Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Israel should pull out of the West Bank unilaterally, the same way it withdrew from the Gaza Strip, because talks with the Palestinians are bound to fail, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said.

Israel should give up as much as 93 percent of the territory for a Palestinian state, Barak said. Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected a similar offer in 2000 and Barak said Israel should now dictate the terms and leave. The withdrawal would take three years and follow completion of the West Bank security barrier, he said.

``We should take destiny in our hands and realize that, for the time being, we don't have partners,'' Barak, 63, said in an interview in his Tel Aviv office yesterday. ``Let's act unilaterally.''

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon turned the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinians in mid-September after 38 years of Israeli military rule, sending troops to evacuate more than 8,000 Jewish settlers in a process he termed ``disengagement'' that was initiated without negotiation. Sharon says he isn't planning a similar exercise in the West Bank, home to 220,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians.

The 77-year-old prime minister says he supports the so-called Road Map plan for a negotiated peace proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush. The failure of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to disarm Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups, which the road map requires, means that Sharon is under less pressure to compromise.

The Return

Barak, who was defeated by Sharon in his 2001 bid for re- election after less than two years in office, says he intends to be prime minister again and return to Middle East peacemaking efforts. Now working as an international business consultant, his bid for a political comeback was aborted two months ago when polls indicated he would lose the Nov. 9 Labor Party primary and he withdrew.

``I'm looking for the right time,'' Barak said. ``I found I cannot just come out of the business community and jump to the top of Labor.''

The former prime minister's office on the 20th floor of a Tel Aviv office building is filled with souvenirs of his days on the Middle East peace trail, including a wall with 30 photographs of himself beside world leaders ranging from former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin to former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Pessimism

``What Barak says reflects a feeling among many Israeli decision makers that there is little chance now to reach a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians,'' said Ephraim Kam, deputy head of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. ``Barak can say these things because he's no longer the prime minister. Sharon doesn't need to say them because the pressure is on the Palestinians to deal with Hamas.''

Israel started building a 400-mile barrier around the West Bank in 2002 that was made up of wire fences, concrete walls and dug-out trenches, presented as a way to stop Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching their targets in Israel. Palestinians said it was built as a mechanism to grab their land and the International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that its construction was a violation of international law.

Sharon pledged today in a speech opening the Knesset's winter session that his government will continue building the barrier ``with all our energy, without budgetary or political limit.''

Barak said as many as 70,000 Israelis who live in small settlements on the eastern side of the barrier would be evacuated, as settlers were from Gaza.

When Barak was prime minister in May 2000, he orchestrated a unilateral pullout of troops from Lebanon, where Israel controlled a southern border area since 1978. During his term in office, he also tried with Clinton to reach peace agreements with Syrian President Hafez Assad, who died in June 2000, and Arafat, who died in November 2004.

Get Used to It

The unilateral model proved itself in Gaza where Palestinian authorities managed to control militants during the evacuation. Still, since then militants have fired homemade rockets at Israeli border towns, smuggled arms in from Egypt and ignored Abbas's request that they refrain from brandishing the weapons in public.

``Whoever thought that by just pulling out of Gaza we would bring an end to our struggle with Palestinian terror was just deluding himself,'' said Barak, who was Israel's most decorated soldier and rose to become military chief of staff in 1991.

Israel must get used to the fact that it is surrounded by hostile states such as Syria and Iran and may never live in peace with its neighbors, Barak said.

``We have to adapt to it, to live with it, while leaving the door wide open to the resumption of negotiations,'' he said.

In next week's Labor primary, Barak is supporting Shimon Peres, the 82-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who serves as deputy prime minister to Sharon. He said he plans to run next year for a seat in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, and doesn't deny speculation that he might accept a cabinet post as defense minister or foreign minister.

As for regaining the top office, Barak said he's willing to wait his turn now, recognizing that Israeli political careers tend to stretch. ``I'll be the age of Sharon in 2020 and of Peres in 2025,'' he says.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net