Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in a major policy speech Thursday that Israel will move some Jewish settlements and pull back troops to new lines in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if there is no progress in the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map.
Sharon said that if the Palestinians did not meet their obligations, he would carry out a unilateral “disengagement plan” that would include troop withdrawals, accelerated construction of a security barrier and a “relocation” of outlying settlements to lines that he said would increase security for Israelis and reduce friction with the Palestinians.
Sharon’s remarks to a security conference in the town of Herzliya were seen in Israel as a departure for the prime minister, who previously opposed any withdrawals while violence continued. His words drew strong criticism from Jewish settlers and their supporters in the government.
Palestinian officials, meanwhile, rejected what they called Sharon’s threat of an imposed solution, and the plan for unilateral action also drew criticism in Washington.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said: “I am disappointed to hear that he is threatening the Palestinians. … If Mr. Sharon is ready to start negotiations we can do it sooner than anybody can expect.”
“We would oppose any unilateral steps that block the road toward negotiations under the road map,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “The United States believes that a settlement must be negotiated and we would oppose any effort–any Israeli effort–to impose a settlement.”
Sharon’s plan was a response to growing public pressure in Israel to break the deadly stalemate with the Palestinians after more than three years of grinding conflict.
It was the first time that Sharon, architect of the Israeli settlement drive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, had spoken explicitly of uprooting settlements, although he did not spell out which ones he had in mind, or to what line the troops would withdraw. About 220,000 Israelis live in nearly 150 settlements.
The plan signaled Sharon’s adoption of the concept of “unilateral separation” from the Palestinians, an idea that enjoys broad popular support and had been advocated by his political adversaries in the opposition Labor Party.
Sharon’s deputy, Ehud Olmert, recently called for a unilateral withdrawal from much of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, arguing that continued rule over an increasing Palestinian population would endanger Israel’s future as a Jewish state.
Sharon said in his speech that if “in a few months” the Palestinians fail to carry out their obligations under the road map–breaking up militant groups and instituting reforms–then “Israel will initiate the unilateral security step of disengagement from the Palestinians.”
“We will not wait for them indefinitely,” Sharon said, warning that the Palestinians will get “much less” from such unilateral steps than they would receive in talks under the road map.
“The Disengagement Plan is meant to grant maximum security and minimize friction between Israelis and Palestinians,” Sharon said.
Under the plan there would be a redeployment of troops to “new security lines, and a change in the deployment of settlements, which will reduce as much as possible the number of Israelis located in the heart of the Palestinian population,” he said.
“The relocation of the settlements will be made, first and foremost, in order to draw the most efficient security line possible,” Sharon said, adding that the line would not be a permanent political border.
“Settlements which will be relocated are those which will not be included in the territory of the state of Israel in the framework of any possible future permanent agreement,” Sharon said, declining to give names.
At the same time, he added, Israel would “strengthen its control” of other areas that “will constitute an inseparable part of the state of Israel in any future agreement,” hinting at possible annexation of some settlements.
Sharon said that his plan was a security measure that “will not change the political reality between Israel and the Palestinians” and would not preclude a return to the road map and a negotiated agreement. All steps will be coordinated with the United States, Sharon said.
Sharon asserted that Israel would keep its commitments under the road map, including the removal of unauthorized outposts built by settlers in the past two years.
As for the road map’s requirement that Israel freeze building in settlements, Sharon said “there will be no construction beyond the existing construction line, no expropriation of land for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements.”
He said that Israel would remove roadblocks and blockades in the West Bank to ease freedom of movement for Palestinians and hand back West Bank cities reoccupied by Israeli military forces, subject to security coordination. At the same time, he said, Israel would “greatly accelerate” construction of a security barrier that slices into the West Bank.
Sharon’s remarks drew criticism from his right flank and threats to leave the governing coalition.
Housing Minister Effi Eitam, from the pro-settlement National Religious Party, said Sharon’s plan to pull back would hand “a victory to terrorism.”
“We will not be part of a government that uproots Jewish communities and will defame the entire Zionist enterprise,” Eitam said.
Settler leaders said the planned pullback would increase Palestinian attacks. Yehoshua Mor-Yosef of the settlers’ umbrella council, said: “The dismantling of settlements and expulsion of Jews from their homes will only increase the appetite of the murderers.”
