ISRAEL: Just a week before he travels to the United States for crucial talks with President Bush over the US-backed road map for peace, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday sounded a hardline message on Jewish settlements, and insisted he was not under any US pressure to halt their construction.
Mr Sharon, who is expected to meet new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas over the weekend, told the Jerusalem Post newspaper he planned to retain some of the settlements in the heart of the West Bank. He named three - Beit El, Emmanuel and Ariel.
He said Jews would continue to live in Beit El, just north of Ramallah. Asked whether they would be under Israeli rule, he replied: "Do you see a possibility of Jews living under Arab sovereignty? I'm asking you, do you see that possibility?"
He said he did not view settlements as being an issue "on the horizon right now."
But Mr Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian minister in charge of negotiations, said settlements were "the main issue on the horizon. The road map says clearly that all settlement activities must end in the first phase."
The first phase of the plan requires that Israel completely freeze settlement construction and dismantle illegal outposts in the West Bank, and Mr Sharon discussed the issue with US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell on Sunday.
But the Israeli leader insisted the Americans were not pressing him on the issue. "There is no pressure from anyone. It is only pressure from the Jews on themselves."
The comments by Mr Sharon lend further credence to his remarks in the past that he would be ready to forego some 50 per cent of the West Bank in a final deal with the Palestinians.
Holding onto settlements like Beit El and Emmanuel would deprive the Palestinians of their goal of a contiguous state in territorial terms.
l Israeli forces backed by helicopter gunships raided a Palestinian village in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday after a mortar bomb attack wounded 10 Israeli soldiers in a base nearby, witnesses said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties during the push into the village of al-Qarara, on the edge of the Palestinian refugee camp of Khan Younis. - (Reuters)