War will not change US-Israeli ties - Peres

The Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, says the attacks of September 11th and the war in Afghanistan will not alter US relations with Israel. "The Americans have demanded no unilateral concession from Israel," Mr Peres told a lunch hosted by the Jewish intellectual review Passages at the French Senate.

"They want to reduce the flames of war, tension - and we agree," Mr Peres continued. "The US asked us to try to restart peace negotiations. This is not against our interests. There really isn't any pressure. I talked to President Bush a few days ago. It was very friendly. I understand that (the US) must win the widest possible support among Muslim and Arab populations. But I do not believe US-Israeli relations will change." Mr Peres said those relations were founded on Israel being "the first democracy in the Middle East" and its location "in the land of the Bible, which is very important to American civilisation". But Arab-Israelis - one fifth of the population - say it is a democracy for Jews alone. Last Wednesday, the day Mr Peres spoke in Paris, the Israeli Knesset lifted the parliamentary immunity of the Arab-Israeli deputy Mr Azmi Bishara, whom it accused of calling on Palestinians to "continue resistance" against Israel, and of organising a journey to Damascus for Arab-Israelis to visit relatives. "Israeli democracy is for the Zionist majority and not for citizens of the state," Mr Bishara told LibΘration.

Mr Peres said the attacks of September 11th created a problem for Israel "for the moment - but in the long term the Palestinians have a problem". In what he called "the second phase", Mr Peres predicted that divisions between North and South, East and West, would disappear. "There will be one camp against terror and one camp for terror. Every country will have to choose." There was not the slightest hint that Israeli practices of assassinating Palestinian activists and of dynamiting Palestinian homes also constituted "terror". On the day Mr Peres spoke, in the occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli tanks responded to mortar fire against the Gush Katif settlement with a tank bombardment of the Khan Younes refugee camp, killing a 23 year-old Palestinian and wounded three people.

The "lines of a world coalition" including the US, Europe, Russia, China and Latin America have already been drawn, Mr Peres said. "I hope the Palestinians and much of the Arab world will join this camp. It is a battle without compromise. Because if the terrorists win the war, it will be a catastrophe for the free world. No one will be able to take a plane or engage in free trade." Like President Bush - and contrary to his French hosts - Mr Peres rejected the idea of a connection between Osama bin Laden's fanaticism and the Palestinian problem. "Until now, bin Laden did not mention the Palestinian subject," he claimed - showing a surprising lack of familiarity with interviews given by the Saudi extremist in the 1990s. "It is only now that (bin Laden) mentions it," Mr Peres continued. "His initiative was against crusaders, against the Christian world."

The Foreign Minister said Israel had withdrawn from six of nine West Bank towns it reoccupied after the assassination of an extreme right-wing cabinet minister last month, and intended to pull out of the remaining three "by the end of this week". But the "withdrawals" are illusory, since the towns remain surrounded by Israeli troops.

Mr Peres claimed Mr Sharon "made progress" by admitting the possibility of a Palestinian state, that negotiations would be easier if the questions of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees were postponed indefinitely - and if Europe donated more money.