UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 16 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed Friday to withhold Israeli cooperation from Palestinian legislative elections in January if candidates from the militant group Hamas take part.
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"We will make every effort not to help them," he said at a meeting with journalists in New York. "I don't think they can have elections without our help."
Mr. Sharon said Israel could choose not to remove roadblocks and checkpoints that would block Palestinians from the polls and make it hard for Palestinians in Jerusalem to vote, among other steps, if Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, takes part.
His remarks stunned Palestinian leaders. Hamas is taking part in municipal elections now under way and has made clear its intention to field candidates in January.
Palestinians and Israelis have said they expect Hamas to make a strong showing.
One Israeli official traveling with Mr. Sharon said aides feared Hamas would "get 40 percent of the vote, and that will set us back 10 years."
Mr. Sharon said he had repeatedly made clear to Palestinian leaders Israel's strong opposition to Hamas's role and was now planning to put his concerns into action.
Mr. Sharon said he told President Bush of his intentions this week. Aides said that the prime minister's remarks then were less specific than those on Friday, and that Mr. Bush had offered no particularreaction.
Asked Friday for a response, the White House suggested that it opposed any attempt to interfere in the elections, while noting agreement over Mr. Sharon's concerns.
"The decision as to who participates in Palestinian legislative elections is obviously up to the Palestinian Authority," said Frederick Jones, spokesman for the National Security Council. But he added, "Hamas is a terrorist group," and the United States "will not talk to any elected officials who are members of a terrorist group."
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, complained: "If the Israelis start interfering now with our elections, this will sabotage the democratic process in Palestine. I really urge the Israelis to keep their noses out of our elections. We've been conducting local elections, including Hamas, and this is our choice, and I hope Israel will respect our democracy."
Nassar al-Kidwa, the Palestinian foreign minister, said "it would be impossible to have elections" if Israel withheld cooperation.
Hamas leaders have taken responsibility for some of the deadliest suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in recent years.
But Mr. Abbas has signed a peace deal with Hamas and a similar group, Islamic Jihad, and says the best way to ease them away from violence is to urge them into the political mainstream. Israeli and American officials say that until the groups give up their arms and renounce terrorism, they have no place in the democratic process.
Mr. Sharon's remarks came as a political struggle continued at home over his withdrawal of Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, who has taken a political position to the right of Mr. Sharon, is challenging him for the leadership of the Likud Party.
Polls show that most Israelis back the withdrawal, but Mr. Sharon acknowledged: "I have an internal political problem. I have lost the support of my party."
The Likud central committee meets on Sept. 26 to decide whether to hold early primaries. A decision to do so would stand as something close to an impeachment of a sitting prime minister. Mr. Sharon joked that he would meet with Mr. Abbas on Oct. 2 "unless I lose to Netanyahu." As a result, his statements might have been intended in part for a domestic political audience.
But Mr. Kidwa said he heard from European diplomats that Mr. Sharon had told them of his plan in private discussions this week.
The prime minister took another position that is sure to please many on the political right at home while irritating Washington: He said Israel would not freeze settlement-building in the West Bank until the final negotiations with the Palestinians years from now, "when we are talking about borders."
"The settlements will be the last phase," he said.
The peace plan, or "road map," that the United States and its allies proposed in 2003 and which Israel has endorsed, calls on Israel to freeze settlement growth as one of the very first steps. Several times on Friday Mr. Sharon repeated that he supported the road map and intended to follow it.
But after directing the highly emotional evacuation of nearly 9,000 settlers from Gaza last month, Mr. Sharon asserted that he could not conceive of taking a similar step in the West Bank anytime soon.
"There are about a quarter million Jews living in these areas," he said. "There are many children there, religious families with many children. What am I supposed to say, 'You cannot live there anymore'? You were born there. You were born there!"
Asked whether he would allow West Bank settlements to expand in the months and years ahead, he responded: "What am I supposed to do, legislate that they are not allowed to have babies?"
He also reiterated that Israel would never give up the large West Bank settlement blocks where the vast majority of settlers live, and he noted that last year President Bush acknowledged in a letter to him that "demographic realities" would have to be taken into account in determining the border between Israel and a future state of Palestine. The number of residents in settlements elsewhere in the West Bank, he added, would continue to grow within the settlements' geographic limits.
