GAZA, August 12, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Israeli pullout from Gaza Strip could rule out chances for any peace talks on the future of the occupied West Bank or dismantling more Jewish settlements for years, political analysts have expected.

"I don't think there will be peace talks any time soon," Israeli analyst Mark Heller was quoted as saying by Reuters Thursday, August 11.

"The best might be some kind of semi-coherent attempt to contain damage and minimize instability and will be concentrated on confidence-building measures."

Under Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement plan", Israel is due to pull all its troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in an operation scheduled to begin August 15.

Palestinians fear the price for the Israeli military pullout from the impoverished area is a stronger Israeli hold on the West Bank and Al-Quds (occupied Jerusalem).

Sharon repeatedly stressed that Israel will never give up major West Bank settlement blocs, with the apparent blessing of the United States.

The hawkish premier also maintained that there will be no more talks on establishing an independent Palestinian state until all resistance factions are disarmed.

The Islamic resistance group Hamas said Friday that it will not lay down arms after Israel's pullout from Gaza, Agence France Presse (AFP) said.

"This army will continue to defend our homeland as long as one inch of Palestine remains occupied," Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas leader, said after attending a training session of Hamas' military wing, the Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades.

During a keynote speech to the Palestinian parliament earlier this week, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas urged all resistance factions to end their rocket attacks on Israeli targets as part of a larger appeal for calm during the pullout.

Abbas managed to convince resistance factions in March to observe a "period of calm" conditional on Israel ending its policy of assassination targeting resistance activists.

Since then, the calm has been put to the test several times by both sides.

Over the past three months, many Palestinians were killed and wounded by Israeli gunfire, drawing retaliatory mortar and rocket attacks from Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters on Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

Jewish settlers are preparing to leave the Gaza settlement on Wednesday.

While the Bush administration, which puts its full weight behind the Gaza withdrawal, might have greater will than it ever has had for many years to make peacemaking happen in the Middle East, it is not clear whether the only mediator that matters will put any real muscle behind this, Reuters said.

"In fact Gaza is a bit of a sideshow. It changes very little in the greater shape of the conflict," said Jonathan Lindley of London's Royal United Services Institute.

"The completion of the withdrawal is not likely to be a clear point at which pressure can be applied.

"I very much doubt that we're going to see any big developments," he added.

And as preparations are at full swing to evacuate the Jewish settlements in the impoverished strip, Israel seems in no hurry to engage in peace talks on the future of the Palestinian lands under its control.

"The old formula of 'land for peace' has been changed and now it is 'land for time'," said analyst Ali Jarbawi.

"With Gaza they might buy some time, but I don't think the piece by piece approach is going to be acceptable to the Palestinians."

At the same time, work has sped up on the Israeli separation wall, looping deep into the West Bank to take in settlement blocs.

Israel claims that the West Bank barrier is for security reasons, but the Palestinians believe it is aimed at grabbing more of the land they need for their future state.

Israel's military pullout from Gaza is also seen as aiming to ensure a Jewish majority in the occupied West Bank, Reuters said.

A study, published in Israel's left-wing Ha'aretz newspaper, said that the Israeli withdrawal from the impoverished area will change the demographic balance in Israel and the West Bank, one of the reasons Sharon has given for his plan to withdraw from all 21 Gaza settlements and four in the West Bank.

The study said that for the first time fewer than half of the people living in Israel itself together with the occupied West Bank and Gaza are Jewish.

Figures from Israel and the Palestinian Authority show about 5.26 million Jews and 5.8 million non-Jews, mainly Palestinians, live in Israel and the occupied territories, it said.

The study said non-Jews in Israeli-controlled areas include 4 million Palestinians, 1.35 million Israeli Arabs, 185,000 foreign workers and 290,000 non-Jewish immigrants.

"If you disregard the Gaza population, the percentage of Jews (in Israel and the West Bank) grows to more than 60 percent," said Hebrew University Professor Sergio Della Pergola, whose research contributed to the study.

"The disengagement from Gaza adds 20 years to the process and delays the situation we are in now," he told Israel Radio.

Some Israelis fear that fast-growing Palestinian and Israeli Arab communities will compromise Israel's Jewish identity and democratic aspirations if it holds onto occupied territories.