Sharon May End Diplomatic Ties With Palestinians

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking a day after dual suicide bombings killed 10 workers at a busy Israeli port, threatened Monday to cut off diplomatic contact with the Palestinians, saying Israel has “no negotiating partner on the Palestinian side.”

Although Israeli officials have used similar language in the past, the prime minister’s address to the Knesset, or parliament, represented his most direct warning yet that he might abandon the American-backed peace plan known as the “road map.”

Sunday’s twin bombings at the Mediterranean port of Ashdod struck at a major element of Israel’s infrastructure and sent a strong ripple of anxiety through its security community.

Because the bombers managed to infiltrate from the Gaza Strip, despite the security fence surrounding it, the attack fueled criticism of the prime minister’s proposal to withdraw Israeli troops and settlers from most of the crowded, impoverished Palestinian enclave.

Seeking to rally support for his initiative, Sharon told lawmakers at a fractious Knesset session that the latest violence buttresses his belief that Israel must take unilateral measures to separate from the Palestinians rather than wait for negotiations to play out.

“Yesterday’s terrorist attack in Ashdod reinforces the understanding that there is no courageous leader capable of fighting against terrorism on the Palestinian side,” he said. “Israel therefore has to act according to its own judgment only.”

Sharon indicated that his government, which called off talks with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei in the wake of the Ashdod bombings, would not resume efforts to restart negotiations unless the Palestinians moved aggressively to rein in militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Sharon has lately found himself under attack from both right-wing allies, who accuse him of abandoning the Jewish settlement movement he nurtured for decades, and left-wing opponents, who believe he is not serious about pulling up stakes in Gaza.

Underscoring the prime minister’s precarious political standing, the Knesset voted to approve his speech -- in an exercise he told them to treat as a vote of confidence -- by the slimmest margin: 46 to 45. Lawmakers from two of the right-wing parties in Sharon’s coalition abstained.

Israeli authorities have been increasingly concerned about the daring and sophistication of recent militant attacks combined with the new close cooperation among major armed factions. Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed joint responsibility for the attack at Ashdod, and several recent strikes have been carried out by two or more groups.

Violence has escalated in Gaza since Sharon announced plans -- though he has not finalized them -- for an Israeli withdrawal from the territory, which was captured from Egypt in 1967. Israel has resumed its campaign of targeted killings of Palestinian militant leaders, and officials have said publicly that more assassinations are in the works.

The militant groups, for their part, said the Ashdod attack represented an escalation of the conflict, with their goal a “mega-attack” that would kill and injure hundreds or thousands of Israelis.

An Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader in the Gaza Strip, identified only as Abu Qusay, told Associated Press that the attackers had intended to blow up fuel or chemical tanks at the port.

“We planned this attack to be a major one, to target their infrastructure, to show them that not only can we kill you, but destroy your infrastructure as well,” he said.

Some in Sharon’s government called for harsher measures against the Palestinians in retaliation for the Ashdod assault and many others.

“We should do what we should have done a long time ago, which is destroy all the Palestinian infrastructure, including the leadership in Gaza,” said lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee. “We should occupy Gaza and assassinate the Hamas leadership.”

Early Monday, in what appeared to be a largely symbolic response to Sunday’s attack, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at what the army said were Hamas weapons workshops in Gaza City. No casualties were reported. Also on Monday, the Israeli army said it detained a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who, apparently unwittingly, tried to carry a bag containing a suicide bomber’s explosives belt through a checkpoint in the West Bank.

Like many Palestinian youngsters, the child worked for pocket change ferrying items across the checkpoint.

The army said a soldier at the Hawara checkpoint, near Nablus, noticed that the boy’s schoolbag seemed too heavy. The bag contained a 22-pound bomb connected to a mobile phone. The army destroyed the device in a controlled detonation.

The boy was questioned and released by Israeli authorities, said Maj. Sharon Feingold, a military spokeswoman.

“It’s horrendous that a child would be used in this fashion,” she said.