OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 3 December 2002 — Ariel Sharon has repudiated an unprecedented statement by Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations which accepted that Palestinians should have their own state.
Sharon and his foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told a Cabinet meeting on Sunday that they did not approve and did not support Yehuda Lancry’s comments to the UN last Friday ahead of a General Assembly vote on the conflict this week.
Lancry said the Israeli government supported the vision of “two states living side by side in peace and security” as the ultimate goal of negotiations. It is the first time an Israeli official under Sharon’s government has been so explicit in support of the “two states for two peoples” principle. Netanyahu has long said he would never accept a Palestinian state and instead favors an emasculated form of self-government in which, crucially, Israel would retain control of security.
Since he became prime minister, Sharon has been more circumspect, largely because of US pressure. Israel has said it accepts the principles outlined in President George Bush’s speech in June laying out a “road map”, which envisages a Palestinian state in three years, without explicitly agreeing to such an outcome.
Sharon’s spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said the Israeli prime minister did not reject a two-state solution but did not accept it as inevitable.
Meanwhile, four Palestinians died in violence yesterday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including a teenager shot dead when rock-throwing Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Jenin. Also, an aid group charged that Israeli forces destroyed a food warehouse in Gaza over the weekend, and Israel’s military chief denied reports that he said Israel would eventually dismantle most Jewish settlements.
Israeli forces were involved in three of the fatal incidents, but the fourth Palestinian, a sanitation worker at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, was killed when a mortar fired by Palestinians at an Israeli position fell short of its target, Palestinian security officials said. Twelve Palestinians returning from their jobs in Israel were wounded.
In Jenin, soldiers shot and killed a teenager during a clash. In a new protest tactic against Israeli forces occupying the town at the northern edge of the West Bank, Palestinian youths piled garbage and junk on top of an Israeli armored personnel carrier. Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians threw rocks and firebombs at the Israeli forces. The military said Palestinians shot at them, wounding a soldier, and troops returned the fire.
In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, a bystander was killed during a gunbattle between militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia and Israeli forces, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said soldiers fired at Palestinians who were throwing firebombs at them.
Earlier in Gaza, soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian disguised in an Israeli army uniform who was apparently trying to infiltrate into a Jewish settlement. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Yesterday, United Nations aid group called the World Food Program complained that in a weekend raid in Gaza, Israeli forces blew up a warehouse with $271,000 worth of food for Palestinians suffering hardships because of two years of violence.
Meanwhile, army chief Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon denied a report in Israeli media that he told a closed forum in the United States that “at the end of the day most of the settlements will be evacuated.”
Yaalon charged that Israeli media were misquoting him on purpose, presenting “a total misrepresentation of what I said.” In July 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered a peace accord based on an Israeli pullout from all of Gaza and at least 90 percent of the West Bank, but no agreement was reached.
