Sharon vows to defy Bush over expansion of Israeli settlements

Sharon vows to defy Bush over expansion of Israeli settlements

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, vowed to continue expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank despite his admitted differences with President George Bush on the issue.

In his most uncompromising comments yet on the settler question, Mr Sharon depicted the planned withdrawal from Gaza as the only way of preserving the largest settlement blocks on the Palestinian side of the pre-1967 border with Israel. "I am doing everything I can to preserve as much [of the West Bank settlements] as I can," he said.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, which will be published in full today, Mr Sharon acknowledged that the US and Israel did not, in the paper's words, "necessarily see eye to eye" on settlement expansion.

But Mr Sharon underlined his determination to go ahead with it in defiance of US exhortations by pointing out that settlement growth had always gone ahead in the past despite formal expressions of US opposition to it. He said hundreds of homes were being built in two West Bank settlements, Ma'ale Adumim and Betar Illit. [...]

Mr Sharon, in the interviews, extended his claim on West Bank settlements by declaring that henceforth "Jews will always live in" Hebron.

Although the US President has agreed that the main existing settlement blocks should remain in Israel in any final deal with the Palestinians, no such public endorsement exists in the case of Hebron.

Denying that he would come under pressure after disengagement to start further withdrawals from the West Bank, Mr Sharon repeated to Ha'aretz that talks on this would await fulfilment by the Palestinians of their obligation to dismantle the armed factions.

In terms which will fuel the claims of critics that the route of the separation barrier is intended as a de facto future border, Mr Sharon indicated that demographics - the future proportion of Jews to Arabs in Israel - had been a factor in not locating the barrier further to the east and even deeper into Palestinian territory. The present route has already been widely internationally criticised for cutting into the occupied West Bank. Mr Sharon said that an even more easterly location would have left "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians" on the Israeli side, which would have been a "major problem".

Comment: Sharon continues to be bluntly honest about his goals. First fence the Palestinians in. That is the purpose of the Wall. Then, make life so miserable for them that they "choose" to leave.

Meanwhile, the international community stands by and nods its collective head at how the Palestinians must fulfill the demands of the "Road Map" as their people are killed in a war of attrition: a few here, a few there, day in , day out, over the decades.

Stealing Palestinian land has been denounced by the international community as contravening international law, several UN resolutions and the Geneva convention, yet the Bush administration continues to sanction it. In 1991, Saddam attempted to steal Kuwaiti land which he claimed rightfully belonged to Iraq. In response, the US attacked and bombed Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi conscripts and thousands of civilians.

Notice how blunt Sharon becomes when he's giving an interview with the Jerusalem Post. He's openly saying that it doesn't matter what protestations GWB makes to the media, Israel will ignore him and continue to expand settlements anyway. The pullout from Gaza is not about peace but legitimizing the border and appropriating more land on the West Bank. Because he is speaking to an Israeli newspaper, intended for an Israeli audience and he lets his real intentions show when he says, "Jews will always live in Hebron."

Compare this to the media coverage in the States when Sharon visits Crawford Ranch. All about cease-fires, giving concessions, keeping to the roadmap, and praise for each other as men of peace. This is what the American public sees, and is one of the reasons why most remain so ignorant as to the real situation in the Middle East.