New peace plan challenges Sharon

By Barbara Plett BBC Middle East correspondent

Peace seems as elusive as ever

A crowd of elderly Palestinians have massed at the main checkpoint in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

They are arguing with the young Israeli soldiers who won't let them pass. They want to go to Jerusalem to pray because it is the last Friday of Ramadan.

"Every year we must go," says 72-year-old Eissa Mohammed, wandering around with a handkerchief to his lips.

"They must open the street, this is our street, it's Bethlehem street, from 70 years."

So yet another stand-off begins in a conflict that has reached neither victory nor defeat, but impasse.

Painful concessions

Even the hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is now saying that the status quo is untenable.

But it is not clear whether he's offering a negotiated solution, or threatening to impose one.

This week Mr Sharon again said he would make painful concessions.

He suggested Israel was ready to give up some occupied land, hardening media speculation that he might withdraw from some Jewish settlements.

Squeeze the Palestinians, erect the wall inside the West Bank, take as much land into Israel as possible Ali Jerbawi, Palestinian analyst on Sharon's aims

But he also said he may take unilateral measures if the Palestinian government fails to stop the violence.

It is widely believed that what he is trying to do is fill the vacuum in his political policy, without saying how.

There are others who are quite clear about peace alternatives, and that is what has put Ariel Sharon under such pressure.

A group of Israeli and Palestinian politicians and activists are preparing to launch their own peace plan in Switzerland on Monday.

Wall differences

The unofficial document, known as the Geneva Accord, promises much more to a Palestinian state than Mr Sharon is prepared to offer.

He has denounced it.

The activists want to demonstrate that options exist other than the prime minister's military policy of trying to defeat the Palestinian uprising by force.

"The biggest mistake of Mr Sharon was to announce that as long as terrorism continues he will not negotiate with the Palestinians," says former cabinet minister Yossi Beilin, one of the architects of the initiative.

Does Prime Minister Sharon have a peace plan?

"In the last three years there was not one meeting on a permanent solution with the Palestinians.

"As a result of this decision (Mr Sharon) is giving the last terrorist on the Palestinian side the veto power on our negotiations with them and our future."

Some American officials have acknowledged Mr Beilin's peace plan, but mostly they are prodding Ariel Sharon to get back to their own plan, the roadmap.

They have levied financial penalties against Israel because of its policies in the occupied territories: its illegal construction of Jewish settlements, and the building of a new West Bank barrier that bites deep into Palestinian land.

Israel says the wall is meant to stop suicide bombers.

The Americans are concerned that the barrier is devastating Palestinian communities, and that it may prejudge final peace negotiations because it looks suspiciously like a border.

But Ariel Sharon says the fence is vital for Israel's security, that he will continue building it and even accelerate the pace, with or without a peace process.

So does Mr Sharon have a plan of his own?

Some Israeli analysts think his talk of painful concessions is a smokescreen meant to buy time to go on building.

But many Palestinians see these so called concessions as the actual threat.

They fear he may evacuate Jewish settlements, but only isolated ones, and then impose borders to consolidate Israel's control of the West Bank.

"I think this is the Sharon vision," says Palestinian political analyst Ali Jerbawi.

"Squeeze the Palestinians, erect the wall inside the West Bank, take as much land into Israel as possible.

"I think Sharon is putting borders for this temporary state that he wants to become the permanent state of affairs."

There is nothing Ariel Sharon has said so far that confirms such fears. On the other hand, there is nothing he has said that contradicts them.