Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Sharon said to want half of West Bank land

Sharon said to want half of West Bank land
     From combined dispatches
     JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to annex up to
half of the West Bank under an unpublished plan for the Palestinian
territories that he is drawing up with close advisers, a senior minister in
his government has said.
     "As far as I know, the strategy is to annex 50 percent of the West Bank
[for Israel], and this is incompatible with a two-state solution. It is not
realistic," Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh told the London Sunday
Telegraph.
     Mr. Sneh, a Labor member in Mr. Sharon's coalition government, spoke at
the end of a week in which Israel began winding up its largest military
operation in the West Bank in more than 30 years.
      Israeli tanks and armored vehicles yesterday began pulling out of
Nablus, the largest West Bank city, and parts of Ramallah. But in a
resurgence of violence, a Palestinian gunman and an Israeli policeman died
in a clash at a Gaza border crossing and another Palestinian blew himself up
near a border checkpoint.
     The London newspaper reported that Mr. Sneh's remarks were a strong
indication that the Israeli prime minister prefers to see a divided,
weakened Palestinian entity with far less land than envisioned under
previous peace plans.
     Asked about the comments, Danny Ayalon, a senior Sharon aide, said the
prime minister would wait for a regional peace conference - which he has
called for - to discuss his proposals for Palestinian territory.
     Israel also promised yesterday to cooperate with a United Nations
mission to probe its crushing assault on the Jenin refugee camp, saying it
had nothing to hide in the face of Palestinian accusations of a massacre.
Palestinians said they hoped the U.N. Security Council's unanimous decision
Friday to send a "fact-finding" team to the camp could lead to an
international criminal trial of Mr. Sharon and others.
     "We have nothing to hide, and we will gladly cooperate with this U.N.
inquiry," Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said after the United States
proposed the compromise U.N. resolution.
     Mr. Sharon has played his cards close to his chest over his broader
political strategy, saying only that he is prepared to make "painful
concessions" to the Palestinians in the interests of long-term peace.
      However, Mr. Sneh's comments will fuel speculation that the prime
minister and the Israeli right are hoping to retain most of 150 Jewish
settlements in the West Bank.
     Over the years, Mr. Sharon has pushed for annexation of up to 60
percent of the West Bank. When the deadline in the 1993 Oslo accords for
creation of a Palestine state expired in May 1999, Mr. Sharon, then foreign
minister in the Benjamin Netanyahu government, threatened to annex
settlements if the Palestinians declared a state unilaterally.
     Mr. Sneh, a rising figure in Labor ranks, plans to present alternative
peace proposals to his party's conference in June, based on land swaps and
Palestinian sovereignty over most of the West Bank.
     Labor and the right-wing parties - of which Mr. Sharon's Likud is the
largest - have maintained a united front in the anti-terror crackdown.
However, Mr. Sneh indicated that rifts over a political settlement could
cause the coalition to collapse.
     Last week, Mr. Sharon called for an international peace conference, but
demanded the exclusion of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Mr. Ayalon, one
of the prime minister's closest advisers, said he would not be drawn into
revealing details of any plans to offer the Palestinians a peace deal.
     President Bush yesterday said Israel must press ahead with its
withdrawal from Palestinian cities but did not repeat earlier demands for an
immediate end to the offensive.
     "All parties must realize that the only long-term solution is for two
states - Israel and Palestine - to live side by side in security and peace.
This will require hard choices and real leadership by Israelis and
Palestinians, and their Arab neighbors," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio
address.
     Asked about Mr. Sharon's reported annexation plan, a senior State
Department official, requesting anonymity, told The Washington Times that
"there may be all kinds of Israeli ideas," but no one should "get wedded to
any one specific plan."
     The official said the emphasis is on convincing Israel to "implement a
complete withdrawal" from Palestinian towns and on convincing Palestinians
to "take responsibility for getting the violence down and the political
process going."
     In Cairo, visiting Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji pressed Israel to
withdraw immediately from Palestinian towns and called for a complete
cease-fire.
     Tanks and armored personnel carriers were seen heading out of Nablus
and some Ramallah neighborhoods yesterday, but Mr. Gissin said troops would
stay near Mr. Arafat's Ramallah headquarters. "Any place that we've finished
we pull out," he said.
     Israel has said it will maintain its siege at the shell-shattered
compound where the Palestinian leader is confined until he turns over
suspects in the October killing of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. Israel
yesterday rejected Mr. Arafat's offer to try them in a Palestinian court.
      Israeli forces were expected to stay in the heart of Bethlehem until
the end of a standoff between soldiers and armed Palestinians holed up
inside the Church of the Nativity since April 2. A Franciscan priest inside
said yesterday that food supplies had run out.
     In the Jenin refugee camp, fierce fighting ended more than a week ago,
but 11 persons have been wounded over two days by stepping on unexploded
ordnance or opening booby-trapped doors intended for Israeli troops,
hospital officials said.
     U.S. Middle East envoy William Burns, calling for humanitarian aid,
described the camp yesterday as the scene of a "terrible human tragedy" and
"enormous suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians."
     The scale of death and destruction remains in bitter dispute. Israel
says about 70 Palestinians were killed, most militants. Palestinian
officials estimate the death toll in the hundreds. Twenty-three Israeli
troops were killed. So far, 43 Palestinian bodies have been found, six of
them women, children or elderly men, Palestinian sources said.

Israeli troops, hospital officials said.
E i bastardi soldati israeliani che volevano evitare che succedesse
questo :)))
*ROTFL*
Ma la colpa sara' sicuramente loro per questi 11 feriti :)
-Stefano