TEL AVIV Ñ Israel has reluctantly pledged to the United States that it won't
destroy the Palestinian Authority during any war against Iraq.
Officials said Israel agreed to U.S. requests for restraint during strategic talks with
the United States over the last month. The talks, which included President
George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, focused on scenarios in
the Middle East during any U.S.-led military campaign against Iraq.
One such scenario, officials said, concerned Israel's response to
Palestinian attacks prior to or during the war on Iraq. They said the Bush
administration wanted an Israeli assurance that it would not destroy
the PA or exile its chairman, Yasser Arafat, Middle East Newsline reported.
"We're not going to use the Iraq war as an opportunity to solve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Israeli side," a senior Israeli
military official said. "But we won't be limited in our response."
The senior official said the Israeli pledge would be honored despite an
Iraqi missile or weapons of mass destruction attack on the Jewish state. The
official said Israel would, however, respond to any attack from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
Officials said the U.S. demand for an Israeli guarantee not to destroy
the PA had rankled Sharon. They said that for months Sharon believed that
the United States would reward what the officials termed Israel's policy of
restraint by allowing Israel to exile Arafat during the war against Iraq.
Instead, the United States urged Sharon to maintain the PA and not harm
Arafat regardless of any Palestinian attack. Officials said the
administration wanted to ensure stability that would allow a resumption of
Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts over the next few weeks.
Last week, Sharon was given a six-page U.S. plan that calls for the
establishment of an interim Palestinian state during 2003 and a final status
settlement in 2005. The settlement would be based on an Israeli return to
the 1967 borders linked to Palestinian security assurances.
Under the U.S. plan, the appointment of a new Cabinet by Arafat that
would include a prime minister would set into a motion a process that would
result in an Israeli withdrawal by January from PA-controlled areas of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. International conferences are planned for both
next year and 2004.
"Our assessment is that Palestinian military capabilities are quite
small," a senior Israeli military official said. "They have basically hit us
with everything they've got. Even their new longer-range rockets they've
fired at us have not been impressive."
On Thursday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns discussed
Washington's plan with Israeli leaders, including Defense Minister Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer.
The officials said Sharon was also pressured to maintain restraint amid
any Hizbullah rocket attack on Israel prior or during a war against Iraq.
They said Sharon assured Bush that Israel would consider the U.S. position.
"My judgement is that Israel's response will be very tame," a government
consultant, who did not want to be identified, said.