Israel's Labor Party heard rival plans Wednesday for withdrawing from Palestinian areas, with the party leader advocating a peace deal including division of Jerusalem, while his challenger called for unilateral pullback from most of the territory.
The often angry debate pitted the Labor leader, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, 65, against Haim Ramon, 52, a charismatic legislator and ex-Cabinet minister. The two are competing for Labor's nomination to run for prime minister in November 2003.

Labor has long advocated far-reaching compromises with the Palestinians in exchange for peace. However, after peace talks broke down and violence erupted in September 2000, the argument is now over how to disengage from the Palestinians.
Labor is a member of Prime Minster Ariel Sharon's broad-based coalition government.

Sharon opposes any pullback without negotiations and rules out talks as long as violence continues. Sharon's peace plan is a long-term interim accord followed by talks about a truncated Palestinian state, with Israel in control of strategic parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

Speaking at a party convention Wednesday, Ben-Eliezer endorsed a December 2000 plan by then-President Clinton, calling for an Israeli pullback from Gaza, virtually all of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

In his first public statement supporting division of Jerusalem, anathema to Sharon, Ben-Eliezer said keeping the Arab sections "will result in a Palestinian minority that will turn to a majority in Israel's capital within a quarter of a century."

He said there should be a "special regime" for the city's disputed shrines, holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, meaning that Israel would drop demands to be the sovereign there.

"There won't be final sovereignty on the Temple Mount. There will be an agreed solution that will include Islamic countries and members of the (U.N.) Security Council," Ben-Eliezer said.

It was the most far-reaching proposal yet by any senior Israeli official regarding the division of Jerusalem. The deal offered to the Palestinians in July 2000 by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Labor was similar to what Ben-Eliezer outlined Wednesday, but Barak stopped short of giving up sovereignty over the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram as-Sharif.

Palestinians want to create a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the Arab section of Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestinians did not accept the Clinton plan, holding out for full sovereignty over the holy sites and the right of millions of refugees and their descendants to return to their original homes in Israel, a concept Israel rejects.

Though peace talks have been frozen for more than a year and a half, Ben-Eliezer warned against withdrawing troops without an accord. "Any border that we set for ourselves would be temporary and would perpetuate the conflict," he warned.

Ramon said Israel must not wait until "someone is kind enough to agree to negotiate with us" and must take steps now. He proposed pulling out of all of Gaza and much of the West Bank, dismantling settlements and building a border fence.

"There is no state in the world without a border, as there is no house without a door and a lock," he said.

Ramon noted that Ben-Eliezer, like Sharon, feels that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is not a partner for peace talks.

Ramon's concept, called "unilateral separation," is gaining popularity in public opinion surveys, reflecting disillusionment with peace talks and disappointment with the military's inability to stop Palestinian attacks in Israel without a West Bank-Israel border.

After 19 months of violence, the polls show strong support for seemingly contradictory ideas - harsh military action against the Palestinians to combat terror, but also the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state, including dismantling Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Meeting at a seaside convention hall at a kibbutz collective village north of Tel Aviv, Labor's 700-member Central Committee gave Ben-Eliezer and Ramon only lukewarm applause.

The Labor meeting followed a convention of Sharon's Likud Party, where Sharon suffered a humiliating defeat when delegates voted in favor of a proposal - backed by his main rival Benjamin Netanyahu - opposing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres stands to address a Labor Party convention, Wednesday, May 15, 2002 near Tel Aviv where party chairman and defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, front, presented his ideas for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)