The Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Ahmed Qurie, said today that Palestinians would seek a bi-national state and demand the same rights as Israeli citizens if Israel carried out its threat to absorb chunks of the West Bank.
Qurie 's comments, in an interview with Reuters, underscored the Palestinians' sense of desperation in the face of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plan to impose a boundary stripping them of some land they want for a state if peacemaking stays frozen.
But the bi-national scenario also underlies growing Israeli concern that unless they separate from the Palestinians, Israel could end up ruling an area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean in which Jews would soon be a minority.
Qurie said Sharon's unilateralism, including a vast barrier Israel is building in the West Bank, could prompt Palestinians to abandon efforts for a two-state solution to the conflict.
"This is an apartheid solution to put the Palestinians in cantons. Who can accept this?" he said in an interview in his office in the West Bank town of Abu Dis near Jerusalem.
"We will go for a one-state solution...There's no other solution. We will not hesitate to defend the right of our people when we feel the very serious intention (of Israel) to destroy these rights."