US weighs Israel's pullout plan

"The Americans will give some sort of statement that is vaguer than Sharon had hoped for, but Sharon will be able to use it to get support within the Likud, and the Arab moderates will be able to use it to their interest, too," says Susser.

At home, Sharon is facing a multitude of problems and a nation on edge. The country's attorney general is weighing whether to indict him over an influence-peddling scandal. The morning's papers carried headlines of a foiled Palestinian plot to launch an "AIDS bomb" - suicide bombers carrying HIV-infected blood - in an Israeli city. And on May 2 Sharon will bring his disengagement plan to members of his own right-wing Likud party in a referendum. A nod of approval from the Bush administration would significantly bolster Sharon's chances of overcoming skepticism from party hawks.

The very concept of Sharon, architect of many of the post-1967 settlements, selling their evacuation to members of his Likud party would be momentous.

On the one hand, Sharon is trying to accommodate far-right demands by preserving Hebron, despite the continual friction with local Palestinian residents there and the fact that few Israelis dare step foot in the city. But on the other, upon his departure for the US, Sharon ordered the evacuation of five illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank. The move is aimed, in part, at showing the US and the Palestinians that Israel is prepared to take control of settlements and dismantle them if necessary.

But Palestinian leaders are not encouraged by the gesture. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said the Bush administration should not give Israel any assurances that would contradict US promises to support the creation of a Palestinian state.

"If anyone needs assurances, it's the Palestinians, not Israel," said Mr. Qurei. "We warn ... that there should not be promises made at the expense of our issues."

The settlements that would stay in place under Sharon's proposed plan are home to approximately 92,000 of the 220,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Dror Etkes, the head of Peace Now's Settlement Watch team, says that Sharon is aiming to give the Palestinians control of no more than 50 to 60 percent of the West Bank. That contrasts with earlier plans - as part of the Oslo Peace Accords reached over a decade ago - for more than 90 percent of the West Bank to come under the Palestinian Authority.

Further, the blocs of territory to be annexed, argues the Israeli left-wing group Peace Now, will stand in the way of leaving the Palestinians a contiguous piece of land on which to build a state.

"Sharon is not willing to give up Ariel, which is in the heart of the West Bank and if it remains, there will be no accord with the Palestinians," says Mr. Etkes. "Sharon will say it's only 7 percent, but you have to look which seven percent. It's a 7 percent which will make a mockery of a Palestinian state, because there will be no territorial continuity between them."

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