Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday a future Palestinian state must be strictly limited in sovereignty and area, covering less than half the West Bank seized by Israel in 1967 and deprived of armed forces.
It would have to accept Israeli troops guarding its borders and be barred from any treaties with states hostile to Israel, Sharon said in an interview published in the daily Maariv, quoted by AFP.
"Such a state could only be formed in agreement with Israel, and would only extend over some 42 percent of the territory" of the West Bank, or no more than the Palestinians already control totally or partially under previous accords.
The Palestinians would have to accept "limitations" on their sovereignty, Sharon said. Their state "would have no arms, Israel would have to maintain control of its borders for years and it could not sign treaties with states hostile to Israel."
The Palestinians, who also control 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, have ruled out anything less than a state covering all the territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War, including east Jerusalem, which they want as their capital.
Sharon has already ruled out any concessions on Jerusalem, home of disputed sites holy to Muslims and Jews.
PALESTINIANS FOIL ISRAELI ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, TWO SUSPECTS ARRESTED
An activist in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fateh movement escaped assassination Thursday after authorities spotted a car bomb they said planted by Israel, a Palestinian official said.
Local Fateh official Nasser Abu Hmeid, 36, escaped death when Palestinian services took his car to an isolated spot where it blew up without injuring anyone, Sabri al-Tmeizi, a Palestinian security official in Ramallah told AFP.
The incident was confirmed by West Bank chief of Preventive Security Jibril Rjoub, who commended the security personnel's reaction in an interview with Al Jazeera satellite channel late Thursday.
"This is the first time that our services have foiled an Israeli assassination attempt," Tmeizi told reporters.
He added that two people had been arrested for "placing the bomb on behalf of the Israelis with the intention of exploding it in a heavily frequented area to increase the number of victims."
Abu Hmeid told AFP that suspicions were aroused when an acquaintance gave him a Toyota car for his use.
The Israeli press has identified Abu Hmeid, who has been jailed several times, as one of the Jewish state's top targets for his alleged involvement in anti-Israeli attacks and the murder of a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel.
During the six-month-old Palestinian uprising, Israel has assassinated a number of Palestinian militants whom it accuses of involvement in anti-Israeli attacks, a practice criticized by both the European Union and the United States.
Israel is believed to have killed Palestinians through elite snipers, bombs or helicopters.
The latest assassination was on April 5, when Iyyad Hardan, an activist in the militant movement Islamic Jihad was blown up as he stood in a public telephone booth in the West Bank town of Jenin.
According to Rjoub and Minister of Information Yasser Abd Rabbo, who was also interviewed by the station, the assassination attempt was Israel’s answer to the just-held second security meeting with Israel at the residence of the US ambassador to Tel Aviv.
The first meeting last week was followed by an attempt to assassinate the security delegation to the meeting, when Israeli soldiers opened fire at the top officials as they arrived at Beit Hanoun (Eretz) crossing in Gaza.
Rjoub insisted that there will never be security coordination with the Israeli side, adding that the Tel Aviv meetings were “a political decision,” that was taken under US and regional pressures.
He cast doubt on mortar attacks alleged to be carried out by Palestinians against Israeli targets, saying that such allegations are used as an excuse for the Israelis to attack Palestinian areas.
Deadly violence marked Thursday despite the security meeting and a visit by Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Abdul Ilah Al Kahteeb to the PA.
A Palestinian taxi driver was shot dead by Israeli troops as he drove past an army post in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said, as fighting flared in several parts of the Strip and the West Bank.
Later a 15-year-old Palestinian was killed near Hebron in the West Bank in a half-hour Israeli offensive onto the town of Beit Ommar, according to reports.
But the Israeli army countered the story and said the teenager was shot when he threw a Molotov cocktail at a bus of Israeli civilians, said AFP.
Also Thursday, Israel responded to the shooting of one of its soldiers by firing tank shells on the village of Beit Jala near Bethlehem, Palestinians said.
At a school in nearby al-Khader, medical sources said a seven-year-old schoolgirl was shot in the face with a rubber bullet when Israeli soldiers opened fire on demonstrators near a school.
Amid the violence, Jordan's Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah al-Khatib held talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank and announced he will become the highest-ranking Arab official to visit Israel since the right-wing Sharon took office a month ago.
Khatib, who will also meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, will make the visit Monday, Jordanian officials told AFP in Amman.
But Khatib told reporters: "There will be no security solution without a political solution and that political solution will not be reached without negotiation and dialogue."
Jordan and Egypt -- the only two Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel -- are calling for Israel to accept a plan that calls for Israel to halt settlement activities and resume negotiations that "preserve" progress made during previous failed talks.
But Sharon has rejected the plan, saying Israel will not negotiate under fire.
At Wednesday's security meeting the Palestinians said Israel had pledged to ease its choking blockade of the occupied territories.
"The ball is in their court now. We're waiting for these measures to be implemented on the ground," Palestinian intelligence chief Amin al-Hindi told Voice of Palestine radio.
He said the Israelis had promised to ease border restrictions, open roads, increase the number of Palestinians allowed to go to their jobs in Israel, and "attempt" to lift the siege on towns in the West Bank – Albawaba.com
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