Jerusalem Would Be Shared Under Plan

JERUSALEM — Three days after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ruling Likud Party voted to reject the establishment of a Palestinian state, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer on Wednesday unveiled his own peace package that would share Jerusalem with the Palestinians and grant them sovereignty over most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The plan of Ben-Eliezer, leader of the center-left Labor Party, differs sharply from that of Sharon, who says he supports the idea of a Palestinian state--but at the end of a lengthy and incremental peace process.

Ben-Eliezer’s proposal, delivered to his party’s 700-member central committee, was meant to demonstrate his differences with the prime minister and potential challengers in his own party, according to political analysts.

Moments after the defense minister outlined his peace plan, Haim Ramon, a charismatic parliament member who intends to make a bid for Labor’s leadership, presented a competing proposal calling for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza.

Analysts said Ben-Eliezer’s decision to distinguish himself from Sharon was a signal that the Labor leader will soon guide his party out of Sharon’s coalition government ahead of the general election, scheduled for November 2003.

“I don’t think he has a timetable, but he’s definitely laying the groundwork toward dissolving the coalition,” said Joseph Alpher, an Israeli political scientist.

“For Ben-Eliezer to be a viable candidate, he has no choice but to put himself outside the government,” said Uzi Baram, a former Labor minister. “He cannot be seen as an alternative if he keeps sitting close to Mr. Sharon.”

The competing peace plans, which were unveiled Wednesday at a kibbutz north of Tel Aviv, also demonstrated that leadership battles had begun inside the rival Labor and Likud parties. On Sunday, Sharon suffered a humiliating defeat when delegates--against his admonition--supported a proposal by his main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, never to accept the creation of a Palestinian state.

Sharon has laid out strict guidelines for what he said could be a limited, demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel. But the prime minister recently said he was not prepared to discuss a pullout from Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza--a condition the Palestinians see as essential to any peace agreement.

On Wednesday, Ben-Eliezer, for the first time, provided details of his peace plan. Many analysts said it resembled what former President Clinton proposed to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat during peace talks at Camp David in July 2000.

Under Ben-Eliezer’s plan, Israel would negotiate a pullout from most of the West Bank and Gaza. Israelis would control West Jerusalem and Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, while Palestinians would be given control of East Jerusalem’s Arab sector. The status of Jerusalem’s Old City and holy sites would be decided later by both sides.

“Two states for two people, living side by side in peaceful coexistence, Israel and Palestine,” Ben-Eliezer told party activists.

Ramon urged the committee members to take “our destiny in our own hands” and separate unilaterally from the Palestinians.

Declaring that Arafat was no longer a partner for peace, Ramon said: “There is no partner now, and neither will there be one in the foreseeable future.”

Party members will vote on the competing plans in July.

Alpher and other analysts say Ben-Eliezer would have a justification for leaving the coalition if Sharon and his fellow hawks in Likud reject Labor’s peace plan.