Sharon: Peace talks won't start until violence ends

Sharon’s opinion piece in the New York Times repeated that Israel was prepared to resume negotiations if 20 months of violence stops, though Sharon doesn’t believe a final settlement could be reached now.

‘‘The only serious option ... is one based on a long-term interim agreement that sets aside for the future issues that cannot be bridged at present,’’ Sharon wrote.

Sharon has said he envisions an interim agreement that would last for years, possibly even a generation. The Palestinians strongly oppose this, saying they seek a final settlement that includes a Palestinian state at the earliest possible date.

Bush also met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak this weekend, part of a flurry of diplomatic contacts aimed at ending the Mideast violence and restarting peace talks.

Several months ago the Arab League adopted a Saudi proposal for peace with Israel in exchange for a return of all occupied lands.

But Sharon, citing Israel’s security concerns, said Israel would not pull out of all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it captured in the 1967 Mideast War, or redivide Jerusalem.

The Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza for their future state, with a capital in East Jerusalem. Between Israel’s founding in 1948 and the 1967 war, Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan controlled the West Bank and East Jerusalem; however, these countries today have no claim on the territories.

Meanwhile, the militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on a fledgling mobile home community in the Jewish settlement of Karmei Tsur in which a pregnant woman, her husband and an Israeli reserve soldier were killed.

One of the armed Palestinian infiltrators, identified by Hamas as Ahmed Masalme, was also killed. A second gunman escaped to the nearby Palestinian village of Halhoul.

‘‘This military resistance is the acceptable way and the proper way of confronting Israeli military forces,’’ Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader in Gaza, told The Associated Press.

Also, four Israelis soldiers were wounded and a Palestinian gunman was killed in a similar attack on the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar on Saturday night.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for that shooting and identified the gunman as Ahmed Hammad, 18. The group issued a leaflet vowing to ‘‘continue its struggle for liberating Palestine.’’

Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers on Sunday entered Hammad’s West Bank village, Asira al-Kabliya, and imposed a curfew on the residents, villagers said.

The more than 100 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been frequent targets of Palestinian militants. Palestinians want the settlements dismantled as part of a Mideast peace agreement. Sharon, a long-time champion of the settlements, opposes removing them.

Two heavily armed Palestinians who tried to swim along the Mediterranean coastline, from the Gaza Strip into Israel, intended to attack civilians bathing on the beaches of southern Israel, an army officer said today.

The two were detected by naval personnel operating a shore observation station near the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, an officer at the facility said. Both the Palestinians were shot on Saturday.

One body washed ashore on Saturday and a second washed up today. The two men were identified as members of the militant group Islamic Jihad. A bag belonging to them had automatic rifles and grenades, the army said.

Also in the Gaza Strip, the army said three Palestinians were killed on Saturday when a bomb exploded prematurely as they were planting it along a fence that marks the border with Israel. The men apparently planned to detonate the bomb when Israeli soldiers passed by on patrol.

The latest violence came as Sharon headed to Washington for his sixth White House meeting with Bush in a little over a year, a sign of the strong backing the Israeli leader has received from the Bush administration.

Mubarak, who met Bush on Saturday, was seeking a timetable for reviving peace negotiations that collapsed last year. But Bush said he wasn’t prepared to set a timeline for a negotiated settlement.

‘‘We’re not ready to lay down any specific calendar, except to say that we have to get started quickly,’’ Bush said at the conclusion of weekend talks with Mubarak at Camp David, Maryland.

The Sharon-Bush meeting is not expected to produce any major developments, and is seen as the latest instalment of close US-Israeli consultations on the Mideast conflict.

In his New York Times piece, Sharon said negotiations could not be tied to ‘‘a rigid timetable.’’

‘‘Israel has made painful concessions for peace before and will demonstrate diplomatic flexibility to make peace again, but it requires first and foremost a reliable partner for peace,’’ wrote Sharon.

The Israeli leader has said that he does not believe his country can hold successful peace talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. In his 15 months in office he has not met Arafat.

Meanwhile, Arafat was likely to announce a Cabinet reshuffle, ‘‘probably in the next 48 hours,’’

Cabinet minister Nabil Shaath said on Saturday. Arafat is expected to reduce his Cabinet from 32 ministers to about 19, and will bring in new faces, Palestinian officials have said.

Arafat also is expected to announce a January date for parliamentary and presidential elections, a

Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity.