U.S. Diplomats in Israel for Talks

A trio of ranking U.S. diplomats arrived Wednesday for talks aimed at learning about Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposal to remove Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip.

During a two-day visit, the envoys were to be briefed on the possible Gaza pullout and on Sharon’s broader proposal to separate Israel from the Palestinians if he decides there is no hope for successful negotiations under the U.S.-backed “road map” to peace.

Sharon’s recent proposal to uproot most of the 21 settlements in Gaza sent tremors through Israeli politics and raised a host of questions that have yet to be answered. Among the details to be worked out are how many of the communities would be removed and where the relocated settlers would go, as well as what military presence Israel would retain in Gaza once the Jewish residents leave.

The Sharon government has assigned a team to assess its options but has not spelled out specifics or a timetable for a pullout. News accounts here have carried conflicting details about the proposed withdrawal, an idea that enraged members of Sharon’s right-wing coalition but is getting wide popular support.

The visit will allow the American officials a chance to hear directly from Sharon and other ranking Israeli officials, in preparation for a trip to Washington the premier hopes to make in coming weeks. The envoys are Stephen Hadley, deputy national security advisor; Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council’s Middle East affairs director; and William Burns, who heads the State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Bureau.

The diplomats met Wednesday with Sharon’s chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and were to meet with the prime minister today.

“There’s an awful lot of information out there, and a lot of it is contradictory. They want to hear what the prime minister has in mind,” said Paul Patin, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.

It was not immediately clear whether the envoys would meet with Palestinian officials. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei was traveling in Europe.

Analysts said the meetings appear to be an opportunity for Israel to coordinate with the Americans on implementation of Sharon’s proposal to disengage from the Palestinians, if not to win U.S. approval for all its details.

The visit also offers the Bush administration the chance to find a way to reconcile unilateral Israeli actions with a long-stated U.S. preference for resolving issues such as the evacuation of Jewish settlements through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, observers said.

“They’re trying to look for some way to square the circle between Bush’s at least rhetorical commitment to the road map and Sharon’s position that [disengagement] is a default position because there is no one to negotiate with on the other side,” said Mark Heller, senior research associate at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

The road map, sponsored last year by the U.S., the United Nations, Russia and the European Union, envisions a Palestinian state by next year. But the plan has fallen flat amid failures by Israel and the Palestinians to meet their mutual commitments under the blueprint.

Israeli officials said the Americans had made clear they would oppose an expansion of established settlement blocs in the West Bank that might come in exchange for dismantling Gaza settlements, which by some estimates are home to 7,500 Israelis.

“They have given us very clear parameters,” Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters Wednesday. “They will not object to the evacuation of settlements. They want the plan to be part of the implementation of the road map and President Bush’s vision of a two-state solution. And of course, they would not like to see settlers moved from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank or lands annexed from the West Bank in return for an evacuation from Gaza.”

A committee of the Knesset, or parliament, this week approved nearly $22 million in new spending for settlements, drawing fire from opposition groups and from Palestinian officials who portrayed the move as fresh evidence that Sharon’s government is committed to expanding settlements in the West Bank.

The group Peace Now issued an annual report Wednesday charging that many settlement outposts -- extensions that often consist of little more than a few trailers and a water tank -- grew in size last year despite the road map’s call for Israel to begin dismantling outposts built since 2001.

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States who serves as a foreign policy advisor to Sharon, said Israel would not build new settlements to absorb uprooted Gaza settlers or subsidize a wholesale relocation to the West Bank.

A Gaza Strip withdrawal also raises security questions. Although the move would free the Israeli military from having to defend the Jewish communities, some officials worry it would be seen as a retreat and thus strengthen the hand of militant Palestinian groups.

Israel has not spelled out what kind of military presence it would keep, although it is likely to claim control over airspace, seaports and the border with Egypt, an area Israeli officials say is often used to smuggle weapons through tunnels into Gaza.

During a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels, Korei said Wednesday that the Palestinians should be able to maintain control following an Israeli pullout. But he called for an international force to keep the peace in Gaza for some time after the Israelis withdraw.