Sharon Aims to Retain Some Settlements in Disengagement

The sprawling West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim isn’t exactly on the way to Israel’s main Ben Gurion airport. But just before boarding a plane for Washington early today, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a quick but politically important detour.

Bound for talks on Wednesday with President Bush, the Israeli leader visited the West Bank’s largest settlement and promised residents he would fight to retain Israeli control of half a dozen major Jewish enclaves, including theirs.

The U.S. visit will kick off a campaign by Sharon to build support for his “disengagement” plan, an initiative centering on a unilateral Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip, coupled with the probable annexation of large chunks of the West Bank. The Washington meeting with Bush marks the first in a series of hurdles that Sharon must clear if he is to move ahead with the proposal. The prime minister hopes to secure at least tacit U.S. approval of the plan’s key elements.

Then Sharon plans to hold an April 29 referendum among rank-and-file members of his conservative Likud Party, put the disengagement plan to a vote in his divided Cabinet, and seek the backing of Israel’s fractious Knesset, or parliament.

The whirlwind of activity is all the more noteworthy because it coincides with the possibility of Sharon’s indictment on bribery charges. Atty. Gen. Menachem Mazuz is weighing a recommendation by the state prosecutor, Edna Arbel, that the prime minister be charged and tried.

But the more momentum Sharon builds toward winning public approval for the Gaza pullout, the more politically difficult it would be for Mazuz to hand down an indictment -- which would probably bring the whole endeavor to a shuddering halt, Sharon’s allies and opponents alike acknowledge.

Sharon appears increasingly prepared to confront the right-wing members of his ruling coalition who oppose the uprooting of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

“Anyone who is uncomfortable with this can leave,” he snapped at dissenting ministers at a Cabinet meeting last week.

In his appearance in Maale Adumim, Sharon spelled out for the first time his intention of trying to retain control of major West Bank settlements or settlement blocs in concert with the Gaza pullout. In addition to Maale Adumim, he identified them as the Gush Etzion bloc, Givat Zeev and Ariel -- all large communities a short drive from Jerusalem -- as well as Kiryat Arba, located outside the volatile West Bank town of Hebron, and Jewish enclaves within Hebron itself.

The left-leaning Labor Party has already sent signals that if two small right-wing, pro-settler parties -- the National Religious Party and the National Union Party -- leave Sharon’s ruling coalition because of the plan, it would be amenable to helping him form a new government.

But the Labor Party has also said it would not sit in government with the prime minister if he is indicted.

In the weeks leading up to Sharon’s Washington visit, Israel has been pushing, in an intensive series of sessions with three ranking U.S. envoys, for a U.S. declaration that Israel will not be asked to return to its borders prior to the June 1967 Middle East War. Israeli media reports said it was not yet clear whether an exchange of letters by Sharon and Bush would contain the language the prime minister wants.

The Haaretz newspaper on Sunday cited diplomatic sources as saying that Israel wanted it to be made clear that the drawing of borders would take into consideration “demographic realities” -- that is, the presence of Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank that are essentially large cities, home to tens of thousands of Israelis.

The prime minister has said he intends to relinquish four remote settlements in the northern West Bank as part of a plan to withdraw to what Israel considers defensible frontiers, guarded by troops and a separation fence.

Sharon has described the Gaza settlements as a source of constant friction with the Palestinians. That was borne out again early Monday, when at least two Palestinian gunmen were shot and killed by Israeli troops in an infiltration of the isolated settlement of Netzarim, in the central Gaza Strip. No settlers were hurt.

Even though Sharon is reportedly ready to again pledge allegiance to the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan in his talks with Bush, he told Israeli newspapers last week that once the disengagement plan comes to fruition, the Palestinians could find themselves waiting years for statehood, which the blueprint had envisioned for 2005.

“My plan poses difficulties for the Palestinians -- a critical blow,” the prime minister told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper. “In the unilateral process there is no Palestinian state, and this situation could continue for many years.”

During the weeklong Passover holiday, Sharon took the unusual step of dispatching senior aides to Washington to work out final details of the agenda -- and a carefully scripted outcome -- of talks with Bush.

Palestinian officials have sought assurances from U.S. envoys that Bush would make no declaration that would prejudice the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on terms for statehood. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei told reporters Monday that any guarantees made by Bush to Sharon regarding “final status issues” would be rejected.

This is a potentially explosive moment for the United States to offer too much encouragement for Sharon’s unilateral moves, particularly if Bush makes statements that are perceived as being to the Palestinians’ detriment.

Amid the insurgency in Iraq, anti-U.S. sentiment is already running high in much of the Arab world, even in countries whose governments are friendly with Washington.

As always in the region, an outbreak of violence could alter the course of political events. Following Israel’s assassination of Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin in Gaza three weeks ago, Hamas vowed to take revenge, and Israelis braced for a wave of suicide attacks.

Instead, there has been a lull that would be considered long-lived in less volatile times. Israeli security officials, though, say they have had dozens of intelligence warnings every day of potential attacks.

The main Palestinian armed groups -- Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade -- have been increasing cooperation in recent months. They claimed collective responsibility for the abortive attack on Netzarim.