[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Arafat Aides Deplore Permissive U.S. Policy on Settlement Growth

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Arafat Aides Deplore Permissive U.S. Policy on Settlement Growth

August 23, 2004
 By STEVEN ERLANGER 



 

JERUSALEM, Aug. 22 - The Palestinian leadership expressed
dismay on Sunday at a report that the Bush administration
is turning a blind eye to an expansion of Israeli
settlements. 

The Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, speaking to
reporters in Ramallah, said: "I don't believe that America
says now that settlements can be expanded. This thwarts and
destroys the peace process." 

Nabil Abu Rudeina, an adviser to Yasir Arafat, the
president of the Palestinian Authority, said that "the
American position is harmful to the peace process" and
"encourages the Israeli government to accelerate its
aggressions and its war against the Palestinian people." 

Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian spokesman, was more restrained,
saying that Washington must push Israel to live up to its
commitments "to stop all settlement activity, including
natural growth." 

In Cairo, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr
Moussa, said the new American position "can only damage the
peace process, if it exists, and damage the whole situation
and make it more difficult." 

The minor furor was occasioned by an article from
Washington in The New York Times on Saturday, reporting
that the Bush administration, trying to help the Israeli
prime minister, Ariel Sharon, out of a difficult political
spot, had agreed to accept new settlement growth quietly,
within the physical boundaries of existing settlements. 

For the past three years, American policy has called for a
freeze of "all settlement activity," including the "natural
growth" brought about by an increase in the birthrate and
other factors. The Israeli government agreed to that policy
in negotiations with a commission led by former United
States Senator George J. Mitchell, and later as part of a
"road map" toward peace negotiated by the so-called quartet
- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the
United Nations. 

But Israel still interprets a freeze on settlement activity
as allowing "thickening" - the building of new apartments
within settlement boundaries, either in empty areas or as
higher floors to existing buildings. 

Previously, when settlement expansions have been announced,
American officials have called them violations. But after
an Israeli announcement last week about the planned
construction of 1,001 housing units, administration
spokesmen said they were withholding judgment. 

Instead, a team of experts is to come to Israel to go over
aerial maps, in part to see if the Israelis are keeping to
their own interpretation of a freeze. 

The new American statements last week reflected "a covert
policy decision toward accepting natural growth" of some
settlements, despite repeated past statements, an
administration official said. 

Israeli officials, however, said that the new understanding
had been a secret, de facto agreement for some time,
practically since the Mitchell Committee report in 2001. 

The Israeli officials suggested instead that the Bush
administration, by discussing the issue now, was trying to
appeal to Jewish voters in the American elections. 

American pressure is now focused on Mr. Sharon's parallel
commitment to dismantle illegal settlement outposts.
Washington has told Mr. Sharon that he is moving too slowly
on this issue. His advisers say Israeli court injunctions
in favor of settlers are blocking more rapid movement. 

Mr. Sharon, in a letter published Sunday in the Israeli
newspaper Yediot Aharonot and addressed to the Labor Party
leader, Shimon Peres, said he was determined "to enlarge
the government to include the Labor Party" and move ahead
with plans for a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,
including the dismantling of Gaza settlements and four
small settlements in the West Bank. 

Mr. Sharon's own Likud Party voted by a large margin last
week to exclude Labor from any new coalition. The vote was
nonbinding, but Mr. Sharon risks a split in Likud if he
goes ahead. Even the announcement of the 1,001 new housing
units was understood here as a way to appeal to his Likud
opponents before the vote - in vain. 

On Sunday, the Israeli government opened an office to
arrange compensation for the 8,000 or so Gaza settlers who
would have to leave. Mr. Sharon has said he hopes that many
will agree to compensation voluntarily. 

Mr. Arafat is resisting calls among his legislators to sign
decrees that would put his imprimatur behind political,
administrative and security changes. But he is reaching out
again to his former prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who quit
the job after only a few months last September because he
was frustrated with Mr. Arafat's maneuverings. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/international/middleeast/23mideast.html?ex=1094282925&ei=1&en=8b816dee38b82760


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