Symbiosis

The US is likely to bow to Israeli pressure and veto an expected resolution at the UN aimed at condemning the separation wall in the West Bank, Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington

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While the United States has intensified its contact with Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian officials to implement Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's so-called disengagement plan in Gaza, an informed US source said the George W Bush administration was likely to bow to Israeli pressure and veto a resolution which Palestinians are expected to submit to the United Nations in case the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules on Friday against the separation wall which Israel has been building in the occupied West Bank.

Following talks with US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice last Friday, and similar discussions with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters: "We don't want the Palestinians to have a big party after the ICJ publish their advisory opinion. And of course we ask our friends, the Americans -- like I was saying to other countries that oppose the process that took place in the ICJ in The Hague -- not to give the Palestinians the opportunity to try to arrange a big party next week in the United Nations."

An informed source at the State Department told Al-Ahram Weekly that the US position on the issue of the ICJ ruling "remained unchanged". He added that Washington had originally opposed referring the case to the ICJ, and has always believed that issuing any new resolutions at the UN Security Council against Israel "would only complicate our current efforts to restart peace talks, and reach agreement on arrangements to implement Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza, which we think is a very positive move."

After Israel's Supreme Court ruled last week that part of the separation wall built near occupied East Jerusalem "injured the local [Palestinian] inhabitants in a severe and acute way, while violating their rights under humanitarian international law," Palestinian officials said they were almost certain that the ICJ would rule in their favour. The separation wall ordered by Sharon aims at dividing the West Bank into isolated populated enclaves and usurping more Palestinian land.

The State Department source pointed to the fact that the US has been actively engaged over the past few weeks in efforts to implement Sharon's plan to pull out from Gaza and evacuate illegal settlements there. He noted the US participation in the latest Quartet meetings that took place in Cairo in late June, and in Jerusalem on Tuesday. He also announced plans to send two senior US officials to the region soon to hold further talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Sharon's Gaza plan.

However, critics of the Bush administration suspected that serious moves on the Gaza plan could take place before the upcoming US presidential elections in November, and accused the US president of seeking to create an illusion of activity to refute charges by opponents that he has ignored the Middle East peace process since taking office four years ago.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, said they expected the Gaza plan to be approved in March next year, and for the withdrawal plan to be implemented by the end of 2005.

Dennis Ross, former US Middle East peace envoy under the Bill Clinton administration who recently concluded a visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, said there were disagreements between Sharon and his military commanders over the extent of withdrawal from Gaza. Ross, who now heads the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Israeli military wanted to maintain control over the border between Gaza and Egypt, allegedly fearing the smuggling of weapons that could be used in attacks by Palestinians against Israel.

Egypt has proposed sending 150 to 200 police officers to train a Palestinian force of some 30,000 police to fill any security vacuum in neighbouring Gaza after the pullout.

The Israeli Defence Ministry confirmed on Monday that a senior official paid a secret visit to Cairo over the weekend and held talks with the chief of intelligence Major General Omar Suleiman. The talks between Reserve General Amos Gilad, chief adviser to Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, and Suleiman reportedly focused on the control of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt after Israel's suggested pullout.

Mofaz warned last month that Israel would not cede control of the area along the border -- known as the "Philadelphia Road" -- unless it received Egyptian guarantees that its security forces would end the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei -- also known by his nom de guerre Abu Alaa -- said that Suleiman was expected to travel to Ramallah later in July for a round of talks with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, whom he met late last month.

Following his talks with Powell in Washington on Tuesday, Israel's Foreign Minister Shalom said "the international community should tell the Palestinians that the assistance that will be given should be conditioned in their efforts to put an end to the terrorism and violence in the region."

Powell, meanwhile, expressed mild criticism for Sharon's failure to honour a promise he made a year ago to remove scores of illegal outposts built by Jewish settlers in the West Bank. "I explained to the minister that we have some disappointment in the rate at which outposts have been removed, and the minister gave me assurances that they are hard at work on that, and we'll be exchanging more information on the subject," Powell told reporters.

After a delay of more than six weeks, Israeli officials handed the US embassy in Israel a list of 28 outposts, mainly mobile houses built by Jewish settlers on hilltops in the West Bank, which it planned to remove. Israel's Peace Now movement, which monitors settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territories, said there were at least 54 outposts built in the West Bank since Sharon declared his acceptance of the roadmap, presented by Bush last year. Nevertheless, out of the list of 28 outposts presented by the Israeli government to the United States, only 12 -- mostly uninhabited spots -- were removed, while the remaining 16 were in the process of being approved and planned, Israeli officials said.

And as Shalom's visit to Washington coincided with an unprecedented visit by the Director of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed Al-Baradie to Israel, reporters raised the question of Israel's reported nuclear arsenal in his joint news conference with Powell. When asked about the issue, Powell told reporters: "I have nothing to say about this matter."

Arab countries have repeatedly expressed dismay over Washington's silence on Israel's reported nuclear arsenal, while basing its invasion and occupation of Iraq on alleged claims -- which proved to be false -- that the previous regime was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, Shalom did not confirm or deny Israel's possession of nukes, but said the world should be more concerned with Iran's alleged nuclear programme. "The main problem is Iran," he claimed. "Iran is the country that has announced that one missile toward Israel will destroy the Jewish state. So we should be concerned about the Iranians' efforts to develop a nuclear weapon."

In a clear attempt to repeat the scenario of exaggerating the threat the former Iraqi regime posed to Israel's security, let alone the United States and the entire world, Shalom alleged that Tehran was "trying now to develop a new missile that will include Berlin, London, and Paris and the southern part of Russia within its range." He added: "So if we would have to do something with Al-Baradie, it would be to ask him to continue with his efforts to push the Iranians to put an end to their effort to develop a nuclear weapon."