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Sharon "Backs" Mitchell Report But Rejects Settlement Freeze
JERUSALEM, May 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday backed the Mitchell report's call for an end to eight months of Middle East violence but refused to halt settlement construction, a position Palestinians said would doom the latest peace moves.
Backing a report by the Mitchell commission on the violence, Sharon urged the Palestinians - and also Israel's Arab neighbors Syria and Lebanon - "to stop the violence immediately and return to the negotiating table."
"If the Palestinians accept the proposals for an immediate ceasefire we shall," Sharon said at a Jerusalem news conference.
But Sharon made clear he did not read the Mitchell report to draw a link between an end to violence and a halt to settlement construction, saying Israel was committed "to providing for the regular needs of the settlements."
A top Palestinian official said that amounted to a "clear and obvious rejection" of the Mitchell plan and a "stupid try by Sharon to throw the ball in the Palestinian court."
Ahmed Abdel Rahman, secretary general of the Palestinian cabinet, said that settlements were illegal and "a time bomb that will destroy the peace process."
"Unless the Palestinians hear an obvious word to remove the occupation and the settlements, the Palestinians have no choice but to continue the resistance through this Intifada," he said.
In Washington, however, U.S. President George W. Bush was "encouraged" by Sharon's remarks, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Bush "welcomes the statement by Prime Minister Sharon. It is vital in order to ... bring the parties together and to secure a peace in the Middle East," Fleischer said.
Former U.S. senator George Mitchell on Monday unveiled a report by an international panel he chaired on the eight-month-old Intifada and called for an "immediate and unconditional end to violence."
Mitchell also recommended a series of confidence-building measures, including an Israeli halt to settlement activity and stronger Palestinian action against "terrorism".
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell backed the panel's work, speaking with both Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after the report's release and announcing that the ambassador to Jordan, William Burns, would be his "special assistant" to the Middle East.
Bush also spoke Tuesday with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, leaders of the first two Arab states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. A U.S. official reported "very positive" responses by the two to U/S/ moves.
The only other Arab country to have diplomatic ties in Israel is Mauritania, whose foreign minister, Dal Ould Abdi, arrived Tuesday in Israel despite a weekend call by the Arab League for a halt to political contacts with Israel.
The call came after Israel used F-16 fighter planes Friday for the first time in its conflict with the Palestinians following a Palestinian attack in the coastal city of Netanya.
Sporadic violence was reported Tuesday, with Israel saying the Palestinians had fired four mortar bombs on Israeli territory near the Gaza Strip and on a Jewish settlement.
Israeli troops later mounted five armed incursions into Palestinian-ruled land in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said, in violation of autonomy accords.
At the flashpoint Karni crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops appeared to be set to stay.
Separately, a member of Arafat's Force 17 guard died of injuries sustained in a West Bank gunfight Friday, bringing to 562 the number of people killed since late September, a large majority of them Palestinians.
Sharon said, "peace calls for painful compromises on both sides, but it is obtainable only at the negotiating table," calling the Mitchell report a "positive basis" for a renewal of talks.
Sharon renewed Israel's promise not to construct beyond the 150 settlements in the Occupied Territories and ruled out land seizures.
But he said there were "enough public lands on which to construct," apparently meaning that Israel would feel free to seize land so long as they do not belong to individuals.
Sharon also said Israel still reserved the right to seize lands to build roads "meant to assure security."
Arafat's top adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina accused Sharon of trying to circumvent the Mitchell report and demanded a freeze of all settlement activities.
He described the Mitchell report "as a beginning to end the crisis," while adding that the report, combined with the Sharm el-Sheikh understanding of October and a Egyptian-Jordanian peace initiative, provided an "answer for all the issues."
Arafat, who is due to meet French President Jacques Chirac in Paris Wednesday, on Monday put the onus on Israel to re-deploy its forces, end the blockade of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and resume all aspects of peace talks in line with previous agreements.
After Sharon's statement calling for a halt to the violence, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer ordered the army not to take offensive action and to respond only to attacks.
"The minister has given orders to open fire only in cases of life-threatening danger," the defense ministry said in a statement.
"Mr. Ben Eliezer has called on the Palestinian leadership in turn to immediately stop acts of violence and terrorism," the statement added.
The army will not take offensive action until given further instructions, it said.
The Israeli military command in the West Bank has ordered units on the ground that "any incursion into a Palestinian zone must have the green light of political authorities," public radio said.
Troops were authorized to "fire retaliatory shots only in response to shots specifically aimed at Israeli positions and to assist the injured," the radio said.
Despite the reported orders, gunfights continued late Tuesday, with Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinians clashing in the Gilo and Beit Jala area near Jerusalem, witnesses said.
Israel has made at least 17 incursions into Palestinian self-rule areas in around 10 days, in violation of the 1993 Oslo accords that established Palestinian autonomy.
Eliezer's order not to take offensive action and respond only to attacks confounds observers as Israel has until now been labeling all prior attacks against Palestinians as "retaliatory" measures: responses in essence.
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