[iwar] [fc:Sharon.on.collision.course.with.America]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-14 10:18:36


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Sharon.on.collision.course.with.America]
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Sharon on collision course with America

New US proposals on Palestine are anathema to hardline leader

Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem
Friday October 12, 2001
The Guardian

Washington's new initiative in the Middle East threatens to transform
the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, from a Bush administration
ally into an unyielding obstacle. It could also threaten his national
unity government.
The Bush administration's initiative for the Middle East, which the
secretary of state Colin Powell had been due to unveil before it was
shelved because of the September 11 attacks - envisages Jerusalem as a
shared capital for an Israeli and a Palestinian state.
This represents a dramatic departure for a Republican administration
and is anathema for Mr Sharon, who has sworn never to yield any ground
in the holy city, and who does not believe in a final peace
settlement, but rather a series of interim deals.
Aides for Mr Sharon made it clear yesterday that he would never
countenance Israel yielding control over Arab East Jerusalem, which it
has occupied since the 1967 war.
"The prime minister's vision is very clear," said Dore Gold, a foreign
affairs adviser to Mr Sharon. "Jerusalem must remain united, and under
the sovereignty of Israel, and the experiences of the last couple of
months enforces that view among Israelis."
Mr Sharon is likely to oppose other elements of the peace plan just as
strenuously - putting him out of step with a US administration that is
facing pressure from its Arab allies to bring a final settlement to
the Middle East.
Behind the tough posture, however, there is real nervousness around Mr
Sharon for the future of his national unity government. A decade
ago,the US's coalition building efforts during the Gulf war made the
hardline Israeli leader then, Yitzhak Shamir, appear increasingly out
of step with the times. Voters abandoned him, and he lost elections in
1992.
Ten years later, Mr Sharon is in an even more precarious situation,
trapped between extreme rightwing partners in his national unity
coalition - who are calling on the army to wipe out Yasser Arafat's
Palestinian Authority - and the Labour statesman, Shimon Peres, who is
pursuing talks for a ceasefire in the intifada.
The US initiative threatens to push Mr Sharon ever closer to the day
when he realises his hardline notions of accommodation with the
Palestinians are simply unworkable.
"The US is sending a very clear message to the rightwing in Israel
that anybody who thinks they can ally with us in order to prevent the
Palestinians from moving towards their envisaged state has no one to
rely on," said Ron Pundak, an Israeli historian who was involved in
the peace process in the early 1990s.
"It means that if Mr Sharon was thinking of suggesting a solution to
the Palestinians which was short of the American guidelines, then he
can longer do so. There can not be any negotiations based on less than
this."
Mr Powell's ideas, which were leaked to the Boston Globe and confirmed
by Israeli officials and foreign diplomats yesterday, call for a
"viable Palestinian homeland".
That is worlds away from Mr Sharon's vision of a truncated Palestinian
entity, patched together from isolated cantons, and amounting to
barely 40% of the West Bank - the amount of territory under
Palestinian control today.
However, the proposals also call for preserving the Jewish nature of
the Israeli state. That means the US will not support a wholesale
return of more than 3m registered Palestinian refugees to Israel,
instead favouring compensation packages or resettlement within the
boundaries of the future Palestinian state.
Although the Bush administration's ideas shadow those of the previous
administration, diplomats say they differ from President Clinton's
proposals for the Middle East in several key aspects.
Most importantly, the state department did not consult Israel before
drafting its initiative, a departure from the days of the Clinton
administration when America's Middle East envoy, Dennis Ross, worked
in tandem with Israeli negotiators, prompting Palestinian accusations
of bias.
"It is a marked departure from standard operating procedure," said
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian legislature from Jerusalem
and spokeswoman for the Arab League. "This is the first time that it
is not basically an Israeli paper given an American seal of approval."

The proposals are also careful to avoid detail on Jerusalem, and make
no mention of the old city, or its holy sites, deliberately avoiding
the micro-management that many see as a root cause of Mr Clinton's
failure to broker a peace deal.
Despite the lack of detail, however, details of the plan are believed
to have triggered Mr Sharon's astonishing outburst last week in which
he accused the Bush administration of sacrificing Israel to appease
Arab states, likening Washington's coalition-building efforts to
Neville Chamberlain selling out Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938.
Although Mr Sharon later said he regretted the insult, it continues to
rankle.

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