An Israeli official has said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for a partial withdrawal from the occupied territories will indefinitely prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Mr Dov Weisglass, a key adviser to Mr Sharon, said in an interview today: "The significance of our disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. It supplies the formaldehyde necessary so there is no political process with the Palestinians."
Mr Weisglass told Haaretznewspaper that continuing Palestinian militant violence was to blame for the lack of diplomacy.
However, Palestinians blame frequent Israeli offensives they say frustrate ceasefire efforts as well as Mr Sharon's aim to keep major West Bank settlements.
Officials in Israel's right-wing government have for months privately written off the internationally sponsored "road map" peace plan and rejected frequent appeals by Palestinian leaders to conduct negotiations.
"When you freeze the process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state . . . effectively this whole package called a Palestinian state, with all it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda," Mr Weisglass told Haaretz.
"And all this with . . . a presidential blessing," he said, referring to US President George W. Bush's approval in April of Mr Sharon's plan to quit tiny Gaza in 2005 while retaining swathes of the West Bank, superseding the dead "road map".
"What I effectively agreed to with the Americans [in talks leading to Bush's endorsement of disengagement] was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns," Mr Weisglass said.