Sharon betrays Israel's founders

Many observers of the Middle East believe "something good is stirring," as an editorial in The Economist put it on July 31. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel seems to have emerged as the champion of a new pragmatism that challenges the rightist dogmatism of the Likud and the settlers as he seeks to disengage from Gaza. And a newly assertive Palestinian young guard is challenging not only a corrupt entourage around Yasser Arafat but also the leader of the Palestinian national movement himself. Unfortunately, such optimism is based on a complete misreading of both Israeli and Palestinian realities. Sharon is not about to agree to the most minimal conditions for viable Palestinian statehood. His unshakable resolve to avoid dealing with the Palestinians - even to prevent chaos in the wake of the promised withdrawal from Gaza - and to widen Jewish settlement activity throughout the West Bank gives the lie to such wishful thinking. Sharon has candidly insisted that he intends to disengage from Gaza only because he believes it is the price Israel must pay for retaining enough of the West Bank to assure permanent Israeli control of the area. On Tuesday he announced massive new construction in the West Bank settlements. As for the Palestinians, the emerging young guard will never agree to Sharon's notion of a peace agreement - an "interim" arrangement that leaves Israel in control of the West Bank and defers Palestinian statehood for decades while Israel continues to fragment what is left of Palestinian territory into isolated cantons.

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  thanks to Aron's Israel Peace Weblog

Britain in split with US on West Bank homes

A significant gap opened up between the British and US governments on Middle East policy yesterday when Downing Street expressed its continued opposition to any expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. Fuelling the controversy, the Israeli government announced plans to build another 533 homes in settlements in the West Bank, in addition to the 1,000 construction tenders approved by the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, last week. The British government, in a rare departure from Washington, positioned itself alongside its European Union partners on the issue. The EU, unlike Washington, is critical of Israeli behaviour in the West Bank and Gaza. The US administration signalled at the weekend that it was abandoning its long-term call for a freeze on all settlement activity and would back some limited expansion.

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  thanks to Aron's Israel Peace Weblog