AL QUDS, Nov 30: Israel’s army chief has privately voiced reservations about Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposal to take unilateral steps if peacemaking with the Palestinians fails, Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday.

Lieutenant-General Moshe Yaalon’s reported comments in the liberal Israeli daily added to criticism that he and four former Israeli security chiefs levelled recently against Sharon’s tough policies towards the Palestinians.

Asked about the report, an army spokesman said the military does not comment on accounts of purported private remarks.

Sharon raised the possibility in public remarks on Thursday that he would take unilateral moves, including the dismantling of isolated Jewish settlements, should efforts to promote a US-backed peace “road map” collapse.

Haaretz said that under the “Sharon Plan”, Israel would then unilaterally draw a border for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and in less than half of the West Bank, a homeland far smaller than Palestinians envisage.

Yaalon, the newspaper said, believes unilateral removal of settlements would confer “support to terror” in the face of a three-year-old Palestinian uprising and should be done only as part of a comprehensive peace arrangement.

Haaretz said Yaalon believes the army should first pull out of “quiet cities” in the West Bank as a way of rewarding the Palestinians and pave the way for a future peace deal.

Yaalon, challenging government policy, said recently in newspaper interviews that tough travel restrictions on Palestinians only boosted support for militants.

Yaalon’s reported remarks added to growing calls at home and abroad for Sharon to end violence and bolster the status of Palestinian moderates against militants by reining in settlers and lifting blockades imposed on Palestinian cities.—Reuters