Palestine requests U.S. help in West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Senior Palestinian officials on Thursday asked two U.S. envoys to help block the expansion of the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, saying it endangers peace prospects and isolates east Jerusalem -- their intended capital.\nPalestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the envoys expressed opposition to the Israeli plan to build 3,500 housing units around Maaleh Adumim, three miles east of Jerusalem, filling in the last piece of empty land.\nThat would encircle the city, preventing the Palestinians from setting up a capital in the Arab section, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war.\nErekat told the envoys, National Security Council official Elliott Abrams and Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East David Welch, that U.S. opposition expressed to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was not enough.\n"You have to pressure Sharon to halt all settlement activities ... if you want the peace process to have credibility," Erekat reportedly told the pair.\nIn another development Thursday, the military eased some restrictions around the West Bank city of Nablus but kept the city surrounded. In a statement, the military cited a reduction in militant activity in the city. Checkpoints are to operate longer hours, a clinic is to be built at the main checkpoint, and the minimum age for men allowed to cross is to be lowered from 25 to 20, the military said.\nThe Israeli settlement slated for expansion is currently home to about 30,000. The plan to expand Maaleh Adumim, in the Judean Desert hills between Jerusalem, Jericho and the Dead Sea, has been around for about a decade. But lawmakers say it was recently revived.\nThe envoys questioned Sharon about the plan on Wednesday. U.S. officials have repeatedly criticized Israeli plans to enlarge Maaleh Adumim over the years, and the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, presented in 2003 by President Bush, bans all construction in settlements.\nNeither Israel nor the Palestinians carried out the initial requirements of the plan -- the Palestinians were supposed to disband violent groups -- and it stalled. But since Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to more than four years of bloodshed last month, there has been talk of reviving it.\nPalestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia told Abrams and Welch he expected Washington to take a clear position against Israeli settlement expansion plans.\n"The United States knows the details and the dangers of such plans for the road map and President Bush's vision of the peace process," Qureia's office quoted him as saying.\nWhile planning to pull out of the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank in the summer, Sharon has repeated Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem and hopes to reinforce main settlements in the West Bank, including Maaleh Adumim.\nLast year during talks with Bush, Sharon won support for keeping some large West Bank settlement blocs in an eventual peace deal. Palestinians demand that all the settlements be removed.\nSharon's Gaza pullout plan has triggered stiff opposition among settlers, their backers and fringe groups dedicated to keeping all the territories for religious reasons.\nA colorful demonstration planned for Thursday fizzled after organizers ran into opposition from animal rights activists.\nGaza settlers planned to herd sheep outside Sharon's office under the slogan, "Sharon, we are not your sheep." However, a court, responding to a petition by an animal rights group, set conditions limiting the number of animals and ordering that they be transported in padded vehicles and be given plenty of water. The protesters postponed the event until Sunday.\n"If they want to hold a sheep protest, I recommend they dress up as sheep," the daily Yediot Ahronot's Web site quoted lawyer Kobi Sudri, representing "Let the Animals Live," as saying.\nSharon himself has a sheep farm.