Sharon's party outlines plan for Palestinian homeland

JERUSALEM -- Since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fell ill, leaders of his party have begun to openly articulate their policy for peace -- a formula that recognizes the need for a Palestinian state, but would achieve it in a series of unilateral Israeli steps and would effectively make Washington, rather than the Palestinian Authority, the main negotiating partner.

Most facets of that policy took shape during Sharon's five years as prime minister as he responded to fast-changing circumstances, culminating in the showdown in his right-wing Likud Party and his departure to found the centrist Kadima just before he suffered a massive stroke on Jan. 4.

Since then, the new leaders of the party -- including the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert -- have begun to spell out a strategic framework that pulls together the various tactics Sharon had employed without ever making a clear public commitment to withdraw from more West Bank territory.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, a Sharon loyalist and one of the top officials in Kadima, described in an interview the party's approach to the US-backed ''road map," the framework for peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that was embraced by all sides in 2003 but quickly fell into deadlock as both sides failed to meet deadlines in the peace process.

She said Kadima is committed to recognizing a Palestinian state that she described as a ''Palestinian homeland" -- a state for all Palestinians whether they live there or not, thereby resolving for Israel the question of what would happen to Palestinian refugees living in nearby countries who once lived in what is now Israel.

Palestinian leaders say that unilateralism will only exacerbate the conflict: If Israel refuses to negotiate with Palestinians, the Palestinians might unilaterally declare their own state, conclusively ending what remains of the peace process. Extremist groups like Hamas have also capitalized on Israel's refusal to negotiate, claiming that their terrorist attacks -- rather than any negotiations by the Palestinian Authority's more moderate leadership -- pushed Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip last summer.

In addition, Palestinian negotiators have said they want refugees to be allowed to return to areas now under Israeli sovereignty.

Palestinians are scheduled to vote for a new parliament on Jan. 25. But Livni said she believed it was unlikely that the vote would give enough clout to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for him to deliver on any peace agreement, leaving Israel no other option but to continue making unilateral moves. Israel's main priority will be to persuade the United States and the international community to support those moves, she said.

Palestinian leaders and analysts have attacked the approach as unsustainable and unfair, describing it as ''peace without a partner."

In interviews, Palestinian politicians and analysts said Israel will have to negotiate with Palestinians and recognize the Palestinian Authority as a legitimate sovereign government, because if they don't, they could end up facing a scenario in which Hamas controls Palestinian areas. Instead of dealing with a weak peace partner, Israel would have only a sworn enemy that refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

''The unilateral approach rewards militarism and leads to radicalism," said Mohammed Dajani, a Palestinian analyst who directs the American Studies Center at Al Quds University in Jerusalem.

Sharon, while withdrawing from Gaza, presided over the expansion of some settlements and the construction of a barrier around much of the West Bank.

But the Kadima leadership, claiming to represent a ''new Israeli consensus," has crafted a platform that forges ahead with Sharon's interpretation of the road map. The platform accedes to some US demands; for example, it would freeze Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And it assumes the Palestinian leadership will be too weak to deliver on its promises, like Abbas's failure to control Gaza's warring factions and establish the rule of ''one gun."

Livni, a rising star in centrist politics, is currently justice minister and has been outspoken on foreign policy issues. Israeli media reported that she would be named foreign minister once the resignation of Likud ministers from the government takes effect tomorrow. If Kadima wins Israel's elections in March, as polls currently predict it will, she appears likely to continue on as head of the foreign ministry, and Olmert has also said he would make her his deputy prime minister.

''We cannot end the conflict right now," Livni said. ''Any idea of sitting side by side and trying to resolve final status would be a mistake right now."

The Palestinian leadership has accepted the principle of a two-state solution, but Livni said that as long as Palestinian leaders demand the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their original homes in Israel, they are effectively denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

The founding of the Jewish state in 1948, she said, ''took the Jewish problem off the international community's table" by providing a homeland for all the world's Jews.

''This should also be the concept for the establishment of a state for the Palestinians," she said. ''By it own establishment, Palestine will give a national answer to the Palestinians, wherever they are -- for those in the territories, and those who left in 1948."

Israel must therefore chart its own course, Livni said, working hard to convince Washington and the international community that the ''Israeli consensus" is the right way forward.

''Without it we are doomed," she said of the Kadima plan and the need for it to win international support. ''Without it, we will be led to endless conflict."

Violence won't stop, Livni said, until the question of the right of return is settled and Palestinian refugees cannot be used as ''political pawns" by Palestinian and Arab leaders.

Kadima's strategy builds on the approach taken by Sharon. After the last intifadah, or Palestinian uprising, broke out in 2000, Sharon built a wall around some Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, started construction of the barrier, and erected a series of permanent checkpoints and fences similar to border crossings at the major traffic points into the West Bank -- all part of a policy of disengagement and separation from Palestinians.

Sharon rarely met with Abbas, even though his government officially praised the new leader as a great improvement over Yasser Arafat, whom Sharon had boycotted. Many Palestinians have been clamoring for more dialogue with Israel, and some have expressed hope that Sharon's successors from Kadima would be more open.

''Sharon achieved neither peace nor security for his people or ours," the Palestinian planning minister, Ghassan Khatib, told Palestinian media. ''He simply managed to convince the world that avoiding negotiations by imposing a unilateral policy was fair."

Voicing a common refrain among Palestinian analysts, Dajani said he hoped Olmert would meet with Abbas and show he was interested in negotiating and would view the Palestinian leader as a partner.

''Maybe we can learn from these lessons that it is not walls that will protect Israel, but a peace offering and a going back to the negotiating table," Dajani said.

But Livni held out little hope for such a scenario, saying she doesn't think a Palestinian leader will compromise on the right of return. In fact, she said, fundamental security concerns were far more important to Israelis at this juncture than political negotiations.

Bernard Sabella, a reformist candidate for the Palestinian legislature from Fatah, the faction that controls the Palestinian Authority, said Israel had done everything it could to weaken the Palestinian leadership as an excuse to marginalize it.

''If Israel withdraws from the West Bank unilaterally without resolving key issues, it will invite constant confrontation," Sabella said. ''Israel can't pretend its Palestinian neighbors don't exist anymore because of the barrier and disengagement."

Still, the leaders of Kadima seem headed on a course that doesn't depend on a close or trusting relationship with Palestinians.