JERUSALEM, 27 March 2005 — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has added fuel to the debate over the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, saying in an interview published yesterday that the details of Israel’s peace plan obligations to a “settlement freeze” are still being studied. Her remarks, in an interview with the Washington Post, came a day after she was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as criticizing Israel for plans to expand one such settlement, saying that went against US policy and could harm peace efforts.
They also came a day after the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, insisted that “US policy is the support that the president has given for the retention by Israel of the major Israeli population centers as an outcome of negotiations.” The ambassador was responding to a report in the top-selling Yediot Ahronot daily which quoted him as saying Washington had not made any such promise to Israel.
The paper said Kurtzer “refuted” a much-repeated Israeli claim that there is an “understanding” with Washington that in a comprehensive future agreement with the Palestinians, Israel would retain sovereignty over large settlement blocs. “I tell you that no such understandings were ever reached, and I checked the matter with Washington,” the paper quoted Kurtzer as saying, attributing it to “a misunderstanding” by the office of the extremists right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Later, Kurtzer said: “This story has no basis in fact... There is no misunderstanding between our two governments. Our policy remains absolutely clear and absolutely firm and it is in black and white in a letter that the president gave to the prime minister.” Israel has interpreted Bush’s letter as carte blanche to hold on to the large settlements, and the route of the West Bank barrier, which will include large blocs such as Ariel and Maale Adumim.
But in the Los Angeles Times, Rice criticized Israel over its plans to build 3,500 extra housing units in Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem. She said those plans, revealed earlier this week, were “at odds with American policy” and that the Israeli explanations were “not really a satisfactory response.”
In her remarks to the Post, she said the only US “commitment or assurance” in the April 14 letter was that the final borders of a promised Palestinian state must take into account demographic realities on the ground. Those realities included existing major Israeli populations centers in the West Bank, she said but added: “How that is taken into account has to be negotiated.”
Rice said there was no US support for new building within settlements, but swiftly added that the meaning of “settlement freeze” required of Israel under the internationally drafted roadmap peace plan of 2003 was still up for discussion. “There is at this point a desire to understand that better, so that we can understand better what a settlement freeze might really mean,” she said.
In a follow-up phone call to the Post, Rice added the US administration had had “discussions about steps toward a settlement freeze” but “we’ve never reached closure on that — it’s complicated.”
Kurtzer’s comments Friday prompted a furious response from the Palestinians, with chief negotiator Saeb Erakat charging that Washington had no right to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. “The United States cannot negotiate in the name of the Palestinian people. What Bush has promised Sharon is unacceptable,” he told AFP. “Settlement is illegal throughout the West Bank.”
But yesterday Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas characterized Rice’s remarks as “positive.” Her declarations, as well as those of Bush, “are positive, but we are waiting for them to be transformed into reality. Settlement must stop; if not, it will provoke a catastrophe.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei called on the United States to “clarify” its position on the settlements, in a meeting with three members of the US Congress. In a statement, he pointed to the “impossibility of resuming negotiations on a permanent status” for the Palestinian territories if Washington accepts settlements “being put under Israeli sovereignty.”
“Israel needs to be dissuaded from committing illegal acts, and only the American administration can do that.” For their part, Russia and the European Union, which along with the United States and United Nations drafted the roadmap, also voiced concerns about Israel’s settlement plans.
