YEHUD, Israel, April 13 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he is ready to "part with some ... places" if the Palestinians scaled down on their demands, including the right of return for refugees.
In an interview to the Haaretz newspaper published Sunday, Sharon said the U.S.-led coalition's victory in Iraq had "generated a shock through the Middle East" that could precipitate Israeli-Arab peace agreements. The coalition's achievement "brings with it a prospect of great changes," he said.
"There is an opportunity here to forge a different relationship between us and the Arab states, and between us and the Palestinians....
"Opportunities have currently been created that did not exist before. The Arab world in general, and the Palestinians in particular, have been shaken. There is therefore a chance to reach an agreement faster than people think," he said.
So far, Sharon has been very careful not to discuss concessions he would make for peace with the Palestinians. He had persistently refused to go beyond expressions of readiness to make "painful concessions" for peace.
"Isn't that phrase 'painful concessions' a hollow expression?" the Haaretz interviewer asked.
"Definitely not. It comes from the depth of my soul," Sharon responded. "We are talking about the cradle of the Jewish people. Our whole history is bound up with these places. Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El. And I know that we will have to part with some of these places.
"There will be a parting from places that are connected to the whole course of our history. As a Jew, this agonizes me. But I have decided to make every effort to reach a settlement. I feel that the rational necessity to reach a settlement is overcoming my feelings."
Israel has retained control over Rachel's Tomb in northern Bethlehem, virtually annexing it to Jerusalem. It built settlements in Beit El (Beth-El) and Shilo that figure prominently in ancient Jewish history.
Sharon said some reservations concern security matters. "How terror will be handled. There is no difference of opinion in this matter but there is a difference in the wording," he told Haaretz.
The second key issue, according to Sharon, concerns implementation of the roadmap.
"Our understanding with the United States is that there will be no transition from one stage to the next without the completion of the previous stage. The determining factor is not the timetable but the execution," he said.
The third reservation concerns the Palestinians' demand that their millions of refugees have a right of return to Israel proper. Israel opposes it. It says that if the refugees return to the Jewish state, it will no longer be Jewish.
"If there is ever to be an end to the conflict the Palestinians must recognize the Jewish people's right to a homeland and the existence of an independent Jewish state in the homeland of the Jewish people. ... This is not a simple thing. Even in the agreements we signed with Egypt and Jordan this was impossible. That is why they did bring about an end to the conflict. They are important agreements, very important, but they did not bring about an end to the conflict. The end of the conflict will come only with the arrival of the recognition of the Jewish people's right to its homeland," Sharon stressed.
He sought to postpone discussion of the settlement issue to "the final stage of negotiations ....We don't have to deal with it just now," he told Haaretz.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom who held a joint news conference with visiting Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan in Yehud, near Tel Aviv, said he anticipated "a new atmosphere that we think will help us try to resume negotiations with the Palestinians."
He noted that CIA chief George Tenet and retired Gen. Anthony Zinni presented security plans "that are acceptable to us and the Palestinians. I very much hope that the (sides) will act to implement them."
He said Israel would not give the Palestinians much of what they hope to get "without them explicitly foregoing the right of return."
But he avoided backing Sharon's comments in the interview, noting the matter would come before the entire Cabinet where a decision "binding all the components in the Cabinet" will be taken.
Sharon's talk of readiness to cede at least some of these sites sent shock waves through hawkish political groups.
Minister without portfolio, Uzi Landau, also of the Likud, criticized the roadmap as "not a map for peace but for a confrontation."
Tourism Minister Benny Elon of the hardline National Union said Israel's stay in the West Bank towns of Jenin aned Nasblus is "not temporary. God willing we shall return to all of the Land of Israel. ... I am in the Cabinet to fight for my views and positions."
The settlers' top forum, the Yesha Council slammed Sharon for being ready "to expel Jews from their homes."
Dovish leaders were cautious.
"Nobody knows for sure what Sharon's real intentions are," the head of the dovish Meretz Party, Yossi Sarid said.
No settlement outpost would have been established without Sharon's encouragement, he added.
However, "Mr. Sharon is not ready to lend his hand to any effort to evacuate these settlements that were illegally established...These are the real, determining factors, by which one should judge statements, not by an interview," he argued.
Ophir Pines, the secretary-general of the opposition Labor Party, Israel's second-biggest party, said he did not believe Israel would return to the negotiating table as long as Sharon's hawkish coalition partners are at the Cabinet table.
If Sharon will be "really ready to resume the historic negotiations for peace on the basis of the American political plan and his right wing partners ...will quit the government, and he will come to us (and ask that we join him), only irresponsible people will slam the door in his face," Pines said.
Meanwhile, senior government officials led by the head of Sharon's Bureau, Dov Weissglass, arrived in Washington with a list of 14 or 15 "reservations" over the projected roadmap for peace that the United States has devised with the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. The United States plans to present the roadmap when Mahmoud Abbas (better known as Abu Mazen) is confirmed as the new Palestinian prime minister. Abu Mazen is now trying to form a Cabinet.
The roadmap outlines a series of steps each side should take so that Israel would have the peace and security it seeks and the Palestinians a state.
Weissglas is scheduled to present the "reservations" to U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Monday.
