Sharon refuses to budge on cease-fire or borders

WASHINGTON -- Looking to his White House meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is adamant that peace talks cannot begin until Palestinian violence ends and says his country will not return to its 1967 borders.

An Israeli pullback to those borders is the crucial element of a Saudi peace proposal endorsed by almost all other Arab states and by the United States.

"Israel will not return to the vulnerable 1967 armistice lines, redivide Jerusalem or concede its right to defensible borders," Sharon wrote in an opinion piece in Sunday's New York Times, ahead of talks Monday with President Bush.

The White House chief of staff said the main consideration now is to bring stability to the Middle East for Palestinians and Israelis.

"The primary objective should be to make sure there is security for the Israeli people and hope for the Palestinian people," Andrew Card said on "Fox News Sunday."

Sharon also stood firm on his position that Palestinian attacks against Israelis must cease before peace talks can begin. Fighting has raged for 21 months, both in Palestinian controlled areas of the West Bank and, largely with suicide bombs, in Israel proper.

"Israel must defeat terrorism," Sharon wrote. "It cannot negotiate under fire."

"Defensible borders" were guaranteed by a U.N. Security Council resolution after the 1967 Six-Day War that also demanded Israel withdraw from lands captured during that war. The Arabs interpret that to mean from all captured territory; Israel, which has returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt and given autonomy to Palestinians in some areas, interprets it otherwise.

In March, the Arab League adopted a Saudi proposal for pan-Arab peace with Israel in exchange for return of all captured territory: the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and traditionally Arab east Jerusalem.

Sharon appeared to have scored points even before he sees Bush. Bush, who met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at Camp David on Friday and Saturday, damped Mubarak's hopes for the United States to set a timeline for Palestinian statehood.

"We're not ready to lay down a specific calendar, except for the fact we need to get started quickly, soon, so that we can seize the moment," Bush said Saturday. A senior White House official said later that while Bush is not ready to offer a timetable or statehood deadline now, he has not ruled out either idea down the road.

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, endorsed Bush's reticence to act. "When you set a timetable, you leave for the lowest common denominator the ability to mess it up," Biden, D-Del., said on CNN's "Late Edition."

An aide to Sharon said before leaving Israel on Saturday that deflecting a firm timeline at this point had been a goal of the Israeli's visit.

"Everybody wants (movement), and it will happen when it is clear that there is intensive action against terror," Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said. "If that doesn't exist, you can't set a timetable."

In an interview taped after the Mubarak-Bush meeting and broadcast Sunday, Mubarak did not mention his quest for a timeline. He spoke of a need for careful planning for a Middle East peace conference the Bush administration wants to convene this summer and said he supported the conference.

"The United States is the key for the peace process," Mubarak said on Fox. "Such two states, Israelis and the Palestinians, if they are left alone to solve the problem, they will reach nowhere. The Israelis and Palestinians, need a heavyweight like the United States."

He also stressed the legitimacy of Yasser Arafat, whom Sharon has declared irrelevant, as the Palestinians' chosen leader. Bush has expressed disappointment in Arafat's leadership and blamed him for not doing enough to stop the bombings.

Mubarak said Arafat has been enfeebled by Israeli military action against his Palestinian security forces. "If he's given the authority and given the tools, I think it would work," Mubarak said. "If not, the people who elected him will not accept him afterward. We should give him a chance anyway."

But Card said the Palestinians must be frustrated because of their long wait for better economic conditions and freedom. "They can't even really participate in their own government," he said, "so we've got to see reforms in the Palestinian community, and hopefully they will come sooner rather than later."

Arafat named a smaller Cabinet on Sunday with a new minister to oversee the security forces. The move follows demands for reform by ordinary Palestinians and Western governments.

There was no immediate response from the White House, State Department of Israeli government. Sharon has said repeatedly that changes in the Palestinian Authority must bring about real order and accountability and not be merely cosmetic.