OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 11 December 2003 — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday dismissed as meaningless Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s statement that he would dismantle some Jewish settlements as part of a unilateral plan for dealing with the Middle East conflict.
Palestinian officials have condemned unilateral moves by Israel, saying they would never lead to peace, and urged Israel to focus instead on returning to the negotiating table to work out a peace deal.
“It’s all a show,” Arafat told reporters outside his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Also yesterday, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a key mediator in peace efforts, in Geneva. Shalom told Army Radio that Egypt expressed interest in “warming relations” with Israel, and Mubarak was committed in principle to returning the Egyptian ambassador, recalled three years ago when Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed and fighting erupted.
Sharon’s statement Tuesday about moving some settlements appeared to be part of a campaign to prepare Israeli public opinion for an undefined West Bank pullback. Some reports said the move would include removing some settlements and annexing some West Bank land.
Sharon’s pro-settler party will likely agree to uproot some settlements, a key Israeli lawmaker said.
Palestinians fear Sharon’s ideas — put forward as a unilateral alternative if the US-backed road map fails — would leave them a shrunken, chopped-up state inside a barrier of wire and concrete that has been internationally condemned.
Sharon’s right-wing Likud party, traditionally vehement in its support of settlers, would be vital for pushing through any scheme. For decades Sharon, a general-turned-politician, has been a leading champion of the settlers.
Yuval Shteinitz, the hawkish head of parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Sharon had outlined a “long-term redeployment” as an alternative to a peace deal and it was accepted by most Likud lawmakers.
“What Sharon suggests is not concessions but steps that will allow us to defend ourselves better,” Shteinitz said. “I advise the Palestinians that it’s better for them to go for a peace agreement.”
The mass-circulation Maariv daily said the “Sharon plan” would mean evacuating five small settlements by next summer.
A Tel Aviv university poll yesterday showed about 60 percent of Israelis favored evacuating all settlements in the Gaza Strip and isolated settlements in the West Bank.
US officials said any summary move to impose a peace arrangement would not work. “We don’t consider that to be a viable solution... that would add to the security and safety of Israel,” one official told reporters.
Signals that Israel is getting ready to impose its own arrangement have increased pressure on the Palestinians at a time of renewed interest in the road map, thanks to a spell of relative calm and a new Palestinian government.
— Additional input from agencies.
