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.
PHOTO: AFP
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."
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS