Haaretz
Adar2 17, 5765
"We can't expect to receive
explicit American agreement to build freely in the settlements," Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon said at Sunday's cabinet meeting. The large blocs of
settlement in the West Bank "will remain in Israel's hands and will fall
within the (separation) fence, and we made this position clear to the
Americans. This is our position, even if they express reservations," he
said.
The U.S. administration makes a distinction between his
position that the blocs will remain in Israeli hands after the final
status agreement, and the issues of continuing construction in the
settlements at the present phase, Sharon said.
"The Americans
always expressed criticism about construction in the settlements, and they
have done so now, too. The publicity (about the plan to connect Ma'aleh
Adumim to Jerusalem - A.B.) put them in a very difficult spot," he
said.
Sharon's top adviser, attorney Dov Weisglass, will leave next
week for Washington for preparatory talks before the meeting of President
George Bush and Sharon, which will take place next month at the
president's ranch in Texas.
Weisglass will discuss construction in
the settlement blocs, but according to a senior political source, the
focus of Sharon's visit will be on other issues, such as the disengagement
plan, the entry phases into the "road map" peace plan and the situation in
the Palestinian Authority.
Israel prefers to sidestep the issue of
the settlement blocs of Ma'aleh Adumim, Ariel, Gush Etzion and the
Jerusalem "envelope," and to continue massive construction in these areas,
without reaching an explicit understanding with the United States. So far
there has been no agreed-upon definition of the concept of "settlement
blocs," or of their
boundaries.
Israel has promised the U.S. to
freeze construction in the settlements "beyond the current building line,"
so that they will not expand and take over new tracts of land. Later it
was agreed that the "building line" of each settlement would be marked
jointly,
according to aerial photos.
The defense minister's
adviser, Baruch Speigel, was given the task of collecting material about
the settlements, but the talks he held last summer with U.S. Ambassador
Dan Kurtzer quickly reached a stalemate. Israel decided to begin the
demarcation with the isolated settlements, where no new building has been
planned in any case, and to defer to some time in the future the
demarcation of the settlement blocs, where
construction would continue
in the meantime.
The Americans agreed to make a distinction between
isolated settlements and blocs, but demanded that the discussion of both
types of settlement proceed simultaneously. Israel objected, and the talks
were suspended, without having reached an agreement. Senior political
sources assume that the suspension of the talks on delimiting the
settlements was part of the "break" that the United States gave to Sharon
in light of the disengagement plan.
Just as the evacuation of the
illegal outposts was postponed until after the withdrawal from Gaza, so
will the issue of freezing construction in the settlements be deferred.
Israel would like to "synchronize" Bush's promise that the settlement
blocs will be annexed to Israel in the future with the possibility of
building in the present phase, before a final status
agreement.
Sharon will try to reach an understanding with Bush,
which will prevent disagreements between Israel and the U.S. and will put
handling of the settlement issues back on a more tranquil
footing.