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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's meeting with President George W. Bush will be their fifth since both took office early last year.
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| By Ellis Shuman May 5, 2002 |
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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left today for Washington for high-level talks with American officials. Sharon is expected to present President George W. Bush with a plan for a long-term interim agreement that would include the establishment of a Palestinian state. Sharon will also provide the Americans with documents proving Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's personal connection to terrorism and insisting that Arafat cannot be a "partner" in peace negotiations.
Sharon's diplomatic plan reportedly consists of three stages. The first stage consists of a regional or international peace conference, an idea originally floated by Sharon in April. The second stage of Sharon's plan calls for an interim period allowing the economic and political rehabilitation of the Palestinian Authority. Only after these two stages are completed would political negotiations begin for additional interim and final status agreements, including the establishment of a Palestinian state, Army Radio reported.
Sharon welcomed the American initiative for a peace conference, proposed by Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday. The conference will be held in Turkey in June, Israel Radio reported. Participating in the conference, which will be held at a foreign ministers level, will be representatives of the European Union and Russia. Sharon is unwilling to unconditionally accept UN participation in the conference, Yediot Aharonot reported.
Sharon will reportedly tell Bush that Israel will refrain from military operations in the Palestinian territories if there is a hiatus in terror attacks. Sharon will call for the immediate implementation of the security aspects of the Tenet report and Mitchell commission recommendations, in order to end Palestinian violence and incitement. Sharon will also reportedly call for the concentration of all Palestinian armed forces under one security authority, possibly to be headed by Gaza Strip Preventive Security chief Muhammad Dahlan.
Sharon is expected to tell Bush that already during interim stages of a long-term peace process, Israel would be willing to offer the Palestinians an independent state, with undefined borders. The condition for this Israeli concession would be that Arafat, who "built an empire of terror," would not be part of the process. Sharon's willingness to allow the creation of an independent Palestine will be contested at a Likud Party central committee meeting later this week, where party hardliners are pushing for a platform that would reject any such possibility.
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Sharon bringing the Arafat file to Washington
Sharon will reportedly present Bush administration officials with a 100-page booklet documenting Arafat's direct link to Palestinian terror attacks. Documents in the file, prepared by Minister without portfolio Danny Naveh (Likud), detail Arafat's financial support for Palestinian terror organizations and terrorists.
According to Israeli media reports, West Bank Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti admitted to his Shin Bet interrogators last week that he had personally approved terrorist attacks on Israeli targets. Barghouti reportedly said that Arafat, himself, approved all financial transfers to Tanzim military operations.
"The documents, coupled with intelligence information and interrogation reports from Palestinians arrested in the past month, are smoking guns," Gen. Meir Dagan, head of Sharon's task force on the financing of terrorism, told the New York Times last week. "They show conclusively that Arafat's Palestinian Authority is a syndicate involved in criminal activities, corruption, and terrorism."
"In his meetings in the U.S., the prime minister needs to remove from the agenda that thing called Arafat, and he needs to tell President Bush that Arafat cannot be a negotiating partner," Naveh said.
Sharon hopes that the "damning" evidence he will present to the Americans will help gain support for his bid to seek an alternative Palestinian leadership with which Israel would conduct negotiations, Ha'aretz reported.
But despite the evidence, Bush administration officials are expected to make all-out efforts to "convince the Israelis it's in their long-term interest to deal with Arafat, no matter how reprehensible he may be," senior officials told the New York Times.
Though Bush has reportedly told Sharon in private that he distrusts Arafat, and though he has publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with Arafat's efforts to fight terrorism, the Americans have not found a way to avoid dealing with Arafat as long as he is the designated leader of the Palestinians, the paper said.
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