The US position regarding Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan remains elusive and unclear. The US seems all at once to give unequivocal support to the plan followed by red lines followed by willingness to accommodate Israel. This confused state of affairs is further thrown into disarray as the US tries to balance Israel’s interests with the concerns of the Europeans during a heated US election year.

Washington seems to have set two conditions it deems necessary should it decide to endorse Sharon’s plan, which seem to be in keeping with their long standing policies regarding the Middle East conflict. The US opposes any Israeli intentions to self compensate the evacuation of Gaza illegal settlements by annexing West Bank territory to construct new settlements and further solidify existing ones. Further, while the US continues to advocate Israel’s right to build the separation wall, the Bush administration has made it clear that it opposes the construction of an eastern wall between the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.

US officials also informed Israel that the pulled out settlers from Gaza should not be relocated to settlements in the West Bank and that the US stands firm in its request for a complete freeze in settlement activity.

The US seems sincerely adamant that the possibility of establishing a contiguous Palestinian state remains a viable option. Yet, Sharon has made it clear that his plan would leave Palestinians with less land than they are seeking for a state, signaling the plans inherent design to grab land from the Palestinians, ostensibly under some “security” guise. The Americans are surely aware of Sharon’s long stated agenda of carving the Palestinian territories into enclaves, with the possibility of connecting them by Israeli controlled tunnels. US support of any unilaterally imposed plan brings Sharon’s vision dangerously close to reality and in direct defiance of the international community’s desire for a contiguous Palestinian state.

The US is sending Steve Hadley, the Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council's senior director for Near Eastern and North African Affairs, and William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs to Israel this Wednesday to discuss the disengagement plan before the US clearly states its position. That said, Sharon is positive that a visit to the US will ensure that Bush will see eye-to-eye with him, even with regards some of the red lines the US has drawn, and his confidence is warranted given his powers of persuasion in past meeting with the US President.

Should the US officially back Sharon’s plan, it will undeniably want to stress that this in no way means that the US has abandoned the road map. It is likely that US will want to present Sharon’s plan as a stepping stone for the implementation of the road map. The problem is that this will end up infusing unilateralism in what is necessarily a bilateral approach, inadvertently engulfing the Sharon plan within the road map giving it unapproved international legitimacy. As the road map continues its assured trajectory of joining its failed ancestors, the Sharon plan will emerge as the status quo for the near and undefined future.

Meanwhile, the US, wishing to mend rifts with France and Germany and garner their aid for reconstructing Iraq, is keen for Israel to make slight alterations that would serve to allay European concerns.

While officially opposing the International Court of Justice’s authority to rule on the legality of Israel’s barrier, President Chirac of France has labeled Israel’s separation wall as illegal. During a gala dinner welcoming Israeli President Katzav to France, Chirac remarked that the “Palestinians also have the right to peace, to dignity, to a future, to a state." German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, on a visit to Israel, said on Monday that the European Union wanted Israel to "substantially change the path" of the barrier. Yet, despite the strong barrage of rhetoric concerning the separation wall, there have been no incentives to force Israel to comply.

International concern with cosmetic alterations to the separation wall is effectively overshadowing the greater threat posed by the implementation of Sharon’s plan, with the death of the two-state solution taking place unnoticed.