Sharon casts aside 'road map' in bid to seal off Jerusalem's Arab areas

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, is pushing ahead with a new corridor of settlements linking the West Bank to Jerusalem, raising the stakes in the peace process on the eve of talks with President George W Bush.

To the disquiet of critics in the United States and Israel, work has forged ahead in the past week on the "Greater Jerusalem" project, in which settlements will in time encircle Arab neighbourhoods in the east of the city.

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To the east of Jerusalem, meanwhile, tower cranes filled the skyline around the rapidly expanding suburb-style settlement of Maale Adumim, home to 35,000 settlers, near biblical Bethany.

Mr Sharon said that Maale Adumim should be linked to Jerusalem by 3,500 new whitewashed homes - seen as another step towards sealing off Arab east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

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...we don't need no stinking road map to peace! :grr:

.

A piece of land, then another piece of land, etc.

It just doesn't involve any negotiation of terms of the political
settlement. He's watching everything he worked for all his life
go down the drain, and he's trying to save what he can, but he's
still the bulldozer.