Ariel Sharon has gone back on a personal commitment to George Bush to dismantle illegal Jewish outposts in the West Bank by saying he would allow some to remain for security reasons.
Israel’s prime minister offered contradictory signals about his intent while speaking to journalists yesterday, as he once again said he was prepared to make painful concessions for peace. But he threatened to impose a solution on the Palestinians if they did not meet his demands.
Sharon breached his undertaking to Bush and Israel’s commitment under the US-led road map to dismantle illegal outposts by saying that those established ”to provoke the government” would be removed, but that others were crucial to the security of bigger settlements and would remain.
Hours earlier, Israel’s deputy defence minister, Ze’ev Boim, went further and said the government was close to legalising some of the outposts it is committed to dismantling. Some ”unauthorised outposts” were now towns, he said, and ”the process of legalising them is near the end”.
The road map required Israel to dismantle more than 100 outposts established by settlers since March 2001 and to freeze the expansion.
After removing eight, some of which were allowed to re-establish themselves, Israel turned a blind eye as more than a dozen new outposts went up. The government has continued to issue tenders for thousands more homes in the established settlements.
The latest move is bound to irritate the US, which this week said it was cancelling nearly $300-million in loan guarantees as a penalty for construction of the ”security fence” through the West Bank.
Meanwhile, the heads of UN and international aid agencies have written to the Israeli government, saying the military is making it almost impossible to provide relief to the occupied territories, and threatening to end their assistance.
Sharon yesterday said he would take unilateral steps for peace, but added: ”I don’t want to go into more details. They will be important steps.”
”I spoke in the past about the need for painful concessions. It is clear that in the future we will not be in all the places we are now.”
But he told the Palestinians that time was running out. ”They don’t have an unlimited amount of time,” he said. ”While I’m against setting artificial timeframes, at the end of the time, there is a limit to our patience.
”The Palestinians should have understood by now that what they haven’t gotten today, they won’t be given tomorrow.” – Guardian Unlimited Â