Posted on 12/11/2003 6:38:42 PM PST by Alouette
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's reported go-it-alone peace plan is a recipe for disaster, his Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qurie told Israel's Maariv newspaper in an interview published Thursday.
Violence erupted in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, where six Palestinians -- a gunman and five civilians -- were killed during battles with an Israeli force of 20 armored vehicles, medics said.
Of Sharon's plan, Qurie predicted: "The conflict would continue, fires would burn, terror would increase and no one would gain. It would be a bad mistake to force a settlement on us. We will not accept it. The world will never accept it."
Bloodshed has stalled a U.S.-backed peace "road map" and Palestinians fear Sharon's ideas -- put forward as a unilateral alternative if the plan fails -- would leave them a shrunken state inside an internationally condemned Israeli barrier.
In the Gaza incident, an Israeli military source said troops on a mission to detain an Islamic Jihad militant had returned fire at gunmen who attacked them with anti-tank rockets and automatic weapons.
A bombing in Tel Aviv Thursday that killed two people was initially believed by Israeli police to be a Palestinian suicide attack but they later said it appeared to be an attempt on the life of an Israeli underworld figure, who was wounded.
UPROOTING SETTLEMENTS
Sharon has publicly raised the possibility of uprooting some isolated, hard-to-protect Jewish settlements, leading to speculation he would then chart the borders of a Palestinian homeland along the barrier dipping deep into the West Bank.
"If Sharon wants to remove the settlements, fine," Qurie said. "(But) you cannot build a fence on our land, put us into cages like chickens and hope for the best. It will cause a disaster."
Israel says the West Bank barrier of razor wire fencing and concrete walls, still under construction, was already paying security dividends and had prevented 20 Palestinian suicide bombings in the past two months.
"If you want a fence, fine. Build it on the Green Line," Qurie added, referring to the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank before the 1967 Middle East war, which would give Palestinians more territory.
The moderate Palestinian premier said it was still possible to reach a peace agreement with Sharon, pointing to a need for "an immediate return to the negotiating table."
Leading Israeli security veterans, however, predicted in a report to Sharon that there was no chance of reaching a peace deal while Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is alive, or for many years after he leaves the stage, when they said warlords would take control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Qurie's interview appeared a day after Yuval Shteinitz, head of parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Sharon had outlined a "long-term redeployment" as an alternative to a peace agreement and that it was accepted by most lawmakers of his Likud party.
Support by the right-wing party would be crucial to pushing through any such proposal. For decades Sharon, a former general, has championed settlements as key to Israel's security.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Megan Goldin)
"Like chickens"? More like rabid wild beasts (with apologies to the rabid wild beasts). Obviously he used that "like chickens" comment in order to appeal to the sympathies of the PETA animal rights nazis.
Somebody's overdue for a thorough plucking, if you ask me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.