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Sharon promises to withdraw from most West Bank cities
( 2002-04-16 09:17 ) (7 )

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday that Israel would pull out of all West Bank cities except Ramallah and Bethlehem within a week and that he was ready to make a "painful concession" for peace with the Palestinians. But he again rejected negotiations with Yasser Arafat, saying, "You cannot reach peace with him."

Israel launched an offensive March 29 in the West Bank aimed at crushing Palestinian militant groups it has blamed for suicide attacks against Israeli targets. Sharon has faced growing calls from the international community, including the United States, to end the campaign.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said late Monday that Sharon confirmed in a telephone conversation with US President Bush by telephone that he planned to withdraw troops and tanks within a week from the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus, scenes of the fiercest fighting during the offensive.

Bush told Sharon that those actions would significantly improve the prospects for peace, Fleischer said.

In an interview with CNN, Sharon suggested that the army would maintain some presence in the Palestinian territories as part of a buffer zone to prevent future attacks.

The two exceptions to the pullout were Bethlehem, where Israeli forces are engaged in a standoff with more than 200 armed men in the Church of the Nativity, and in Ramallah.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo rejected Sharon's withdrawal plan. "We don't plan to deal with these conditions," Abed Rabbo said. "He must leave every city that has been reoccupied without any conditions. We are not going to bargain with the Israelis over every town and village."

BETHLEHEM PLAN?

Sharon said Israel and the United States had agreed on how to resolve the standoff at the Church of the Nativity, concluding that the solution would require having people connected with terrorist acts tried in Israel or deported, perhaps with British assistance.

"They must leave their weapons behind. They have to come [out]. They will be identified," he said. "Those who have no connection with terror will be released immediately. Those who are connected and had to do with terror and murder will be arrested.”

"Maybe the Palestinians think in a few days now there will be a change, [that] Israel will have to leave those places," he said. "I want to make it very clear: We will leave Bethlehem only after they either are arrested and tried in Israel, or deported."

In Ramallah, where Israeli troops have circled Arafat's headquarters since March 29, Sharon said any pullout was contingent on the Palestinians' handing over those allegedly responsible for the killing of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in Jerusalem in October.

PEACE CONFERENCE

Sharon repeated that US Secretary of State Colin Powell's meeting Sunday with Arafat was a mistake and insisted that there were other Palestinian leaders who could replace Arafat, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority. But he also indicated that he was willing to support a formula drawn up by Powell for a peace conference that would circumvent his objections to Arafat.

Under Powell's plan, the regional conference would be held on the foreign minister's level, with Shimon Peres representing Israel and an unnamed Arafat official representing the Palestinians. That way, Sharon and Arafat would not have to meet face to face. Leaders of Arab nations have said, however, that they would boycott any peace conference if Arafat were not included.

Sharon said he was committed to peace with the Palestinians, including "painful concessions," although he gave no details on what they might be. He added, "But I cannot make any concession when it comes to Israel's security."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Powell would meet with Sharon again late Tuesday and most likely with Arafat on Wednesday morning.

"Our team had good discussions this afternoon with the Palestinian side. We will maintain close contact with both sides in the coming days," Boucher said.

Earlier, Powell said a resumption of political talks was essential. "We've got to move quickly to a political track, and there are many ways to do that, and one way is a regional or international conference," he told reporters as he returned to Israel from Syria.

"The conference in and of itself isn't the solution, but it's a way to get the parties together and talking."

WHITE HOUSE SUPPORT

Powell's diplomacy won fresh endorsement Monday from the White House.

"The secretary is holding his conversations in an atmosphere where the parties, to varying degrees, are saying, 'You go first; no you go first; no you go first,' " Fleischer said. "The secretary is doing an excellent job of focusing people on the need for them to say, 'What do we need to do to bring about peace?' rather than, 'What does the other party have to do?' "

Both Sharon and Arafat approve of a regional or international conference in principle, Powell said.

But Hassan Abdel Rahman, the top Palestinian official in the United States, said Sharon should stop his incursion into the West Bank. "Nothing can happen before that," he said. "If Sharon wants to move forward, he is missing the point" with a peace conference proposal, Rahman said, adding that after a withdrawal, "we can discuss anything."

Powell's Middle East mission was in its ninth day, and agreement on a peace conference would be a significant accomplishment.

Powell's comments Monday came after he took soundings in Syria and Lebanon on the proposed conference and warned leaders of the two nations that guerrilla attacks on Israel could spill over into a wider conflict.

Hizballah, which is based in Lebanon, derives funding, ideological support and military aide from Israel's arch-rivals Iran and Syria.

TOP FATAH LEADER ARRESTED

Meanwhile, in a potential setback to Arafat, Israeli troops arrested Marwan Barghouti, the head of a West Bank militia with ties to Arafat's ruling Fatah faction, near Ramallah on Monday.

Israel accuses Barghouti, officially the head of the West Bank faction of Fatah, of leading Fatah-affiliated bombers and gunmen behind scores of attacks on Israelis. Barghouti has denied the allegations.

Sharon said on Monday, "Like in every democratic country, he will be tried in Israel and put in prison."

Barghouti, 41, was detained at the house of Fatah official Ziad Abu Ain, who also was picked up in Ramallah, Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian security chief in the West Bank, said. He warned harming Barghouti.

"Killing or humiliating him will bring catastrophes for Israel and will expand the circle of violence," he said.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, confirmed Barghouti's detention, together with that of Ahmed Barghouti, a cousin and aide.

Barghouti, sometimes mentioned as a possible successor to Arafat, is a leading figure - some say the leader - of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The militia has claimed responsibility for dozens of shooting attacks against Israelis and, in recent months, has begun staging suicide bombings, as well.

JENIN BAN LIFTED

Meanwhile, Palestinian medics accompanied by Israeli troops began searching Monday for bodies in the Jenin refugee camp.

Israel and the Palestinians have argued over who will retrieve the bodies, part of their bitter dispute over what happened in the weeklong battle. Palestinians have alleged that hundreds of people were killed in the camp, including many civilians, while Israel said no more than dozens died, most of them gunmen.

After banning reporters from the camp throughout the battle, the Israeli military took a group of journalists through Sunday. Soldiers said they had found 40 bodies so far, most of them those of gunmen.

Reporters were allowed to walk down the middle of camp streets, warned by soldiers that explosives still littered the area. The reporters, members of a pool allowed into the camp by the military, saw only one body, but soldiers said others were inside houses or buried under rubble.

In Geneva, meanwhile, the United Nations' annual session of the Commission on Human Rights approved a resolution from Arab and Muslim states that blasted Israel for "gross violations" of humanitarian law and affirmed the "legitimate right of Palestinian people to resist."

The motion, backed by some European Union states, including France, expressed grave concern at "the killing of men, women and children" in West Bank refugee camps, among them Jenin. But it made no mention of particular incidents when referring to "acts of mass killings perpetrated by the Israeli occupying authorities."