OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 20 February 2004 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday presented his controversial disengagement plan to senior US envoys. After the talks with Sharon, the envoys met with Palestinian officials, who expressed their misgivings about the plan.
Sharon spent three hours with the US delegation, giving the visitors an overview of his “disengagement plan,” and explaining his reasons, his office said.
The US team included Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns and White House officials Steve Hadley and Elliot Abrams
Sharon’s program is a contingency plan, to be implemented only if efforts to restart the US-backed road map fail, the prime minister’s adviser, Raanan Gissin, said.
Sharon remains committed to the road map and US President George W. Bush’s vision of Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side, a statement by his office said. Israel and the United States would maintain an intensive dialogue, ahead of what the statement said was an “impending” visit by Sharon to Washington.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported earlier that Sharon would not ask for financial assistance for withdrawal of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip — which could cost hundreds of millions of dollars — nor would he show the Americans maps of his plan.
The US delegation arrived Wednesday to determine whether Sharon’s plan to impose a boundary on the Palestinians would violate the road map, which envisions eventual Palestinian statehood. Sharon has said he would implement his go-it-alone plan if there was no progress in the coming months on the road map.
“They’re here to listen,” said US Embassy spokesman Paul Patin. “We’re not sure what’s on Sharon’s mind. We want to hear exactly what his plans are.”
Bush, in an interview Wednesday with the Middle East Television Network, said he, too, stood by the road map and the idea of Palestinian statehood.
“I believe there needs to be a Palestinian state, and I’m not going to change my mind,” he said. “The road map is in place. What has failed is... some parties are not advancing on the road map. They’re stuck.”
The Israeli plan would involve the evacuation of 17 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and several others in the West Bank while strengthening Israel’s control over other larger West Bank settlements.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who met with the delegation Wednesday, told public radio the officials were “not opposed to the evacuation of settlements”.
“They want the Israeli plan to be integrated into the roadmap... On the other hand, they don’t want settlers from the Gaza Strip to be transferred to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), or the annexation of territories there in exchange for an evacuation of Gaza,” he said.
Palestinian officials said they had taken the chance to express their misgivings about the disengagement plan in their meeting with the Americans at the US consulate in east Jerusalem.
“We let them know that the West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute a single geographic unit which should not be divided,” Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said after the meeting, which was also attended by Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei’s chief of staff, Hassan Abu Libdeh.
Meanwhile, the radical Palestinian group Hamas denied it was seeking to take over control of the Gaza Strip, should the evacuation go ahead.
“Israeli propaganda about Hamas’ strength and the fact it could take things into it own hands and marginalize the Palestinian Authority is meant to confuse people and plant the seeds of discord,” top Hamas leader Ismail Hanieh said.
In Gaza, a group of armed men forced their way into the office of Ibrahim Abu Al-Naja, the vice president of the Palestinian Parliament, in the southern town of Khan Yunis and opened fire. Naja escaped unscathed.
The attack came a day after a group of armed men opened fire on a restaurant in the northern West Bank town of Jenin where Palestinian Health Minister Jawad Al-Tibi was eating.
— Additional input from agencies
