Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Sunday rejected the idea of a provisional Palestinian state, which President Bush is said to be considering as part of a proposed plan to revive peace talks that he is expected to announce this week.
``The conditions are not right for the establishment of any kind of Palestinian state,'' Mr. Sharon told his cabinet as he reported on his visit with Mr. Bush last week.
Reports from Washington suggested that the Bush administration was wrestling with several ideas - including the possible creation of some kind of interim Palestinian state without setting the final borders - since Mr. Bush met recently with Mr. Sharon, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal.
Officials in Washington said such aproposal would be intended to give hope to the Palestinians and to encourage them to end violence.
The proposal has elicited little enthusiasm. Not only did Mr. Sharon reject it Sunday, but Palestinian Authority officials criticized it over the weekend. Their chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, warned that such a step might only increase Palestinian frustration if it were not accompanied by a timetable for establishing a state in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
Further objections came Sunday from Egypt, long a close ally for the United States in the region.
``This proposal means that Sunday such a state exists, but tomorrow it might not,'' Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said in Cairo. ``It's incomprehensible and no one has ever heard of such a thing.''
The Israeli cabinet meeting was torn by controversy over building a security fence sealing off Israel from the West Bank in the area of the Green Line that marked the pre-1967 border. Right-wing members of Mr. Sharon's coalition shouted objections, even as Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer held a ceremony marking the beginning of formal construction of the fence.
Eventually, it is to stretch 225 miles, at an estimated cost of well over a million dollars a mile. The fence is designed to close the porous line between Israelis and Palestinians in a desperate effort to stem the tide of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Yellow backhoes and bulldozers gouged out dirt Sunday for the first 60-mile stage, near the military checkpoint at Kfar Salem, outside the West Bank city of Jenin, regarded by Israelis as a capital of Palestinian suicide bombing. One of the biggest attacks recently, which turned a commuter bus into fireball that killed 17 Israelis, took place just a few miles down the road at a major Israeli highway intersection.
``It has only one clear aim: to defend the lives of Israeli citizens,'' said Mr. Ben Eliezar, who is also chairman of the Labor Party, which generally supports the fence. ``Every day that passes without the fence being built could cost us more victims.''
He said that attacks against Israelis ``have obliged us to build a continuous obstacle to stop the infiltration of terrorists into Israel.''
The fence is also strongly supported by officials of Shin Bet, the internal security agency, who contend that a similar fence in Gaza has prevented suicide bombers from crossing into Israel there. ``No more talk, its time for action,'' a senior security official said.
But the Israeli right, which Mr. Sharon has long nurtured by - particularly the settlers, is raising vociferous objections. They fear that the ad hoc creation of a fence line around what were Israel's borders between 1949 and the beginning of June, 1967, could become the de facto basis for the border with a future Palestinian state. They also fear that the fence will leave many of the roughly 200,000 Israeli settlers on the wrong side of the line.
One cabinet minister, Yitzhak Levy of the National Religious Party, which represents settlers, said, ``It is inceivable that the government, in its actions, accepts the revival of the Green Line.''
The leader of another right-wing faction, Benny Elon, said: ``The building of the fence is a fraud and a lie. Sharon has repeatedly said there won't be a fence. The unity government should be dismantled if it deceives the nation by building the security fence.
Mr. Elon continued: ``You want a fence? Fence Jenin in, fence Nablus in. You want to prevent entrance of terrorists? Attack the enemy. Don't build a fence that cuts Israel in two.''
The army and the security service were jittery this evening, weighing reports indicating that there are more Palestinian attacks to come. Despite the fence in Gaza, three huge explosive devices have been uncovered there in the past few days and there was a gun battle there late Saturday night in which two Israeli soldiers were killed and another seriously wounded. The Israeli Army said it appeared the Palestinians had attempted to lure them into an ambush with a booby-trapped car.
Just what the Israelis were up against was suggested by a videotape, released by the militant group Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the attack, featuring the Palestinian killed in the clash, 23-year old Muhammad al-Abed.
He is seen holding hands with his mother, Naima al-Abad, then gently kissing her on the head, and placing his green fighter's headband with an Islamic inscription over her white scarf.
``I am not losing you because you are going to paradise,'' the mother tells her son on the tape. ``Our message to the Israeli occupiers and killers is that this is our land. And our sons that we love are no more dear to us than our land. Their blood will redeem it.''
(China Daily June 17, 2002)
