JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel will not move forward on a U.S.-backed peace plan until Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has voiced his objections in a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in the coming weeks, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday.
Palestinian officials accused Israel of stalling and trying to get out of implementing the plan, the so-called ``road map’’ to Palestinian statehood within three years. The Palestinians have accepted the plan, while Israel has 15 objections.
The United States and other international mediators have said the three-stage plan is not open to change, but that implementation can be discussed.
However, Israel seeks a major change in the plan itself.
The road map stipulates that the fate of about 4 million Palestinian war refugees and their descendants be determined in talks on a final peace deal. Such negotiations would begin in the third and final phase of the road map.
Israel now says the Palestinians must drop a demand for the refugees’ ``right of return’’ to former homes in what is now Israel well before talks on a final peace deal begin.
Israel officials said Tuesday that the Palestinians must forgo the right of return at the latest before the second stage of the road map is ushered in, with the creation of a provisional Palestinian state in temporary borders.
``If the Palestinians want us to recognize, even in principle, Palestinian statehood…we will demand of them…that they abolish once and for all (their demand for) the right of return, which is a euphemism for the destruction of Israel,‘’ said Zalman Shoval, a senior Sharon adviser.
Israel fears that Arabs could become a majority in Israel if hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees are allowed to return. Disagreement over the fate of refugees contributed to the collapse of a Mideast peace summit in 2000.
The new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, said this week that the refugee issue could only be resolved in final-status talks.
``We totally reject the Israeli condition to accept the road map with the condition of giving up the right of return. The right of return is one of the final status negotiation issues, and so it should not be discussed now,‘’ Abbas said.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat accused Sharon of foot-dragging, saying he believes the Israeli prime minister is trying to delay implementation until the start of the U.S. campaign season. At such a time the U.S. administration might be reluctant to pressure Israel for fear of losing the support of some Jewish voters.
**``I think the end game here of Mr. Sharon is trying to extend the time until the American election in order to avoid implementation of any the provisions of the road map,‘’ **Erekat said.
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In the Gaza Strip, the army **blew up a Palestinian fishing boat and arrested its three sailors because they did not stop **when soldiers called on them to do so, the army said.
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Comment: So what the Israelis are doing, On one hand they want to destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and on the other hand they are helping Hamas and Islamic Jihad recruit people when there homes, boats and livelihood are destroyed for just not stopping.
Jihad and Hamas knew in advance what the Israeli govt would do to the roadmap that’s why they never agreed to it. And talk about conditions….Had Abu Mazen just asked for all the meetings to be held in Jerusalem, the Israelis would have rejected the whole roadmap.
So where does the road map lead to? It goes to Jordan (The Palestinian Homeland).