OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 14 May 2003 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday rejected any talk of dismantling Jewish settlements in the foreseeable future despite US calls for conciliatory gestures to advance a new Middle East peace plan. His remarks, underlining his rightist coalition’s objections to the peace “road map”, were in an interview published as he prepared for talks with the new Palestinian premier later this week and US President George W. Bush on May 20.
It was Sharon’s second rebuff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s requests for confidence-building measures in weekend talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and was quickly condemned by Palestinian officials. Israel eased a travel ban on Palestinians on Sunday in a move it touted as a humanitarian gesture in response to Powell’s appeals, only to seal off the Gaza Strip again on Monday.
The road map envisages Israel curbing settlement expansion in the West Bank and Gaza and Palestinians disarming militant groups to pave the way for Palestinian statehood by 2005. Sharon, a longtime patron of settlers on land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East War, told the Jerusalem Post newspaper that all Israeli governments had pursued settlements in some form in the past, even during periods of peace diplomacy. “In my mind this is not an issue on the horizon right now.”
Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat responded: “It is the main issue on the horizon. The road map says clearly that all settlement activities must end in the first phase. Either Israel accepts the road map with its integrity or they don’t.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ new government has endorsed the road map and voiced dismay that Powell had not persuaded Sharon to do the same. Powell, who has said scrapping settlement outposts would help calm the atmosphere for diplomacy, asked both sides in weekend talks to begin implementing the road map. But each demanded the other move first on the critical security front.
Sharon refused to ease the military clampdown on West Bank towns, a step Palestinians say would give them leverage to rein in militants waging a 31-month-old uprising for independence.
Sharon will boycott Javier Solana to protest the EU foreign policy chief’s decision to meet Arafat, public radio reported yesterday. Solana said that he would meet the beleaguered Arafat as part of his regional tour, unlike Powell who refused to meet the veteran leader and only held talks with Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen.
“Arafat is the president” of the Palestinian Authority, Solana told reporters in Cairo on Monday. “He has made changes. This is a positive thing.” A high-ranking official confirmed that Sharon would not meet with Solana, and said the EU foreign policy chief, who arrives in Israel today, would only meet Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
