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Sharon's success bodes ill for peace

A Palestinian worker bows in prayer while working in greenhouses beside the Israeli settlement of Rafah Yam, inside the southern Gaza Gush Katif settlement bloc, on Wednesday. Palestinians demonstrated throughout the West Bank in commemoration of Land Day, observed every year since six Arab Israelis were killed in clashes with security forces in 1976. PHOTO: AFP

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- in spectacular fashion and with both overt and tacit support from Washington -- is fast imposing a blueprint for Israel's permanent borders that would extend beyond the 1967 frontiers the Palestinians say should frame their future state.

Two parliamentary votes this week cleared the final hurdles to Sharon's plan to vacate the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer. The government also plans to expand the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement, vowing to encompass it and others on the Israeli side of a massive separation barrier.

Many Israelis hope that Sharon's "disengagement" plan will be the beginning of the end of Israel's occupation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war and possibly pave the way for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But Sharon's go-it-alone approach -- imposing realities on the ground even before negotiations begin -- is likely to hurt peace prospects, torpedo hopes for a contiguous Palestinian state and undermine efforts by the new Palestinian leadership to show their people that moderation pays.

Palestinians say Washington's unwavering support for Israeli policies -- all in the name of shoring up Sharon as he tries to push through "disengagement" -- damages efforts to build confidence just as peace hopes are at their highest level in years following the death of former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat.

"If there is any change to the 1967 borders, it must be within the framework of negotiations and it must be through an equal exchange of land ... and not by enforcing realities on the ground," Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Qidwa said in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

Sharon will meet with US President George W. Bush in Texas next month, and several Israeli officials said they expect Sharon to seek further US support for Israel's plan to hold on to large tracts of West Bank land near Jerusalem in any future peace deal.

Citing fierce domestic opposition to disengagement, Israel has quietly asked the US to refrain from criticizing it about settlement expansion or any other issue until after the pullouts are complete this summer, Israeli officials confirmed.

That request -- and the apparent US acquiescence to it -- highlights the enormous importance both nations are placing on the withdrawal plan.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has sent conflicting signals about Israel's plans to build 3,650 homes around the Maaleh Adumim settlement near Jerusalem, which if completed would cut off West Bank Palestinians from their intended capital in East Jerusalem.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rice said the expansion was "at odds" with US policy, her sharpest criticism of Israel since taking office in January. Then she appeared to step back, declining in a subsequent interview with the Washington Post to repeat the assertion.

Later, she reaffirmed Washington's support for Israel to retain major West Bank settlements under an eventual peace deal, telling Israel Radio that "the changes on the ground, the existing major Israeli population centers will have to be taken into account in any final status negotiation."
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