The United States has tacitly approved Ariel Sharon’s plan for ”unilateral disengagement” from the Palestinians but set a series of conditions, including a refusal to let Israel formally annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
If the White House backs the Israeli moves it would mark a significant shift in America’s Middle East policy by acknowledging there is little hope of negotiations advancing the peace process for now.
Three senior US officials, Elliot Abrams and Steve Hadley of the national security council, and the state department envoy, William Burns, are expected to arrive in Jerusalem on Wednesday for closer scrutiny of Sharon’s plan.
The Americans have already welcomed Sharon’s announcement that he intends to pull the Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip as a ”step in the right direction”.
Diplomatic sources say that the prime minister is seeking to persuade the Americans that his proposals to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza and troops out of parts of the West Bank, leaving the Palestinians to govern themselves in a rump state, will ultimately provide a boost for the dormant US-led ”road map” to peace.
That will in turn, the Israelis believe, add to the pressure on the Palestinians from Washington and the Europeans to meet their obligations under the first stage of the road map to ”dismantle terrorism”.
”The road map is going nowhere right now,” said one diplomatic source. ”Sharon’s plan has attractions for the Americans provided it can be dressed up as contributing to peace. Let’s not deny that if Sharon is serious about pulling the settlers out of Gaza, it’s a very dramatic step even if he does it with ulterior motives.”
Diplomats say the US has already given its blessing in principle to Sharon’s plan because it breaks the stalemate but is concerned about how the plan will be implemented.
Among several US demands is that the move be coordinated with the Palestinians for fear that Hamas will fill the political vacuum if the settlers are pulled out of Gaza.
But the Palestinian leadership is reluctant to discuss the practical aspects of withdrawal without negotiations over which areas the Israelis leave and other political issues.
On Tuesday, Yasser Arafat’s security chief, Jibril Rajoub, said there was no danger of Hamas seizing control of Gaza.
”We have a plan to handle the territory. We won’t mourn the evacuation of the settlers, but we prefer that the evacuation be done through negotiations, not unilaterally,” he told a press conference.
The Americans also object to proposals by the Israelis to move Jews living in Gaza to the West Bank, saying that is in breach of earlier assurances that settlements would not be expanded. And the US does not want to see Israel annex West Bank settlements outside a final status agreement.
Washington is reported in the Israeli press to have told Sharon that it will not accept the extension of the controversial ”security fence” through the Jordan Valley because it would then entirely surround the bulk of the Palestinian population and look too much like a vast prison camp.
Rajoub said Israel and the US had no right to decide between them the terms of a withdrawal or who would rule the Palestinian people.
But there was further political turmoil within the Palestinian leadership after Arafat and his prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, were reported to have bitterly disagreed over new laws demanded by foreign donors to ensure financial transparency. Qureia’s cabinet has approved legislation to pay Palestinian policemen and security force members direct to their bank accounts to prevent the skimming off of wages.
Arafat refused to implement the cabinet decision.
On Tuesday, Qureia denied reports that he had threatened to resign over the dispute.
Sharon is also facing growing dissent from within his government.
The transport minister and leader of the National Union party, Avigdor Lieberman, is seeking cabinet backing for an alternative plan to confine Palestinians to four cantons in the West Bank.
Lieberman, who has threatened to pull his party out of the coalition government if Mr Sharon evacuates settlements, has written to other hawkish ministers calling for unity in opposing the prime minister.
Another member of the cabinet, the housing minister, Effi Eitam of the National Religious party, is drawing up legislation which would bar the government from using troops to force Jews from settlements.
On Tuesday, Israeli radio reported that the settlers’ organisation, the Yesha council, had hired a Washington lobbyist to try to persuade members of Congress to block the Bush administration from backing the evacuation of settlers from Gaza on the grounds that it is ”rewarding terrorism” in direct contravention of the White House’s declared war on terror. – Guardian Unlimited Â