What Sharon wants: more time

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with President Bush this past weekend at Camp David. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stopped by the White House on Monday. Now, Thursday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal will again press the Arab view.

The subject of all three conversations is a design for Middle East peace with the creation of a Palestinian state as a backdrop. According to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Bush will "in the very near future" make clear the US stance on achieving Palestinian statehood.

The stakes for all are extremely high. But for Mr. Sharon, Bush's stance will be a litmus test for the viability of Sharon's current policies and future plans. He is waiting to see how much leeway Israel will have to determine the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where more than 200,000 Jewish settlers live among 3 million Palestinians.

During his visit to Washington, Sharon was clear about what he does not want: Yasser Arafat as a negotiating partner and negotiations while violence continues. But Israeli, Palestinian, and Western diplomatic analysts say his agenda is much larger.

What Sharon wants above all else, analysts say, is time – years of it – for the Israeli army to persuade the Palestinians to forget having a viable state. And for Israel to use the time to consolidate its hold in the West Bank by expanding the Jewish settlements, many of which were planned by Sharon in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

There is widespread support in Israel for Sharon's approach toward the Palestinians. Most here believe that Mr. Arafat's failure to stop devastating attacks, or even encouragement of them, proves that only the Israeli army can safeguard Israelis from attacks emanating from the West Bank and Gaza.

And – in a move that could stall peace negotiations even more – Israeli Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin, a close ally of Sharon, added a new pre-condition for negotiations during an interview Tuesday. He said the Palestinians would have to dismantle their refugee camps and move their residents into other housing within the Palestinian Authority areas.

Mr. Rivlin also insisted that refugee camps in Lebanon and other Arab countries be dismantled and their inhabitants be "integrated into those countries." According to the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the refugee issue is to be negotiated between the parties.

But under Rivlin's vision, such talks would not take place in the foreseeable future, nor would discussions on borders, settlements, or any of the other Oslo final-status issues. Rivlin says dismantling the camps "is a necessary goodwill gesture for [the Palestinians] to take, it is not for the negotiations."

The analysts say that setting difficult or impossible conditions is a way for the Sharon government to block talks. But they stress that Sharon has also shown himself adept in tactical demonstrations of flexibility, such as avoiding a direct rebuff of the Saudi peace plan announced in March. "The idea is to always say, 'Yes, but' to give the Israeli public and his Labor party coalition partners the impression that there can be negotiations," says Akiva Eldar, a columnist for Israel's daily Ha'aretz. "But, in fact, there will be no real negotiations, since that would mean freezing the settlements, which violates his ideology and gives fuel to his rivals in the Likud Party."

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