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Peace Process

?West Bank? settlements not secure, says Rice


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
March 27, 2005

Israel’s future sovereignty over large Jewish settlements blocs in Judea and Samaria was not assured by US President George W. Bush, despite claims to the contrary by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Speaking to the Washington Post Friday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said what Bush had written in a letter to Sharon last year was that the reality of the settlements would be taken into consideration in any final status agreement with the “Palestinians”.

“…There has been a change in circumstances on the ground, large population centers have grown up, and…that will need to be taken into account in a final status agreement, but that…final status agreement has to be negotiated,” Rice said.

“In other words, how [the existence of those settlement blocs] is taken into account has to be negotiated. That's it.”

The Palestinian Arabs are not expected to relinquish their demand that Israel withdraw from all territory captured in the 1967 Six Day War, thereby negating any diplomatic advantage Israel was to have gained by quitting Gaza.

Sharon told Israelis his “disengagement” plan had elicited strong US support for continued control over large Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria, and even made that claim a prime selling point for his policies.

“In the agreement between Bush and myself we [received] tremendous achievements that Israel never had since its establishment,” WorldNetDaily quoted Sharon as saying in his annual address to the foreign press corps last month.

Some have argued that, agreement or no agreement, towns such as Ma’aleh Adumim and Ariel are a reality, but without US support for a unilateral Israeli declaration of sovereignty over them, Sharon has gained nothing.

Dr. Aaron Lerner of Independent Media Review and Analysis points out that Washington views eastern Jerusalem as part of the occupied “West Bank”.

“The Americans…consider Ramat Eshkol, French Hill, and other Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem as on the negotiating table,” Lerner said.

Washington’s “consideration” of Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria “can be interpreted as meaning that [the Americans] expect Israel to be able to trade the settlement blocs [as] negotiating chips for those Jerusalem neighborhoods - hence ‘not a complete withdrawal to the '67 lines,’” Lerner explained.

Speaking on Israel Radio Sunday, former-Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Sharon was misrepresenting the Bush administration, and needed to begin telling Israelis the truth.

Barak said Bush’s letter to Sharon in no way constituted a commitment to support the unilateral retention of settlements blocs in Judea and Samaria.

Barak warned there would be consequences “if we fool ourselves” on this matter.

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