Sharon and Abbas head into talks
Ariel Sharon will demand a crackdown on militants and Mahmoud Abbas will push for wide-ranging moves to ease the burdens of occupation when the Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet for their first summit since declaring a truce in February.
The session this afternoon at Sharon’s Jerusalem residence comes during a rise in violence and fears that a historic window of opportunity – a renewed chance for peace after four and a half years of fighting – is rapidly closing.
Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements this summer was expected to dominate the agenda.
The bigger issues of peace and statehood are likely to remain on hold until after Israel completes its evacuation, though Palestinians want assurances the withdrawal will be followed by further Israeli pull-backs in the West Bank.
The summit follows a weekend visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who urged both sides to step up cooperation to ensure a smooth pull-out.
“In some ways from Sharon’s perspective it’s like punching a clock,” Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher said of the summit. “The Americans insisted this happen, so he’s doing it. I don’t think the reality will be very different after the meeting.”
The reality has been a bloody one. In the third attack in as many days by the extremist group Islamic Jihad, gunmen in the northern West Bank ambushed an Israeli van yesterday, killing one passenger and wounding another.
After the attack, the Israeli military arrested 52 Islamic Jihad members in the West Bank in its widest crackdown on the group since a February truce.
Israeli policy since the cease-fire had been to arrest only those suspected of planning imminent terror attacks. Israeli media reported that the arrests overnight were not limited to so-called “ticking bombs”.
Israeli soldiers, meanwhile, killed a Palestinian and wounded another yesterday as they tried to scale a fence from Gaza into Israel, Palestinian hospital officials said.
Israel’s army said it arrested a Palestinian woman who unsuccessfully tried to blow herself up at a Gaza crossing.
The military said she had been given permission to enter Israel for medical treatment for burns she suffered five months ago. She told an Israeli TV interviewer that she was recruited by an offshoot of Abbas’ Fatah party. “My dream was to be a martyr,” she said.
While militants argued the rising violence did not signal the collapse of the cease-fire, the bloodshed has soured the atmosphere.
Yesterday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al Kidwa condemned the violence, saying violations by either side “do not serve the Palestinian interest”.
“We assert our commitment to the truce, and we hope that the most recent events will not affect the meeting between Abbas and Sharon,” he said.
Sharon and Abbas declared a cease-fire at their February talks in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. In the months since, Israel has been slow to carry out commitments to release prisoners, hand over West Bank towns and remove roadblocks that severely restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement.
Israel says progress depends on the Palestinian Authority first reining in extremists, and they give Abbas low marks in that area. Abbas has chosen persuasion over confrontation to sway his main rival, the Islamic group Hamas - a strategy Israel denounces as naïve and destined to fail.
“What we’re seeing over the last few days is very troubling,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. “There’s no doubt that (Hamas) is using this as a period to regroup, rearm and retrain.”
Another Israeli official said Sharon had no intention of offering Abbas further confidence-building “gestures” at today’s meeting unless Abbas took a harder line against militants.
The official wouldn’t allow his name to be used because of the sensitivities surrounding the summit at Sharon’s residence in Jerusalem.
Palestinians say Israel has many shortcomings of its own to answer for, especially the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory and construction of a West Bank barrier that the Palestinians say usurps some of their land.
Palestinian leaders also insist on their right to deal with Hamas in their own way.
“We know our conditions, we know our domestic realities and we know the best ways of achieving a cessation of violence,” said politician Hanan Ashrawi. “Because if you start cracking down, imprisoning, shooting and killing, then you end up with a civil war.”
Sharon was expected to concentrate on security during the summit. Officials said he would ask Abbas to explain how the Palestinian Authority planned to prevent militants from attacking Jewish settlers and soldiers as they evacuate Gaza.
The Palestinians drew up a wish list of their own for after the evacuation: assurances Gazans will have access to the West Bank, the ability to build an airport and harbour for Gaza and control over Gaza’s border with Egypt.
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