[Mb-civic] Guardian Unlimited: Sharon ignores settlement warning

[harry.sifton at sympatico.ca]

HS spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.

To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk

Sharon ignores settlement warning
Associated Press in Washington
Wednesday April 13 2005
The Guardian


The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, yesterday brushed off a warning from President George Bush not to allow further West Bank settlement growth, indicating that Israel would continue to solidify its hold on areas it considers of strategic importance. 

In a meeting with US newspaper editors, Mr Sharon also reiterated his call for the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to act with more vigour to curb Palestinian militants.  

"I have known him for many years. There is no doubt he represents a departure from Yasser Arafat's strategy of terror," Mr Sharon said, according to an Israeli official. "But he must take additional steps to disarm terror organisations, stop incitement, or we can't move forward from the pre-road map stage."  

Mr Abbas, who is due to meet President Bush next month, has preferred a strategy of negotiations with militant groups, rather than confrontation.  

The Israeli official, who was travelling with Mr Sharon and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the prime minister also discussed developments in Iran and Lebanon and prospects for democracy in the Middle East at the American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting. He was due to meet the vice-president, Dick Cheney, later yesterday.  

On Monday, Mr Sharon described his meeting with President Bush as a great success. At a joint news conference at the president's Texas ranch, he won renewed support for his plan to remove Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, but he dampened the president's expectations that the tempo of peace talks would pick up after the withdrawal.  

At the ranch, Mr Bush told him that any further building on the settlements would be in violation of the internationally backed "road map" peace plan, which both the Israelis and the Palestinians have formally accepted, but which has been long dormant, with both sides failing to carry out their initial obligations.  

"I've been very clear. Israel has an obligation under the road map. That is no expansion of settlements," Mr Bush said.  

But later, Mr Sharon said that while US opposition to the settlements dated back to when Israel first captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 war, Israel had nevertheless continued to build communities to keep a hold on the land. 

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited