Israeli Hard-Liners Reject Peace Plan

25/05/2003| IslamWeb

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's acceptance of a U.S.-backed "road map" to peace and a Palestinian state drew opposition on Saturday from within his own right-wing Likud party ahead of a cabinet vote. In a violent backdrop to new hopes of ending 32 months of bloodshed, Israeli forces raided a West Bank refugee camp to search for militants and shot dead at least two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. After weeks of hesitation, Sharon's office announced on Friday his acceptance of the road map after Washington said it would address Israel's reservations about the plan as it was being implemented. Gideon Saar, the Likud chief whip, urged party ministers to oppose the proposal, which sets out reciprocal steps leading to a Palestinian state by 2005 and a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Ahead of a possible vote on the road map at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Saar told Israel Radio the plan was "the most dangerous document" in the history of Middle East peacemaking. But political sources predicted Sharon would push the road map through his 23-member cabinet, where only about four of the Likud's 14 ministers seemed likely to line up with members of two far-right parties in opposing the plan. The five ministers of Sharon's other coalition partner, the centrist Shinui party, support the proposal. The Palestinians and their new reformist prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, have accepted the plan, which also calls for militants to be disarmed and detained by the Palestinian Authority. After Israel's announcement on Friday, Bush said he would consider calling a summit with Sharon and Abbas. He did not say where or when they might meet but U.S. officials said the talks could take place in early June in Geneva or at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. **REFUGEE CAMP RAID*** In Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank, witnesses said soldiers searched house-to-house for militants, detaining four Palestinian suspects and two U.S. members of the non-violent, pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Security sources said the two U.S. nationals could be deported. ISM volunteers often place themselves between soldiers and Palestinians at flashpoints in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Military sources said an unarmed Palestinian was killed in a separate incident in an area of southern Gaza near Israel after he ignored warning fire. His body was handed over on Saturday to Palestinian authorities, who said he was mentally ill. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A Palestinian boy bangs at an Israeli armored personnel vehicle with a stick during clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinians at the Balata refugee camp near the west Bank city of Nablus.(AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)