Israel rebuffs "road map" peace plan

9/15/2004 4:00:00 PM GMT

In an interview published on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel won’t abide by the "road map" peace plan it endorsed last year.

He also said that there might be no further troops pullbacks after implementing the Gaza withdrawal plan, that envisages withdrawing from Gaza and four small West Bank settlements by the year 2005.

"It is very possible that after the evacuation (disengagement), there will be a long period when nothing else happens," Sharon told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.

When asked whether he was talking about decades of standstill, Sharon answered : "It's impossible to say."

In the interview, Sharon was asked how his disengagement plan differed from a proposal by a former Israeli opposition leader, Amram Mitzna, who said last year that Israel should refurbish peace talks with the Palestinians by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, including the isolated settlement of Netzarim there.

He answered saying "Mitzna suggested something different, to start the Netzarim evacuation and to continue dismantling settlements, based on the road map." "This would have brought Israel to a most difficult situation. I didn't agree to this. Today, we are also not following the road map. I am not ready for this."

The road map peace plan envisioned a Palestinian state by 2005. However the plan did not explain the borders of that state, but senior U.S. officials have said that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must be ended.

Sharon said "Israel will stay in the territories (of the West Bank)" as long as there’s no change from the Palestinian leadership side.

Previously, Bush said that it was "unrealistic" to expect Israel to dismantle large Israeli population centers in the West Bank — a statement Sharon uses as a support for his plan to keep large West Bank settlements in any future deal with the Palestinians.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said that Sharon's comments confirmed Palestinian worries that the Gaza withdrawal was a trick to bolster Israel's control over larger parts of the West Bank.

"I think that those who saw the Gaza disengagement as an opportunity because they counted that it would be part of the road map should really understand that their good intentions are one thing, and that Sharon's good intentions are another," Saeb Erekat said.

"Sharon's intention is to destroy the road map and to dictate his long-term interim solution of Gaza as a prison and 40 percent of the West Bank within wall, and this will not fly," he said.

Sharon threatens to assassinate Palestinian leader

Sharon had once again renewed his threats to assassinate President Arafat or expel him. His threats came parallel to the Israeli settlers’ threat to assassinate Sharon if he carried out his unilateral disengagement plan.

Sharon threatened, during interviews with the Israeli newspapers Ma'ariv and Yedioth Ahronoth, to assassinate or oust President Arafat.

"We have taken action against Ahmad Yassin [the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas movement] and Abdel Aziz Al Rantissi [Yassin’ s successor] when we thought the time was right, and concerning Arafat, we shall do it the same way when we find a suitable and convenient time," Sharon told both newspapers.

Dr. Saeb Erekat, the Minister of Negotiations Affairs, saw Sharon's threats were very serious and might be a preparation to target Arafat physically.

"We hold Israel fully responsible for these threats or carrying them out," Erekat said, stressing that "reiterating such threats by Sharon and ministers from his government represents an actual intention to carry these threats out. Governments must act as governments, not as mafias."

Israelis threaten to assassinate Sharon

On the other hand, Israeli security sources said that Sharon had also received death threats from extremists in the Israeli right, noting that police has started an investigation concerning these threats.

Sharon's persistence to move on with his Gaza withdrawal plan, which includes dismantling illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza Strip and four ones in northern West Bank, has stirred outrage among the Israeli settlers.

Israeli security officials advised Sharon not to leave his office due to the serious nature of these threats.