Sharon Tells of Unilateral Mideast Plan

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday that he would act unilaterally to draw a boundary separating Israel from the Palestinians if they did not move quickly to end a three-year uprising.

In a much-anticipated speech, the Israeli leader outlined what he called a “disengagement plan” that included moving an unspecified number of settlements from deep inside the Palestinian-claimed areas and speeding up construction of a 400-mile barrier unless the Palestinians implemented the provisions they agreed to in the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map.

Sharon warned that if Israel acts on its own, “the Palestinians will receive much less than they would have received through direct negotiations.”

“We hope that the Palestinian Authority will carry out its part. However, if in a few months the Palestinians still continue to disregard their part in implementing the road map, then Israel will initiate the unilateral security step of disengagement from the Palestinians,” he said.

“We will not wait for them indefinitely,” he added.

Palestinians reacted angrily to the announcement and the White House warned against a go-it-alone approach to what Sharon characterized as security measures. He asserted that the actions were not aimed at creating de facto borders with a future Palestinian state nor intended as a substitute for the U.S.-backed plan, which he said remained the best hope for peace.

Sharon’s proposal comes amid a quandary over how to end the current violent conflict, which began more than three years ago, and a growing number of unofficial peace initiatives that have seized the spotlight. The plan addresses the belief among many Israelis that they will have to give up land to allow for the creation of a Palestinian state and attain peace.

It also acknowledges a concern -- even within Sharon’s conservative Likud Party -- that demographics could endanger the Jewish majority if a two-state solution fails and Israel retains authority over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian population is growing faster than that of Israeli Jews.

The White House, while warning against unilateral action, praised Sharon’s comments backing the peace plan.

“We are pleased to hear Prime Minister Sharon’s strong reiteration of his support for the road map as the way forward,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. “We would oppose any unilateral steps that block the road toward negotiations under the road map that lead to the two-state vision.”

Palestinian officials scoffed at Sharon’s comments, saying they were ready to negotiate.

“If Mr. Sharon is willing to come back to the negotiating table on the basis of the road map, let’s do it tomorrow,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator.

Erekat said Israel was already creating a new border by building a security fence that roughly follows the edge of the West Bank but in a number of places wends into it. “He’s going with unilateral steps now. He doesn’t need six months,” Erekat said.

Sharon did not specify a timetable for progress at the peace table, nor did he name the settlements that would be evacuated as part of the disengagement plan. But several analysts said the speech’s larger significance lay in the fact that Sharon had made formal his determination that some of the 150 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip may have to be abandoned.

Sharon, a former general and defense minister, is known for his long and steadfast support of the Jewish settlements, which house about 220,000 Israelis on lands seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. His governing coalition includes small, right-wing parties with strong pro-settler sympathies.

By making settlement withdrawal part of his plan, analysts said, Sharon appeared to depart from his ideological past -- and risked the wrath of settlers and their political allies.

“For somebody like Sharon to dismantle a single settlement ... would be such a monumental step,” said Shai Feldman, director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Polls show most Israelis favor a unilateral evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip. A majority also support withdrawing from most West Bank settlements as part of a peace pact.

Settlers’ leaders responded angrily to Sharon’s speech.

“We will do everything in our power in order to get him out of office, or to change the situation ... so that other decisions will be taken,” said Benzi Lieberman, who heads the Yesha Council, the main settlers group. “We believe that uprooting settlements will only incite terror.”

But Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said Sharon left himself room to do nothing.

“The speech is not specific enough,” Ezrahi said. “It gives him too much flexibility.”

Exactly what Sharon would say in the speech -- delivered in the city of Herzliya before an annual conference on security issues -- became the source of widespread media speculation after aides began talking obliquely last month about “unilateral steps” that would be taken if the U.S.-backed peace plan collapsed.

The concern centered on whether Sharon would make the politically volatile move of evacuating settlements without waiting for negotiations with the Palestinians.

“Will he or won’t he?” the newspaper Haaretz asked Wednesday in a front-page headline.

Sharon’s Likud Party has been deeply divided over the evacuation of settlements. Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a prominent party member, stirred the controversy by suggesting that in order to remain a predominately Jewish state, Israel had no choice but to yield territory to the Palestinians, including land occupied by thousands of Israeli settlers.

But other Likud members argue that such a move would amount to rewarding terrorism and weaken Israel’s hand in future talks.

“It is not for nothing that the prime minister refrained from giving a timetable and did not provide the names [of affected settlements]. Why? Because he understands that he cannot set off on an adventure,” Tzahi Hanegbi, a Likud member who serves as minister of internal security, said on Israeli television after the speech. “This government does not have a majority in favor of something dramatic.”

Feldman predicted a fierce campaign within the Cabinet to block settlement withdrawal, but said Sharon’s ruling coalition would probably remain intact until some evacuation action was taken.

Israeli authorities in recent days have dismantled several so-called outposts -- mainly uninhabited outgrowths of settlements that consist of little more than a water tower or a couple of trailers. Settler groups have promised to resist the evacuation, planned in coming days, of at least one outpost occupied by 43 families.

Under the first steps of the U.S.-backed peace plan, Israel is to dismantle all illegal outposts and halt settlement activity. The Palestinian Authority is to dismantle terrorist groups. But neither has done so, leaving the plan stalled.

Meanwhile, efforts to arrange a meeting between Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Korei, have gone nowhere. Many Israeli officials view Korei as little more than a messenger for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and see no urgency in arranging such talks. Korei has said he is interested only in a meeting likely to produce concrete concessions, such as a halt to the building of the security barrier.

On the streets, violence continued. Hours before Sharon spoke, an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Nablus left four Palestinians dead. Three were killed in a gunfight with Israeli troops searching for militants, and the fourth was shot after trying to plant a bomb near soldiers, the Israeli military said.

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Times staff writer Maura Reynolds in Washington contributed to this report.