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Sharon Working to Keep Big West Bank Settlements

(Salon.com) Aluf Benn - Sharon wants to redraw the map, give away the less strategic Gaza Strip for a stronger hold over Israel's "settlement blocs" in the hills overlooking Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The Bush administration wants Sharon to deliver in Gaza, and is ready in return to back the Israeli leader's settlement blocs policy. Bush's letter to Sharon from April 2004 pledged to acknowledge the "realities on the ground" in determining future Israeli-Palestinian borders - a pro-Israel departure from previous U.S. policy, which had never gone that far. It was carefully written, leaving space for "creative ambiguity" over the future of settlement blocs. In practice, the administration has turned a blind eye to ongoing construction in the settlement blocs, but raised objections to Sharon's plan for building thousands of new housing units between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, the largest West Bank settlement. But three months ago, standing next to Bush, Sharon pledged to go on with the project. The Bush administration is sticking to its cautious approach to the Israeli-Palestinian arena. With its Iraq policy in shambles as a guerrilla war rages, and the Arab democratization initiative hardly taking off, Sharon's withdrawal appears to be the only possible success in the region. It is little wonder, then, that American officials assert, "Disengagement is the center of American Mideast policy."
2005-07-22 00:00:00
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