Excerpts from columnist William Safire\'s article in today\'s New York Times:
\"…Here\'s my advice [to President Bush]: Don\'t step into this trap [of Powell\'s provisional and interim Palestinian state]. It\'s a lose-lose idea.
1. Statehood, even if qualified as provisional or interim, confers a degree of sovereignty. That means control of borders, the ability to make treaties, and to import arms from Iraq and by sea from Iran.
2. Partial statehood would give Arafat control of an airport. A plane loaded with fuel or explosives could hit a major Tel Aviv building within three minutes, too quickly for Israeli jets to scramble. Ritual condemnation would follow.
3. Any form of statehood would limit Israel\'s ability to search out bomb factories and arrest terrorist leaders. What is now a tolerable sweep into disputed territory would be denounced in the U.N. as invasion pure and simple. That would trigger European economic boycotts and draw Arab allies into a wider war.
\"…Some of us see recognition of an unreformed P.L.O. as offering a taste of triumph to jihadists from Netanya to New York…
\"Why didn\'t Ariel Sharon, last week in Washington, strongly and publicly oppose [a timetable for full Palestinian statehood]? Maybe because he trusts Bush and underestimates Powell\'s media savvy... I reached him at his farm last night. \'The Bush administration knows very well our position,\' the prime minister said. \'It is premature now until the full cessation of terror and its incitement, and until there is real reform. I was willing to discuss cease-fire under fire, but I cannot discuss political developments under fire. Many things must happen before that is discussed.\'
\"...His use of \"premature\" suggests that once violence subsides and a peace partner emerges, Sharon would be willing to tie the long-term interim agreements he seeks to interim or provisional forms of Palestinian sovereignty. I think statehood should be the deal-closer, and such salami slicing of statehood would be a mistake for the reasons enumerated above, but to strain an old metaphor, it\'s hard to be more Catholic than the pope...\"