OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 24 June 2003 — In clear violation of the international peace plan known as the road map, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon said he would allow construction in Jewish settlements to continue, the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily reported yesterday.
“They (the settlers) can build in the settlements, but they should not talk about it and go out dancing every time they get a building permit. Let them build without talking,” he was quoted as telling his Cabinet on Sunday.
The road map commits Israel to freeze immediately all settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including construction within existing ones. In the plan’s first phase, Israel must also remove about 60 new outposts erected since Sharon first took office in March 2001. Israel has forcibly removed about a dozen so far.
The Palestinian Authority, for its part, must undertake “visible efforts on the ground” to arrest militants and confiscate illegal weapons. Palestinian Premier Mahmoud Abbas wants to avoid a confrontation with the Palestinian militant groups, including the Hamas, and has instead tried to get them to declare a cease-fire with Israel.
Hamas is expected to announce its decision to Abbas’ cease-fire demand in the coming days. Israeli officials, however, said Israel would not necessarily accept the cease-fire.
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Ma’ariv daily he was disappointed by the slow pace of the map’s implementation. There were only two weeks to save the plan and the coming days were of critical importance, he said in an interview published yesterday.
A senior European Union official yesterday called on Israel to end its policy of “targeted assassination” of Palestinians, calling the move “counterproductive”. “There is no evidence that targeted assassinations have made Israel more secure. Indeed, there is a lot of evidence that they are counter-productive,” EU Commissioner Chris Patten told BBC radio. “Israel has been taking these measures for a couple of years, but they haven’t stopped the violence.”
In another development, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said yesterday Arabs wanted to rebuild ties with the United States which were strained by its war against Iraq, and work in harmony towards peace in the region.
“We, the Arab League and the Arabs, don’t want the situation deteriorating into confrontation with the United States. In fact, we want to rebuild this relationship and consolidate it,” Moussa told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan.
“It is in the interest of everybody to have a working and good relationship between the US and the Arab world. Not only in the political, but also in the economic and other fields.”
Most Arabs, including former Egyptian Foreign Minister Moussa, were vehemently opposed to the war against fellow Arab state Iraq, and anti-US sentiment rose noticeably in the region during the crisis.
“(The Iraq war) has opened a Pandora’s box... You can never tell what will be in it, or come out of it. The situation in Iraq is still a big question mark,” he said, but added it was time to look forward and rebuild the shattered country.
Arabs now wanted to see normalization on the ground, including formation of a government and Iraq’s return to the international fold after 13 years of sanctions, he said.
Arab states oppose the occupation of Iraq by US-led forces, and have said they would not engage with any government in Iraq that is not chosen by the Iraqi people. But Moussa said this did not mean Arabs would not cooperate in political and economic reconstruction, adding that interests between the Arab world and Washington were often intertwined.
