haron seeks to convince Bush to support apartheid in the West Bank, Gaza

Occupied Jerusalem: 18 March, 2001 (IAP News) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has embarked on his first visit to the United States in which he is expected to seek to convince the George W. Bush administration to support continued Israeli apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli sources said Sharon would also present to American officials "new ideas" about reaching new interim arrangements in the West Bank which would include continued Israeli occupation and settlement-building in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority has strongly rejected any hint of a new agreement styled after the hapless Oslo Accords, partly in fear that Israel would use such an agreement as a cover to build more Jewish colonies in the West Bank and further Judaize East Jerusalem.

The sources described the proposed arrangements as "a type of no-war arrangement." Sharon will also seek to urge the US to adopt "an overall regional approach" and not concentrate on the Palestinian issue which is the heart of instability in the Middle East.

The Israeli premier might also urge the American administration to re-adopt the policy of dual containment against both Iraq and Iran, in part in order to reduce focus on the Palestinian problem.

Prior to the visit, and in a ruse to create good atmospheres in Washington, the Israeli government launched a public relations campaign about "relaxing the siege on Palestinian population centers."

However, reports from Palestinian towns and villages throughout the West Bank have confirmed that the siege is still firmly in place.

On Thursday, LAW -The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, issued a full refutation of Israeli claims of lightening the siege against Palestinian population centers. "Despite Israeli claims that the intensive arbitrary siege imposed on the Palestinian Territories has been lightened, the Israeli authorities are in fact maintaining and even intensifying their siege of Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps in the occupied territories," read the LAW report.

In the same report LAW called on the zionist occupation regime "to immediately stop the use of excessive and indiscriminate force and collective punishments against Palestinian civilians," and furthermore called for "the establishment of an international investigation committee based on United Nations Security Council resolutions 1322 of Oct 7, 2000, to investigate the violations of international humanitarian law committed by the Israeli forces inside the occupied Palestinian territories.

LAW further urged the international community to pressurize the zionist occupation regime to immediately to immediately put an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories and effectively support the implementation of the Palestinian right to self-determination.