November 26, 2003	Wednesday	Shawwal 1, 1424

AL QUDS, Nov 25: Israel’s right wing hit back on Tuesday with its own alternative peace plan which rules out the creation of a Palestinian state or dismantling any settlements, after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned there was no alternative to land for peace.

Following on the heels of the internationally-backed “roadmap” peace plan and the “Geneva Initiative” which is to be officially launched next Monday, the latest blueprint drawn up by right-wing MPs and Jewish settlers’ groups rejects the principle of trading land for peace.

Ben Tzvi Lieberman, a senior member of the Settlers’ Council, said that an alternative was needed as the roadmap and Geneva plans were “very bad solutions”.

The plan would involve “the eradication of terrorism, the abandonment of the principle of peace in exchange for land, autonomous administration for the Arabs and a final regional accord which would exclude the creation of a Palestinian state or the dismantling of settlements,” Lieberman told public radio.

Settler sources told AFP the plan had been drawn up by MPs, including some from Sharon’s own Likud party, and settler leaders.

Sharon, who has said he is considering “unilateral” measures towards the Palestinians, was reported on Tuesday to have received a tough time at the hands of his own MPs when he tried to convince them there was no alternative to the land-for-peace principle.

The sources said the settlers’ plan would also see an expanded State of Israel, encompassing both the West Bank and Gaza Strip occupied in 1967, divided into 10 separate cantons — two of which would be Palestinian.

With figures indicating the Palestinian population could outstrip the Jewish population in little more than a decade, the canton arrangement would guarantee a Jewish majority in parliament.

The prime minister would have to be Jewish although the deputy premier could be an Arab.

The plan received predictably short shrift from Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.

“There is only one government in Israel, and all the initiatives which are coming from the left wing or from the right wing ... are only creating problems, whether it’s the Geneva Initiative or any other initiative,” he told reporters.

“There is only one plan, which is called the roadmap. We should remain on one track ... and not try to find other solutions which cannot be implemented.”

Lieberman also announced that the Settlers’ Council was launching a campaign against any plans by Sharon to dismantle isolated settlements in the West Bank or in Gaza, such as the controversial Netzarim settlement.

While Sharon has remained tight-lipped about what his “unilateral” measures would involve, there have been widespread reports that settlements on the far side of Israel’s West Bank separation barrier or deemed difficult to defend would be evacuated.

Sharon was quoted by the Maariv daily as telling his own MPs on Monday that “there is no other choice ... to painful concessions.

“We must not keep three and a half million Arabs under us. Let it be clear, we will not be in all the places we are now. That is the situation. We have to understand it.”

Likud MP Michael Gorolovsky accused Sharon of planning “to carry out a transfer of Jews.”

Sharon’s hardline policies to date in the occupied territories recently came under fire from US President George W. Bush and his own top brass.

Bush called for a halt to all settlement activity in line with the terms of the roadmap which envisages the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

The Geneva Initiative, a project forged by left-wing Israeli politicians and leading Palestinians, also aims to bring about a Palestinian state which would see Israel hand over some of its own land in exchange for existing settlements being incorporated within Israeli borders.—AFP