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Acting PM Ehud Olmert, Sunday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 5, 2006 |
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Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose Kadima Party is expected to win March elections, is planning another unilateral withdrawal from at least 17 settlements in Judea and Samaria, Israeli media reported Sunday.
Kadima has made drawing Israel's final borders a central part of its platform. Olmert has indicated that should negotiation efforts fail, he would draw Israel's borders unilaterally, as Ariel Sharon did over the summer when he evacuated the Gaza Strip and four small settlements.
The reports Sunday offered the most detailed look at which of the more than 120 remaining Judean and Samarian settlements Olmert is ready to quit first.
With Hamas militants taking over the Palestinian government, Olmert does not think he will have a Palestinian negotiating partner, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. Olmert will seek crucial U.S. backing for any further unilateral pullouts, the newspaper reported.
Israel has said it will have no ties with a Hamas-led government unless the group, sworn to Israel's destruction, renounces violence, recognizes Israel and accepts past peace agreements. Hamas has said it would not accept the conditions, which are backed by the United States and the European Union.
"Our tie to Israel is that of a nation and its occupiers. It is not going to be in any way a relationship based on legitimate neighbors or partners or allies," Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas lawmaker from Gaza, said in a statement Sunday.
Avi Dichter, a former security chief and top Kadima official, was quoted in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot as saying that a Kadima-led government would move settlers from isolated areas into settlement blocs Israel hopes to hold on to under a final peace deal. The army would continue to control the evacuated territories, Dichter said.
"We are talking about security lines that we will begin planning after government is formed, along with coalition partners and in cooperation with settler leaders," Dichter was quoted as saying. "The meaning is that we will fold (evacuated) settlements into the settlement blocs."
"It will be only a civilian disengagement, not a military disengagement," Dichter told Israel Radio.
The process of carrying out a second pullout will begin immediately after a new government is formed following March 28 elections, Dichter said.
Yediot reported that Kadima's plan involves a pullout from at least 17 settlements, including some of the most militantly committed to a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. About 15,000 of Israel's 235,000 settlers live in these communities.
Olmert recently said Israel plans to hold on to its three major settlement blocs and the Jordan River Valley. All except the Ariel bloc, 17 kilometers (10 miles) inside Judea and Samaria, are close to Israel's border. Yediot reported Israel would also hold onto three other smaller settlement areas, including the volatile settlement in the heart of Hebron and nearby Kiryat Arba.
Dichter suggested that among the settlements slated for pullout were Elon Moreh, Yitzhar, Itamar, Shiloh, Psagot, Tekoa, Nokdim, Pnei Hever, Ma'on and Otniel
No timetable was given.
Jewish settler leaders have vowed to fight any evacuation plan. After a largely passive resistance in Gaza, settlers clashed fiercely with security forces who dismantled nine homes in the settlement outpost of Amona in January. More than 200 people, settlers and security forces, were wounded.
Benny Katzover, head of the Elon Moreh settlement, one of the most extreme communities mentioned in the Kadima plan, said further withdrawals would not be as peaceful as the Gaza pullout.
"There is no reason why we shouldn't be beaten and suffer ... and stop this process with our bodies," Katzover told Israel's Army Radio.
Unlike the Gaza pullout, where Israel handed over all evacuated land to the Palestinian Authority, Israel would leave a military presence in any settlements it evacuates, Dichter said. The military still controls the areas where the four evacuated settlements stood.
"We have no intention of carrying out a military disengagement because we don't have a partner that will fight terrorism," Dichter said. "The phase of a complete handover of the territory will occur only after there will be a Palestinian Authority that proves it can and does fight terrorism."
Palestinian attacks on Israel from Gaza have continued since the coastal strip was turned over to Palestinian control, provoking Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire.
Hamas - listed by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization - is holding negotiations with other Palestinian factions in an attempt to form a Cabinet later this month.
The group is also trying to court Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' ousted Fatah Party, which favors negotiations with Israel, but Fatah is inclined to stay in the opposition.
Abbas told a meeting of senior Fatah officials on Saturday that participation in a Hamas-led government is contingent on the militant group accepting the Mideast peace process, the Palestinian daily Al Ayyam reported Sunday.
Meanwhile, Abbas is busy cleaning Fatah's ranks after the party's election flop. Abbas told party officials at Saturday's meeting that he would sack 250 members who campaigned for non-Fatah candidates in the January elections, Al Ayyam reported. Fatah has already fired 78 members who ran as independents.
AP contributed to this report.
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