A participant in the meeting quoted Sharon as telling the ministers the establishment of a Palestinian state "is not the dream of my life. But Israel can't, it would be wrong and unjustified, to continue ruling over 3.5 million Palestinians."
Some 1.8 million Palestinians now live off charitable organizations, he noted.
"Shall we continue to sit in (the West Bank town of) Jenin for eternity? .... Maintaining military forces in Palestinian cities, with continuous and incessant friction, is bad for Israel," the prime minister added.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who met Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom in Jerusalem shortly after the vote, urged both sides to get going. "We have now the Palestinians' agreement to the road map, the Israeli agreement to the road map. We have now all the necessary chances to go forward," he told reporters.
The road map that the United States drafted with the European Union, the United Nations and Russia -- also known as the Quartet -- sets a series of steps each side must take to achieve peace by 2005. It calls for immediate moves to stop terror, and for easing Palestinians' conditions.
In the second stage, the Palestinians should have a state of their own, albeit with temporary borders, and by 2005 both sides are to resolve the difficult issues such as their borders, the future of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian demand that their refugees be allowed to return to Israel proper.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the Israeli Cabinet's decision to accept the road map. The authority's minister of information, Nabil Amer, told United Press International that accepting the U.S.-backed plan by the Israeli government is "the right step in the right direction."
The former Palestinian Authority's minister for negotiation affairs, Saeb Erekat, also told UPI that "if Israel is serious in accepting the plan, U.S. President George W. Bush and the Quartet Committee should immediately put the mechanism and the time schedule for the implementation of the plan."
It took the Israeli Cabinet seven hours to reach its decision. Twelve ministers voted for the conditional acceptance of the plan, seven opposed it and four abstained. Ministers of Sharon's Likud Party split three ways.
Justice Minister Tommy Lapid, of the centrist Shinui Party, argued Israel couldn't mobilize more reserve battalions "to sit in the territories unless the reservists know the government did all it can to reach peace so that they won't have to be there."
Alluding to U.S. pressure to accept the road map -- Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Jerusalem and Jericho saying both sides have agreed on enough of the plan to get started -- Lapid said: "Imagine what would happen to us if the reports from Jerusalem would say Israel rejects the initiative of (U.S. President George) Bush, the Europeans, the Russians, and the U.N. (We) would face the entire world all alone. It would be a political collapse, an economic catastrophe!"
Israel originally drew up some 100 objections to the road map, but boiled it down to 14.
Sharon had planned to go to Washington last week to present them to Bush, canceled the trip following a series of Palestinian suicide bombings, and after talking to Bush over the phone, hurriedly sent over the head of his bureau, Dov Weissglas.
Weissglas worked out an agreement with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that paved the way for Israel's acceptance statement.
The Cabinet resolution said: "Based on the 23 May 2003 statement from the United States government, in which the United States committed (itself) to fully and seriously address Israel's comments to the road map during the implementation phase, the prime minister announced ... that Israel has agreed to accept the steps set out in the road map.
"The government of Israel affirms the prime minister's announcement," the resolution added.
A participant in the Cabinet meeting, who briefed reporters Sunday evening on condition he not be identified, stressed Israel has agreed to implement "the steps," in the road map. It does not mean it accepts other, declarative statements, in the road map, the source said.
Moreover, the Cabinet statement insists that all of Israel's 14 "comments ... be implemented in full during the implementation phase."
The source said: "We shall implement the steps when the 14 comments are implemented. ... The negotiators on Israel's behalf are committed to see to it that all the 14 (points) are implemented in the road map."
The government would not say what are those 14 points. The United States knows them, the Palestinians are believed to know them as well, but the government decided not to publish them.
Asked why the Israeli public can't have that information, an Israeli official said curtly: "Kacha," (Because!)
Some of those points have been leaked in recent weeks. One concerns the Palestinian demand for a right of return.
The road map says the final phase of the peace process should include a "just, fair and realistic solution to the refugee issue."
Israel adamantly opposes a return of refugees who left during the first Arab-Israel war of 1948 because their sheer numbers could quickly make the Jews a minority in their own state.
Ministers considered a resolution saying the issue should be resolved by a return of refugees to the future Palestinian state, but stopped short of accepting such a state now.
Instead they said Sunday: "The resolution of the issue of refugees will not include their entry into, or settlement within the state of Israel."
Another of the 14 points concerns the identity of the people who will monitor implementation of the road map. The Israelis do not want the European Union, United Nations or Russians to monitor implementation of security and diplomatic issues.
At a joint press conference with de Villepin, Shalom said: "We understand that the road map was drafted, designed by the Quartet, but the United States should lead the peace process and the monitoring of security and diplomatic issues."
De Villepin countered: "The U.S. with all the other members of the international community ... do have a special responsibility."
Sharon told his ministers Israel is facing a year of "very complex and complicated diplomatic negotiations."
He maintained it was already clear the timetable couldn't be met. The first phase was to be implemented by the end of May. "The terror (issue) cannot be resolved in four to five days," Sharon said.
"The map and the comments create a framework for talks ... We'll need negotiations on all sorts of subjects ... and the first one is fighting terror and having quiet," he added.
The road map says the Palestinians should "immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence," including "visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere."
Israel should take "all necessary steps to help normalize Palestinian life," withdraw from areas occupied since the current intifada erupted, and freeze all settlement activity.
Shalom said he had told de Villepin, "Only immediate action by Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian prime minister) would enable us to exhaust the potential in the road map."
Earlier Sharon told his ministers: "If it will be quiet and secure, the road will probably be easier but if not ... we shall insist on every iota and every comma ... of what is written."
Palestinian sources close to Abu Mazen said they expected that both sides would meet in Jerusalem either Monday or Tuesday to discuss implementing the road map.
Islamic resistance movement Hamas is opposed to the road map. Abdel Aziz Ranteesi, Hamas spokesman, told UPI that Hamas considers the road map a conspiracy against the Palestinian people and that the Israeli acceptance of the plan is a new ploy by Israel "because Israel considers itself not committed at all to this plan."
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
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