Analysis: Pressure on Sharon

By Roger Hardy BBC Middle East analyst

The Palestinian Prime Minister, Ahmed Qurei, has urged his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, to take serious and significant steps to renew the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mr Sharon is being urged to renew dialogue with the Palestinians

Israeli press reports indicate Mr Sharon is contemplating a number of unilateral measures, including the uprooting of isolated Jewish settlements.

But Mr Qurei said such measures would be significant only if they were part of the implementation of the "roadmap" - the peace plan both sides have accepted but which has yet to be implemented.

Suddenly, things are no longer going Ariel Sharon's way.

The speech by President Bush in London last week was seen as a rebuke.

Though he had tough words for the Palestinian leadership too, Mr Bush said Israel should freeze settlement construction and end what he called the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people.

This week the Bush administration reinforced the point by deducting $290m from loan guarantees to Israel, to punish it for building settlements in the Palestinian territories.

Washington is also unhappy about the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.

Peace plan

Now that there is a new Palestinian prime minister in place - Ahmed Qurei, otherwise known as Abu Alaa - Mr Sharon is under pressure to resume dialogue with the Palestinians.

He is expected to meet Mr Qurei next week, but not until after the formal presentation in Switzerland of what has become known as the Geneva Accord.

The accord - drawn up by a group of senior Palestinians and left-wing Israelis - has a largely symbolic value.

But according to a poll just published by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group and an American think tank, the James Baker Institute, 53% of Israelis and 55% of Palestinians would support a peace plan on similar lines.

That is, a two-state solution, with both states sharing Jerusalem as their capital, and with Palestinian refugees having the right to return to the Palestinian state, but not the Israeli one.

Mr Qurei clearly hopes that peace plans of this kind - which have drawn a good deal of international support - will strengthen his hand, and put Ariel Sharon on the defensive.