Israel Seeks Bush Blessing
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon headed to Washington on Tuesday to win U.S. backing for a plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank in exchange for expanding five large West Bank settlement blocs.
In effect, he plans in effect to annex parts of the West Bank, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger.
Sharon disclosed the final element of the plan just hours before his departure, naming for the first time the West Bank areas he plans to keep under Israeli control. President Bush said Monday that a Gaza pullout would be a "positive development." However, it appears unlikely the president will declare now that Israel can keep parts of the West Bank.
Such a declaration would violate the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, which says the borders of a Palestinian state must be negotiated. Mr. Bush reiterated Monday that "if Israel makes the decision to withdraw, it doesn't replace the road map."
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Tuesday that Sharon's proposals "destroy any hope for peace," and that the Palestinians would not accept an Israeli annexation of West Bank settlement blocs. Sharon has stopped short of saying the settlement blocs would be annexed, but said he considered them part of Israel.
"And we will not accept any decisions unless the Palestinian Authority is apart of the decision making process," Qureia added.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops backed by armored vehicles raided a five-story apartment building in Nablus in the West Bank early Tuesday, ransacking every unit in a futile search for a wanted Hamas militant, Palestinian witnesses said.
The raid sparked a shootout with Palestinian militants, and the gunfire shattered windows. Soldiers surrounded the building for several hours while they searched for the suspect, whom witnesses said was a Hamas activist who lives there. His wife and brother were arrested.
Sharon is hoping President Bush can help him persuade hardliners in his Likud Party to back a withdrawal. Some 200,000 Likud members are to vote on the "disengagement" plan on May 2, and approval is not assured.
If Sharon fails, he could come under pressure to resign.
Sharon has said he would honor the outcome of the vote, but has not spoken about resigning if he loses. However, his vice premier, Ehud Olmert, on Tuesday referred to such a possibility. If the Likud members vote no, "they are destroying the political basis of the government headed by Sharon," Olmert told Israel Army Radio. Olmert said some opponents of the disengagement are trying to topple Sharon.
According to senior Israeli government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Sharon and the president will exchange letters at their Wednesday meeting, outlining commitments to the withdrawal plan and to the road map.
Sharon's letter will say that Israel will pull out of all 21 Gaza Strip settlements and four isolated West Bank enclaves, the officials said. In exchange, Mr. Bush will say Israel has a right to "pursue terrorists," including in areas from which it has pulled out, the officials said.
"United States policy has never required Israel to go back to the '67 border," said Sharon adviser Zalman Shoval.
Israeli officials have said the United States has turned down Israel's request for recognition of West Bank settlement blocs. Olmert said Tuesday that he doesn't expect formal U.S. backing of Israel's plan to retain the settlement blocs Sharon listed Monday night, but that he is confident Washington will give a general OK.
"I wouldn't be surprised if this will be expressed, in one way or another, in the joint statement to be made by the president and the prime minister," Olmert said.
On another Israeli demand — backing for Israel's position that Palestinian refugees not be allowed the right to return to their former homes in Israel — Sharon could at best expect a murky statement, Israeli officials said.
"There appears to be nothing new," Yossi Alpher, an expert on Israel-U.S. relations, said of the emerging guarantees. "But it appears to be ambiguous enough to allow Sharon ... (by) putting a lot of spin on it, to persuade his fellow Likudniks."
About 92,500 of the approximately 220,000 West Bank Jewish settlers live in the blocs Sharon listed. Peace Now, an Israeli settlement monitoring group, estimated that Israel would have to keep about 50 percent of the West Bank to hold on to the blocs.
The Palestinian Authority is wary of Sharon's plan. Palestinian officials fear Sharon is sacrificing the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank so he can keep other areas.
Palestinians want to establish a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and demand Israel remove all settlements from the lands, captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
"If Sharon thinks he can trade off Gaza with maintaining large parts of the West Bank he will just add to the complexities," Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said after Sharon's speech. "Settlements in the West Bank are just as illegal as those in Gaza."
Alpher said the Palestinian fears are justified. "Sharon's disengagement plan ... is an attempt to foreclose any future political options," he said.
On Monday, President Bush held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Mr. Bush will also be meeting Jordan's King Abdullah II in the coming weeks, while Palestinian officials are scheduled to meet with top U.S. officials.