- JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon has approved tenders to build 1,000 more Israeli
settler homes in the occupied West Bank, plans that had been shelved earlier
to avoid discord with Washington, political sources say.
-
- U.S. officials suggested the move contradicted Washington's
"road map" peace plan which prescribes a freeze on settlement
building on occupied territory where Palestinians seek a state.
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- But Housing Minister Tzipi Livni said on Tuesday the
tender package adhered to "understandings" with Washington that
new settlement homes could be erected within current construction limits.
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- Sharon confidants said he was trying to defuse a mutiny
in his right-wing Likud party over his U.S.-endorsed plan to evacuate settlers
from Gaza.
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- Sharon faces a snap Likud convention on Wednesday at
which party nationalists hope to vote down his proposed alliance with the
dovish Labour party, a fervent proponent of withdrawals.
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- "Sharon is manoeuvring to reinforce his flanks and
get past Likud opponents of disengagement (from Gaza)," said a senior
source close to the former army general.
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- "Sharon may only need these tenders for the next
24 hours, for the convention. Afterward, who knows, he could freeze them
again. Anything is possible. It's just internal politics. He is merely
doing what he must to proceed to disengagement."
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- Sharon sees Labour as the linchpin for restoring his
parliamentary majority lost when far-right coalition partners defected
or were sacked in June for bucking his plan to withdraw 8,000 settlers
from tiny Gaza next year.
-
- U.S. leaders have hailed the first prospect of an Israeli
pullout from territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
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- But they want Sharon not to expand large West Bank enclaves,
where much of the 240,000-strong settler population lives, in hopes of
reviving Middle East peace talks.
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- "Israel has accepted the road map and we expect
it to abide by its commitments," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Paul
Patin.
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- U.S. LINE OPEN TO INTERPRETATION
-
- But U.S. President George W. Bush assured Sharon in April
that if Israel got out of Gaza, it could keep bigger West Bank settlement
blocs it regards as strategically vital.
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- "The problem is that we have never said publicly
whether we accept Israel's interpretation of a settlement freeze,"
said a U.S. diplomat who asked not to be identified.
-
- Diplomats in the U.S.-led Quartet sponsoring the road
map said the new housing defied at least the spirit of the plan, but Bush
was unlikely to challenge Sharon and risk losing pro-Israel votes during
a tough re-election campaign.
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- "The reality is the Israelis have wiggle room in
the existing diplomatic context," said a Quartet diplomat.
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- Sharon wants Labour by his side to prevent Likud hardliners
blocking future votes on implementing the phased Gaza pullout. But coalition
talks have faltered with rows on the state budget.
-
- Palestinian leaders and Israel's settlement watchdog
group, Peace Now, accused Sharon of riding roughshod over the "road
map" in sanctioning a new flurry of settlement-building.
-
- But Israeli officials have privately written off the
"road map". The plan envisages a viable Palestinian state in
the West Bank and Gaza, but has been shredded by violence on both sides.
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- Israeli forces and Palestinian militants are both bent
on scoring "victory" in the run-up to an Israeli pullout from
Gaza.
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- Israeli soldiers shot and killed a nine-year-old Palestinian
boy on Tuesday during a confrontation with stone throwers in the blockaded
West Bank city of Nablus, local medics said.
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- In Gaza, troops shot dead two Palestinian militants as
they crept up on a settlement with what appeared to be a bomb.
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