December 10, 2003	Wednesday	Shawwal 15, 1424

WASHINGTON, Dec 9: A US official reacted coolly on Tuesday to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposal to close some Jewish settlements, saying if it were a unilateral move to impose a peace deal it would not work.

The official said it was not clear what proposals may have been floated by Mr Sharon, who was quoted as telling lawmakers in Israel he might uproot unspecified settlements for security reasons regardless of peacemaking with the Palestinians.

The US official said some reports of Mr Sharon’s remarks to a closed session of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee suggested he might be looking to impose a unilateral peace settlement.

“It’s ... not clear in what context he’s talking about it (closing some Jewish settlements) and whether he’s serious or not,” the US official told reporters.

“It looks like ... they are using both a carrot and a stick in that some of the reports indicate it’s in the context of imposing a unilateral settlement, a unilateral line, and abandoning the roadmap, negotiations, relations with the Palestinians etc. etc.,” the senior US official said.

“We don’t consider that to be a viable solution. We don’t consider that to be a solution that would add to the security and safety of Israel,” he added. “We continue to believe the parties need to work on the road map (and reach) their agreements that way.”

The United States has been trying to breath life into the roadmap for Middle East peace as a way to end more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence and to point the two sides toward a comprehensive peace agreement.

However, neither side at present appears to be particularly interested in pursuing the US plan, which among other things calls for the Palestinians to crack down on militants who attack Israel and for Israel to freeze settlement activity.

Mr Sharon’s comments on closing down some settlements would mark a sharp departure for his right-wing Likud party’s policy of championing settlement-building in the West Bank and Gaza, lands captured by Israel in the 1967 war.

SETTLERS’ THREAT: Jewish settlers warned on Tuesday that the Israeli government would have a “war” on its hands if it tried to dismantle settlement outposts as a new poll showed most Israelis back the evacuation of isolated settlements.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned Jewish settlers on Monday that eight settlement outposts will be dismantled soon, including two which are home to dozens of families.

But Pinhas Wallerstein, one of the leaders of the Yesha (Settlers’ Council), said that “the decision to dismantle the inhabited settlements is unacceptable.”

“We will end up with direct confrontation and if needs be there will be a war,” Wallerstein told military radio.

Under the internationally-backed “roadmap” peace plan, Israel is obliged to dismantle all the unauthorized settlements set up since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took office in March 2001.

But while a number were dismantled in a blaze of publicity after the peace blueprint’s launch in June, the settlement watchdog Peace Now has said many have since been re-established.

Mr Mofaz met representatives of the Yesha in Tel Aviv on Monday.

With Israel under pressure from the United States to act on its roadmap commitments, Mofaz announced that the Migron and Amona outposts in the central West Bank would be dismantled along with six other uninhabited bases.

While the “rogue” or “wildcat” outposts are established by settlers on their own initiative, without any prior government authorisation, most are nevertheless approved later.

Peace Now chief Yariv Oppenheimer said that the announcement about the dismantling of the settlements was part of an elaborate charade.

“We have already seen in the last few months that settlements which were evacuated were immediately reinstalled” he told AFP. “For the moment the settlers still have the upper hand, which explains our scepticism.”

According to Peace Now, there are 103 outposts in the West Bank, 56 of which were set up after Mr Sharon came to power in March 2001.

Mr Sharon said last month that “some outposts are of prime importance to our security.” But the premier has also been hinting at the evacuation of some officially sanctioned settlements as part of a series of “unilateral measures”. —AFP