Posted on 11/24/2003 10:29:48 AM PST by El Conservador
JERUSALEM - The Palestinians are assured of a state if they halt attacks on Israelis and dismantle armed groups, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) said Monday. But he also tried to ease fears among his right-wing backers that he will dismantle settlements as a concession to peace.
Sharon also told legislators from his right-wing Likud party Monday that he would not agree to preconditions to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, who wants guarantees a summit will yield results before agreeing to a date.
The lawmakers were concerned by Israeli media reports Sharon is considering taking unilateral steps toward the Palestinians if attempts to revive the stalled U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan fail. Those steps reportedly include drawing a border, dismantling settlements, releasing Palestinian prisoners and withdrawing from West Bank towns.
Sharon — a longtime champion of settlement expansion — confirmed Monday he was considering unilateral steps but avoided talk about dismantling settlements.
"The prime minister said that if he does decide on unilateral steps, he will bring them to the caucus for a vote before taking it to the Cabinet," Likud legislator Yehiel Hazan said.
A legislator present at the meeting quoted Sharon as saying, "If there is one Palestinian government after another, and I'm convinced there is no progress, we will take unilateral steps, not as concessions, but in our interest."
The peace plan envisions Palestinian statehood by 2005 as the centerpiece of a negotiated settlement. However, it remains stalled because both sides have not met even its most basic requirements — a settlement freeze and the removal of dozens of illegal West Bank outposts by Israel, and the dismantling of militant groups by the Palestinians.
Sharon said Monday that "if there is a cease-fire and the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure, they (the Palestinians) will attain an independent state," the legislator said on condition of anonymity.
Sharon previously has said he considers Palestinian statehood inevitable, but he opposes an Israeli withdrawal from all the West Bank and Gaza.
During the closed-door meeting, hawkish Cabinet Minister Uzi Landau said Israel should dismantle the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) because it was doing nothing to fight terror.
But Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz disagreed, and was quoted as saying that assuming "responsibility for three million Palestinians would be a grave mistake."
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom also said Monday that Sharon and Qureia will meet next week, a claim denied by top Palestinian officials.
Qureia told the Dubai-based Al Arabiya satellite channel Monday he hopes reports of Sharon's willingness to dismantle settlements and ease Palestinian suffering were not "a propaganda stunt."
He said Sharon should take "serious steps" so talks between the two sides could resume. Israel must stop building a barrier separating it from the West Bank, halt settlement expansion, ease Palestinian suffering and lift the travel ban imposed on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), he said.
Sharon said Monday he is unwilling to accept preconditions for a summit.
"I won't make any binding commitments in order to meet Abu Ala (Qureia)," the legislator quoted Sharon as saying. "If he wants to meet, we'll meet. If he doesn't, we won't."
The leaks about Sharon's purported contingency plan were viewed as an attempt to deflect growing criticism he is not doing enough to end more than three years of fighting with the Palestinians.
Earlier this month, four former heads of the Shin Bet security service said Israel is headed toward disaster if it does not reach a deal with the Palestinians soon, and they accused Sharon of stalling to avoid concessions.
Palestinian critics and Israeli liberals were skeptical about talk of unilateral steps.
"We've heard many promises, but nothing has come of them," Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres said, adding that even the removal of small settlements would break up Sharon's center-right coalition. "I don't think Sharon is in a hurry to take apart his government."
The Bush administration, which supported Sharon's harsh military measures against the Palestinians, has been increasingly critical of Israeli restrictions against the Palestinian population and the construction of a barrier in the West Bank.
Last week, Elliot Abrams, head of the Middle East desk at the National Security Council, met secretly with Sharon while the prime minister visited Italy, an Israeli official confirmed Monday on condition of anonymity.
Abrams told Sharon he must dismantle illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank and freeze settlement construction, Israeli media reported Monday.
.....if Attacks Stop
In the past, under Arab contril it was called desert.
Old idea, hasn't happened yet. Probably have to give up Gaza now. The opportunity to carve out a palestinian state from southern Gaza and part of the Sinai is gone as well.
Thoughtful military experts have for many years recognized the risks for Israel should it no longer be able to control the territories it acquired in the course of the Six-Day War in June 1967. For example, shortly after the end of that conflict, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that, "From a strictly military point of view, Israel would require the retention of some captured territory in order to provide militarily defensible borders."
The Chiefs made the following specific findings:
"The prominent high ground running north-south through the middle of West Jordan [Judea and Samaria] generally...would provide Israel with a militarily defensible border."
"The commanding territory east of the boundary of 4 June 1967 [the Golan Heights]...overlooks the Galilee area. To provide a defense in-depth, Israel would need a strip about 15 miles wide extending from the border of Lebanon to the border of Jordan."
"By occupying the Gaza Strip, Israel would trade approximately 45 miles of hostile border for eight. Configured as it [was prior to 1967], the strip serve[d] as a salient for introduction of Arab subversion and terrorism and its retention would be to Israel's military advantage."
"To defend the Jerusalem area would require that the boundary of Israel be positioned to the east of the city to provide for the organization of an adequate defensive position."
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These findings are as valid today as they were in 1967. In fact, they have been reaffirmed again and again by knowledgeable military professionals. For example, in October 1988, 100 senior U.S. generals and admirals issued a public call for Israel to "retain the Jordan River line as [her] eastern security border" noting that:
"...If Israel loses this line, it would have virtually no warning of attack, its border would be three times longer than the present one. In the midsection of the country it would be 9 to 18 miles from the Mediterranean. Virtually all the population would be subject to artillery bombardment. The plain north of Tel Aviv could be riven by an armored salient within hours. The quick mobilization of its civilian army -- Israel's main hope for survival -- would be disrupted easily, and perhaps irreversibly."
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In 1991, Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly, the highly respected chief of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Desert Storm, said, "Israel's control over these areas is the only guarantee, however imperfect, of peace. Their loss is a prescription for war." He added that:
"The West Bank mountains, and especially their approaches, are the critical terrain. If an enemy secures those passes, Jerusalem and all of Israel become uncovered. Without the West Bank, Israel is only eight miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible."
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Importantly, the Israeli Defense Forces are under no illusion about the abiding importance of strategic analyses like that performed by the Joint Chiefs. As the IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak said in May 1993:
"The 1967 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum [is] still applicable. The Arab arms are reaching superiority over Israel with a qualitative as well as quantitative edge....If Israel has to retake the territories proposed to be given up, we cannot do it without tremendous casualties."
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You're right, that's been the plan since 1948. Not one politically important Arab has supported the concept. It's called pie in the sky.
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