Not all West Bank stettlements will remain
Not all settlements Israel currently maintains in the West Bank will remain in place in a final peace accord with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today.
Interviewed on television in the wake of his eviction of settlers from all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank, Sharon insisted that all of the main settlement blocs would remain under Israeli sovereignty, but “not all the settlements of today in Judea and Samaria will remain,” referring to the West Bank by its biblical names.
Sharon said there would be no “second stage of disengagement,” as he calls the pullout, either unilateral or co-ordinated.
He said the next step must be negotiations under the “road map” peace plan that leads through three stages to a Palestinian state.
“This was a one-time action,” Sharon said. “There is not another stage. There are no more stages of disengagement.”
Sharon said the issue of Israel’s borders could be raised only at the end of the blueprint.
“The final map of the ’road map’ will be determined in the last stage of the process.”
Sharon blasted his party rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to announce his candidacy this week to challenge Sharon for leadership of the Likud party.
Netanyahu resigned as finance minister days before the Gaza pullout, saying he could not take responsibility for it. This coincided with presentation of next year’s budget to the Cabinet.
On both counts, Sharon said, Netanyahu displayed irresponsibility. “He panics and loses control. I’ve seen that more than once,” Sharon said. “Someone who runs from responsibility ... cannot be trusted to run the country, certainly not a country like Israel,” he said.
