Israeli legislators bridle at fresh US plans for peace in the Middle East

American plans to revive Middle East peacemaking are clouding the future of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and threatening his vision of a Greater Israel.

Dan Naveh, a cabinet minister from Mr. Sharon's Likud party, counseled the Bush administration on Friday to step back from its impending stab at regional diplomacy. "The US helped achieve progress between Israel and the Arabs only when it did not publicly put a plan on the table, but conducted quiet contacts between the sides," he told state-run Israel Radio.

"What I hear about what is being said by the American government these days is a program Israel cannot accept," he added.

Mr. Naveh's comments were an understated version of the verbal explosion Sharon detonated on Oct. 4 when he warned the Bush administration not to "appease the Arabs" into supporting the war coalition at Israel's expense. He cited the "dreadful mistake of 1938" when European countries "sacrificed Czechoslovakia for a convenient, temporary solution."

The peace ideas are not due to be announced for another month, according to a US official.

Ra'anan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said that the ideas "won't have any immediate practical implication" since the two sides will first need to implement deescalation measures outlined last spring by a US-led inquiry team before launching negotiations. He added, however ,that any US effort to impose on Israel a solution to the thorny Jerusalem issue "will not work. The city will not be redivided."

A leading Palestinian analyst warned yesterday that the US endeavor could be derailed well before then, adding that the current Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire is teetering.

"This whole thing could collapse in a minute," says Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, occupied West Bank. "Yasser Arafat is in a very fragile situation. The popularity of the Islamists is increasing. There is no sense yet of a viable political process. Every day that passes increases the fragility of Arafat's situation."

Mr. Shikaki says that the killing of a Hamas leader, Abdel Rahman Hamad, in the West Bank town of Qalqilya yesterday shows that elements in the Israeli military or government are intent on sabotaging the cease-fire. Israel, without explicitly claiming responsibility for the shooting, said Hamad was responsible for organizing a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv discotheque in June that killed 22 people.

Mr. Gissin said Israel hopes to strengthen the cease-fire by beginning to lift army travel strictures in areas where Palestinian violence has subsided.

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