Critical dispute over Jerusalem real estate

Ahmed Batsh, a Palestinian legislator from Jerusalem, said: "Israel is exploiting the Gaza withdrawal [as a diversion] to complete the expansion of Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion," a settlement bloc south of Jerusalem. "It is laughing at the world."

The international peace blueprint known as the road map calls explicitly for the creation of a "viable" Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel, and President Bush has stressed that a state built on "scattered territories" will not work.

But the new settlement plan and the heated Palestinian reactions to it are underscoring the very different meanings of viability and contiguity to Israelis and Palestinians.

Mr. Regev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, says: "Israel wants there to be a viable Palestinian state and attaches importance to its contiguity. We certainly have no interest in a failed Palestinian political entity, society, and economic and political system." Palestinian success at institution-building, he adds, "is good for stability and peace."

But contiguity, by Regev's definition, is transportation related, not territorial. "The idea is that a Palestinian can go from Jericho to Ramallah without passing an Israeli roadblock, or from Jerusalem to Hebron without passing a roadblock," says Regev.

"We would also like to see a contiguous connection between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," he says.

But the Palestinian view is that "a contiguous state means it's all part of one country and that you go from one part to another while being in the same territory and without passing through or being under the control of another country," says Michael Tarazi, legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization. "Contiguity is not that you can drive from one disconnected piece to another using roads, bridges, and tunnels."

A US official said yesterday that the planned Israeli construction violates the spirit of the road map. "If you take a legalistic approach you could argue we are not in the road map at the moment and that the Palestinians have not fulfilled their requirement to dismantle terrorist groups. But this still goes against the spirit of the road map and the spirit of the times and it is not conducive to creating a positive atmosphere for progress."

Asked what a viable state means, the official, who refused to be identified, says: "Neither viability nor contiguity have been defined to a T. There is no map in the State Department of our policy on what a Palestinian state should look like, but it is assumed that it is not little isolated pockets here and there. Contiguity through tunnels and bridges raises questions."

• Wire services contributed to this article.

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