By Ma Xiaoyan, Huang Heng, Deng Yushan

    JERUSALEM, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Since Aug. 15 three years ago, Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip left a painful memory for the Jewish state.

    The scar now is swelling up again as up to 70,000 Jewish settlers could be evacuated from the West Bank according to a new peace proposal offered by the Israeli government.

    Both sides, the far-right settlers who pledge to resist fiercely and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), doubt the feasibility of the new operation plan.

    NEW PLAN

    Amid a series of small-scale demonstrations this week to commemorate the Gaza withdrawal, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert released a "shelf agreement" stating that Israel would withdraw from 93 percent of the West Bank.

    Under the framework of Olmert's plan, Israel would return to the Palestinians 93 percent of the West Bank, while retaining the remaining area which includes the major settlement blocs surrounding Jerusalem, such as Ma'aleh Adumim, and some land in the northern West Bank next to Israel.

    In exchange, Israel would offer the Palestinians a piece of land neighboring the Gaza Strip, roughly equivalent to 5.5 percent of the West Bank, and an unhindered passage to Gaza in order to compensate the difference.

    Olmert's offer also states that the permanent border would follow the route of the separation fence, and should a border be agreed on, Israel would be entitled to build freely in the settlement blocs.

　　STRONG OPPOSITION

    The proposal would require approximately 70,000 settlers in 74 settlements in the West Bank to leave their homes.

    Most of these settlements are hard-core ideological communities where opposition is expected to be strong and perhaps even more violent than in the Gazan settlements three years ago.

    "The land always belongs to us," Moshe Maiersdorf, spokesman of Kfar Tapuah in the northern West Bank, told Xinhua by telephone on Thursday, after refusing reporters' requests to enter the village guarded by soldiers.

    The settlement, comprising 150 families and located near an ancient site mentioned in the Bible, was previously identified with the extremist Kach movement.

    Two main political organizations of the Kach movement are barred from participating in election for inciting racism and considered terrorist organizations by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

    "We must consolidate the connection between our people and the land," Maiersdorf said. "Everybody in the settlement will fight for the home as any normal person would. There will certainly not be any hugs around here."

    "WASTE OF TIME"

    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also rejected the proposal earlier this week, saying it does not provide for a contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

    Nabil Abu Rdainah, Abbas's spokesman, slammed Olmert's plan as "lack of seriousness" and "waste of time," which "is not acceptable."

    "The Palestinian side will only accept a Palestinian state with territorial continuity, with holy Jerusalem as its capital, without settlements, and on the June 4, 1967 boundaries," said AbuRdainah.

    Senior Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei, who heads the Palestinian team in U.S.-brokered talks with Israel, said that a two-state solution could be achieved only if Israel met the Palestinian demand to withdraw from all Palestinian territories in accordance with the 1967 borders, a reference to the areas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.