Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pledged to the United States that he will help establish an interim Palestinian state in 2004 regardless of whether the Palestinian Authority ends the more than three-year-old war with the Jewish state and eliminates insurgency groups.
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Israeli officials said Sharon relayed such a commitment to President George Bush in late 2003. Sharon, the officials said, agreed to a U.S. demand that the so-called roadkill roadmap for a Palestinian state be implemented over the next year without the fulfillment of a Palestinian commitment to destroy the infrastructure of such insurgency groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-sponsored Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Under the Sharon commitment, officials said, Israel would dismantle outposts established by Jewish settlers in the West Bank over nearly the last three years. This would be followed by an Israeli military withdrawal from much of the West Bank and Gaza Strip during 2004 to facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian state with interim borders. "The Americans said clearly that within the first phase of the roadmap, the sides were to fulfill their commitments in parallel, with our obligations not dependent on whether the PA fulfilled its obligations," Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said. "So we have to do this in order to fulfill our commitment to the Americans." |