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Bush quietly cuts Sharon some slack Gradual pullback OKd, officials say John Donnelly, Charles A. Radin, Boston Globe Tuesday, April 9, 2002 ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/09/MN153084.DTL
Washington -- While publicly calling on Israel to end its offensive against Palestinians in the West Bank "without delay," the Bush administration has privately signaled to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he can phase out the operation gradually, say two U.S. officials.
The understanding, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, was that Sharon should start making substantive withdrawals at about the time of Secretary of State Colin Powell's arrival in Jerusalem, which is expected to be Friday.
The officials say the U.S. government does not view Sharon's continued military operations as defiance of the president.
"Sharon knows how far he can go on this," said a Defense Department official. "There might
be a little more pressure on him publicly if he hasn't done something serious by Friday, but he has a window to get things done right now."
He said the administration expected gestures from Israel before Friday -- like the pullback that began this morning from the West Bank towns of Tulkarem and Qalqilya -- but did not expect substantive moves by Israel until closer to Powell's arrival.
The officials and an array of Middle East analysts said that Bush's public rhetoric -- calling yesterday, for example, for a "withdrawal without delay" --
was aimed largely at the Arab world to show that the U.S. opposed the Israeli incursion into Palestinian cities and towns. In the Middle East, many leaders weren't buying it.
AWKWARDNESS IN MOROCCO
This became abruptly clear yesterday in Morocco, Powell's first of three planned stops before arriving in Jerusalem. King Mohammed, part of of the new generation of Arab leaders, greeted Powell during a photo session attended by several U.S. journalists but wasted no time in speaking his mind.
"Don't you think it would be more important to go to Jerusalem first?" the king asked Powell.
Taken aback, Powell responded he had "considered all options" and wanted a chance to consult with European and Arab colleagues beforehand to coordinate his mission.
The Defense Department official in Washington was more explicit. Powell's itinerary, he said, was designed "to give Sharon some more time."
A State Department official agreed. "The Israelis are not listening so much to what we say, but are watching what we do," the official said. "And what we're doing is giving them more time to withdraw."
In Israel, there's little sense of pressure from the United States to withdraw quickly.
"The signals the Israeli government got from the U.S. government . . . were taken as an indication that Israel has until Friday to finish its operation," said Gerald Steinberg, director of the program in conflict management at Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University.
ANGER OVER 'GAME'
Among Palestinians and their Arab allies, there is great frustration over a perceived U.S.- Israeli charade.
"They are playing a game," said Azmi Bishara, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament. "The Americans are not really pressuring the Israelis. They are saying things to the media to absorb Arab anger and frustration."
If American leaders said to Israeli leaders that the operation should stop immediately, "the Israelis would stop. What they are doing is very ambiguous," Bishara said. "Why is Colin Powell five days late? Is it so urgent in Morocco that he should go there first? I think it is a message to Israel that it can continue."
The Powell trip -- Washington analyst Geoffrey Aronson called it his "scenic tour" -- also was designed to win Arab support to pressure Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to do all in his power to enforce a cease-fire and put an end to the devastating series of suicide bombs inside Israel, the U.S. officials and analysts said. Before arriving in Jerusalem, Powell plans to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"If there was a real committed American intent to impose their vision on what was happening today, Powell would have been there by now," said Aronson, director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a Washington think tank. "People are suggesting by the very fact he is going means something. But to me,
I see no evidence that the Americans have a clearer idea of what to do from what they thought a week ago, or two weeks ago, or six months ago. Powell is a Zinni with more stripes."
U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni, a retired general, has unsuccessfully tried to broker a cease-fire on two trips. He met again yesterday with Sharon.
MESSAGE TO ARAFAT
The State Department official said that Powell had one message for Arafat: "The name of the game is to end the violence, and until you do that, we have little to talk about."
While Powell could hold out the possibility of restarting talks toward a peace settlement, his emphasis would be on Arafat to repudiate the suicide attacks and other violence against Israel, the official said.
Meanwhile, intensive discussions are occurring between the Americans and the Israelis on how future terrorist acts would be dealt with, said Steinberg.
If Israel complies with the U.S. request to pull back, but Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks resume, it remains unclear "from the Americans how (the terrorism) would be dealt with," Steinberg said.
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