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Peace Process

Bush set to squeeze Sharon on settlements


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
April 05, 2005

The Bush Administration has become increasingly frustrated by Israeli plans to expand the Jerusalem-area suburb of Ma’aleh Adumim, and intends to squeeze Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the issue when he visits the president’s Texas ranch next week.

This according to Israeli and international media reports Tuesday.

Ma’aleh Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement with just over 30,000 inhabitants, lies on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, in territory Israel liberated from Jordanian occupation during the 1967 Six Day War.

A decade-old plan to connect the town to Jerusalem with a new neighborhood was recently approved by the Sharon government.

That approval elicited a backlash of international criticism, and is expected to be a primary topic of conversation when Sharon and Bush meet on April 12.

“I imagine that … settlement activity will be a subject that comes up in their discussions,” White House Spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters Monday.

“For a while now there is anger in the [Bush] administration regarding Israel’s moves pertaining to Ma’aleh Adumim,” a US government source told Ynet.

Earlier Monday, Sharon said he did not view the Ma’aleh Adumim construction plan as a serious violation of US demands for a settlement freeze, as the plan is more than 10 years old and fits with Israel’s well-known insistence that Jerusalem remain united under Jewish sovereignty.

Washington is also reportedly irritated by what it sees as Sharon’s involvement in leaking comments by US Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer to the effect that Bush would not support Israel’s claims to large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, even after the pullout from Gaza.

Sharon sold his “disengagement” plan to the Israeli public on the belief that Bush had endorsed Israel’s continued hold over parts of Judea and Samaria in a letter to the prime minister last year.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to start grilling senior Sharon aide Dov Wiesglass on Ma’aleh Adumim when the two meet Monday evening. Wiesglass is in the US ahead of Sharon to lay the groundwork for the prime minister’s visit.

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