December 16, 2004
Sharon Predicts ‘Breakthrough’ in Ties With Palestinians
By STEVEN ERLANGER, New York Times
ERZLIYA, Israel, Dec. 16 - Next year could bring a “historic breakthrough” in Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, a buoyant Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said today, insisting that his plan to pull out of Gaza had united the country, even if it had divided his own party.
Mr. Sharon said that his government would implement his proposal to dismantle all the Israeli settlements in Gaza and four small ones in the West Bank on schedule, and that he wanted to coordinate it with a new, elected Palestinian leadership that turned its back on violence.
“In 2005 we have the opportunity for an historic breakthrough in relations between us and the Palestinians, a breakthrough for which we have waited many years,” Mr. Sharon told delegates to the annual Herzliya conference on policy and strategy.
Israel also has the opportunity to “establish a new partnership with the international community in the struggle against terror and regional and global instability,” he said.
But to take advantage of those opportunities, Israel “must take the initiative,” he said, adding: “This is the hour, this is the time. This is the national test.”
Leaving Gaza and fighting violence against Israeli civilians have united Israelis around the goals that matter, he said.
“It is uniting us in distinguishing between goals that deserve to be fought for, since they are truly in our souls - such as Jerusalem, the large settlement blocks, the security zones and maintaining Israel’s character as a Jewish state - rather than the goals where it is clear to all of us that they will not be realized, and that most of the public is not ready, justifiably, to sacrifice so much for.”
By the latter, Mr. Sharon meant the settlements in Gaza - and by implication, a significant but unstated percentage of the settlements in the West Bank.
He insisted that his understanding of Israel’s “most essential interests” was shared with the United States and the Bush administration. He defined those issues as a refusal to return to 1967 borders, “allowing Israel to permanently keep large settlement blocs which have high Israeli populations and the total refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.”
In addition, he insisted that Israel had won the argument that there should be no movement toward recognizing a Palestinian state until the Palestinians “take genuine action against terror until it is eliminated, advance real reforms and stop teaching hatred toward Israel.”
Mr. Sharon was speaking to a national audience on television, on a day when his efforts to expand his minority coalition stalled temporarily, with the religious Shas party refusing to join him and the Labor Party temporarily suspending negotiations in a bitter dispute about ministerial portfolios.
But Mr. Sharon’s mood was optimistic and self-confident, and he promised that concrete steps by a new Palestinian leadership would be met in kind by Israel. “Now there is a real chance that new Palestinian leaders will rise, those who will be elected, who will truly abandon the path of terror and instead will advance a strategy of reconciliation and negotiation,” he said.
Israel would try to help the Palestinians to be ready to take over Gaza next year, he said, as an important first step toward an eventual Palestinian state.
Mr. Sharon’s aide, Ranaan Gissin, said that Israel was now supportive, for example, of a British proposal for a conference in London, probably in February, to help the Palestinians with security, economic and political improvements in preparation for running Gaza. Israel would not attend, Mr. Gissin said, given the Palestinian agenda, but would encourage Western donor nations to do what they can to help the Palestinians make a success of Gaza and see an economic incentive to stop violence.
Mr. Gissin described Mr. Sharon’s policy as “a breakthrough through a narrow valley,” that could lead to increased cooperation and coordination with the Palestinians after elections that presumably would be won by the moderate Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr. Abbas is going to need money in any event, in order for the Palestinian Authority to keep paying the salaries of the various competing security services while it tries to rein them in.
Mr. Sharon, his aides say, is reluctant to get caught up in any larger international forum about peace until the Palestinians get their own house in order. While encouraged by the statements against violence from Mr. Abbas, Israeli officials also note that violence has not stopped and that Mr. Abbas will need time to reorganize Palestinian security forces, let alone confront radical Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Most importantly, one official said, Mr. Sharon does not want to be “trapped” into a discussion of a Palestinian state, leaping to stage two of the road map peace plan before Palestinians meet their commitments to stopping violence and incitement to violence, a requirement laid out in the first stage of the peace plan drafted by the United States, Europe, Russia and the United Nations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/international/middleeast/16cnd-mideast.html?ei=5006&en=ae91200847d0c0f7&ex=1103864400&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=
Try telling this to the palestinians.