A real test of President Bush’s credibility will be when he meets Prime Minister Sharon today. Last year at this time, Bush went beyond the role of mediator and broker by ceding basic Palestinian rights and land directly to Israel. Naturally enough, Sharon is hoping for more such American generosity.

Sharon’s pledge to go ahead with the construction of 3,500 additional houses in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim — a move that will largely cut the West Bank off from eastern Arab Jerusalem and thereby leave the Palestinians with a smaller state and a capital that will not be Jerusalem — is a direct challenge to Bush and the international community. However, instead of Bush taking Sharon to task, Sharon will be feted because of the Gaza withdrawal in four months’ time. Bush will simply not press too hard regarding Jewish settlements. The most he could do is to ask Sharon if he would defer the Maale Adumim expansion plan until after the Gaza withdrawal. In this case, Sharon is likely to request something in return, including a green light from the Americans for building a number of settlements elsewhere around Jerusalem.

Bush has said that the road map calls explicitly for a freeze on settlement activity. So he has a good opportunity to spell out clearly that settlement building is illegal. Yet US support for the Gaza pullout is likely to outweigh US objections to West Bank settlement growth. Tel Aviv and Washington present the withdrawal as one of the most fundamental concessions in Israel’s history; so it is very unlikely Bush will ask anything additional of Sharon.

As Sharon was flying to the United States, tension was building in Israel following the killing of three Palestinian teenagers in Rafah on Saturday. The killing was the deadliest incident in the Gaza Strip since the cease-fire two months ago. The Palestinian activists did not call off the truce but have reserved the right to respond. A plan by Jewish extremists to rally at Al-Haram Al-Sharif and possibly storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the hope of sparking riots and causing cancellation of the pullout plan is adding to the tension. Sharon would like a reaffirmation of what Bush said in April last year: Israel will not be expected to cede large West Bank settlements in future peace deals.

Note: Gaza bosses Musa Arafat and Abu Shbak paid five Palestinian boy smugglers NIS 1,500 ($348) each to cross the Philadelphi route knowing they would be shot at. When three of them were killed by Israeli fire, the Palestinian mortar assault on the Katif Bloc was intensified. The PLO wants to create the impression that the retreat from Gaza is not due to Sharon but to terrorism. Yet the very first demand of the “road map” is that Palestinian terrorism must be stopped. Until it is stopped and the PLO has destroyed its infrastructure, Israel is not bound by any restrictions this “road map” imposes.  The US does not regard Jewish settlements beyond the 1967 lines as ”illegal”. They are a subject to be negotiated with the Palestinians in the final status talks – which does not mean that the PLO will get all the territory it demands. Jews have no less right than Arabs to pray on Temple Mount; Saudi propaganda that Jews may storm Al-Aqsa Mosque deliberately provokes Arab violence.