Sharon backs away from pledge not to harm Arafat

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon backed away yesterday from a personal pledge to US President George W. Bush not to harm Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Mr Sharon, in a series of media interviews, also said his unilateral plan to remove all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip but no more than four in the West Bank could delay "for many years" the creation of a Palestinian state.

"I am not vouching for his physical safety," Mr Sharon said of Mr Arafat, the Palestinian president Israel accuses of fomenting violence in three years of conflict. Mr Arafat denies the allegations.

"Whoever kills Jews or orders Jews and Israeli citizens to be killed... is a marked man," Mr Sharon told Ynet, the website of Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Mr Sharon acknowledged that he had promised Mr Bush not to harm Mr Arafat physically. But he said: "There have been changes since then," including a US decision to adopt Israel's refusal to negotiate with Mr Arafat.

"At the time I made that undertaking, not to harm him physically... he still went around on red carpets," Mr Sharon told the Maariv daily. "Today, even these people (who honoured him) know exactly the extent of the damage he has caused."

But any move against Mr Arafat would likely anger Washington, Israel's main ally. After remarks on Friday in which Mr Sharon threatened Mr Arafat with assassination, the United States said it opposed harming him and had made its position clear to Israel.

The United States largely held its political fire after Israel killed Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in Gaza on March 22. Washington regards Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, as a terrorist organisation.

In the latest violence, the Israeli army killed three Palestinians on a road it declared off-limits outside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian medics who recovered the bodies said the men were unarmed.

Israeli political commentators have said Mr Sharon's tough talk could be aimed at mollifying far-right coalition partners opposed to his plans to uproot settlements as part of his proposed "disengagement" from the Palestinians.

Mr Arafat brushed off Mr Sharon's initial threats on Friday, saying he was more concerned for his people than for himself.

Speaking on Army Radio, Mr Sharon said there were still some details to work out in his pullback plan, which he will ask Mr Bush to endorse when they meet in Washington on April 14.

But referring to Israel's 21 Gaza settlements, he said: "I believe our intention is to leave all of them."

Without discussing a timetable, Mr Sharon said a West Bank pullback would be limited. "We are talking about four settlements in Samaria (northern West Bank), no more," he said.

"My plan is tough on the Palestinians. A mortal blow. Under a unilateral process, there is no Palestinian state. This situation could continue for many years," he told Yedioth Ahronoth in a separate interview.

While welcoming a pullout from occupied land, the Palestinians have said unless Israel quits the West Bank entirely there is little hope of reviving a Bush-backed "road map" to peace with its vision of Palestinian statehood by 2005.