeli political sources said Bush, aware Sharon still has to overcome fierce opposition in the pro-settler camp to his Gaza plan, was unlikely to hold Sharon's feet to the fire at their April 11 summit.
"Bush and Sharon will not clash over settlements. If they can't reach an understanding on it, they will find a detour around it or ignore it altogether," one source said.
While U.S. officials said they had been pressing Israel to curb settlement growth, Israeli officials believe Bush's comments were aimed more at assuaging his European allies, who have sharply criticized the Maale Adumim plan, and bolstering new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Adam Entous in Washington)
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