Sharon reaches limit of freedom of action with US

JERUSALEM, April 30 (AFP) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's reluctant acceptance of a US plan to lift the siege of Yasser Arafat showed just how far Israel can push things with Washington, which previously gave it carte blanche.

"Every Israeli prime minister holds a bit of rope that is held on the other end by the president of the United States. The rope is long. It can be pulled and it can be released," said Nahum Barnea in Israel's Yediot Aharonot daily.

"The great mystery is at what point the game is over and the time has come to bow your head and submit," he wrote.

For Sharon, that point appears to have been reached last weekend when President George W. Bush telephoned him with a compromise to lift the siege of the West Bank headquarters of Arafat, where the Palestinian leader has been pinned down since December.