MIDDLE EAST: Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, said yesterday he was considering evacuating several established settlements in the West Bank. This was ahead of a wider series of what he called "complex" and "controversial" unilateral measures if the US-backed "road map" framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace proved unworkable.
Also yesterday, Israeli troops shot dead two armed men who had crossed into Israel from Lebanon, and who officials said may have been sent by Hizbullah but may also have been hunters who strayed across the border. Israeli officials also said they had intercepted a Palestinian suicide bomber en route to an attack on Monday and caught the 40-year-old Palestinian mother of seven who had smuggled in the explosives for the intended attack.
Mr Sharon's comments, leaked from his appearance before a parliamentary committee, came four days after the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Olmert, unveiled a dramatic blueprint for a large-scale unilateral Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank. This would involve the evacuation of tens of thousands of the 250,000 settlers. Mr Sharon has scheduled a cabinet debate on his deputy's proposal, and is himself expected to set a detailed plan of unilateral action at a conference next week.
These new signs of a readiness for unilateral action by the rightwing Israeli government appear to be a consequence of widening international approval for non-official peace initiatives that Mr Sharon rejects. Such initiatives were the Geneva Accords (championed by some politicians on both sides) and the People's Charter (principles endorsed by tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians). The government is also coming under mounting international pressure to route the security barrier it is building, ostensibly to thwart suicide bombers, far inside the West Bank in places. On Monday, the UN General Assembly voted to have the International Court of Justice in The Hague issue an opinion on the legality of the barrier.
Even though the signs of Mr Sharon's policy shift are strictly rhetorical at this point, he and Mr Olmert are being castigated on the political right. Small rightist factions in the coalition, including the National Union party and the National Religious Party, say they will quit if the words become deeds. Some settler spokespeople are vowing to resist plans by Mr Sharon to dismantle several illegal settlement outposts in the coming days.
Mr Tsahi Hanegbi, the National Security Minister, yesterday denounced Mr Olmert, suggesting his colleague had the endurance "of a spider's web" and was despicably urging that Israel relinquish land that was "the very soul" of Jewish existence.