JERUSALEM, 30 August 2005 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Israel would not keep all Jewish settlements in the West Bank under a final peace deal with Palestinians. But Sharon, speaking a week after completing a removal of settlers from Gaza and part of the West Bank, repeated that Israel would keep larger West Bank settlements for good, a step Palestinians fear would prevent them creating a viable state. “Not all the settlements in Judea and Samaria today will remain,” Sharon said, using biblical names for the West Bank.
He added that a decision would only be part of a permanent accord envisaged by a US-backed “road map” peace plan. Talks are unlikely to start at least until after general elections in Israel and the Palestinian territories due next year. Sharon, in an Israeli television interview, repeated that Israel would retain control over sprawling West Bank Jewish enclaves where the vast majority of more than 240,000 settlers live among 2.4 million Palestinians.
“These settlements will remain in our hands and will be linked territorially to Israel. These blocs have first rate strategic importance for Israel,” he said. Sharon did not name the settlements he would keep, but these are likely to include the large Ariel enclave near the West Bank city of Nablus, Maale Adumim outside Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion bloc south of Bethlehem.
As part of the renewed international drive to bring peace after five years of bloodshed, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana yesterday urged Israel and the Palestinian Authority leaders to resume negotiations under the framework of the road map peace plan. “We have to get into the road map process, the sooner the better,” Solana told reporters after a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei in Gaza City.
“I’m very happy to see that disengagement has taken a very good direction thanks to everybody,” Solana said ahead of talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Meanwhile, Palestinian groups yesterday told an Egyptian envoy they remained committed to a cease-fire with Israel, a day after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside an Israeli bus station, Palestinian officials said. Leaders from the main groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades — made the pledge during meetings with the visiting Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who was in the region to shore up the truce and facilitate an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on Israel’s Gaza withdrawal, participants said.
“The calm still exists. We are committed to this ... All the factions are committed,” Qorei said. “Israel in the past few weeks has committed brutal massacres against our people and the Palestinians have a right to respond,” said Nafez Azzam, a leader of the Islamic Jihad. He said, however, the group would continue to honor the cease-fire.
