Bush reticent on time-frame for Palestinian State
Foreign Desk Report
WASHINGTON—President Bush heaped praise Thursday on Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas and said prospects for Palestinians gaining a state seem
better than ever before.
“President Abbas is a man devoted to peace and to his people’s
aspiration for a state of their own,” Bush said. “And today, the
Palestinian people are closer to realizing their aspirations”.
But Bush said, at a news conference after a one-hour meeting in the Oval
Office, that “the way forward is confronting the threat armed gangs
present to creation of a democratic Palestine.” Supporting Abbas, Bush
called on Israel to stop constructing settlements on the West Bank. He
assured Abbas he shared his vision of two states living side by side in
peace and security.
“Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes its roadmap
obligations,” Bush said, referring to a blueprint for peacemaking
approved by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union
and Russia.
Without elaboration, the president said Israel would be “held to
account” for any actions that hamper peacemaking or burden the lives of
Palestinians.
But Bush said he was a “heck of a lot more confident” of peace prospects
than when he first took office five years ago. Both Abbas and Israeli
Prime minister Ariel Sharon are committed to making peace, he said.
Abbas, in response, insisted that Israel lift curbs on Palestinian
travel in the West Bank, saying the restrictions had caused the
Palestinians “hardship and humiliation”.
The Palestinian leader also criticized Israel’s security wall,
particularly its location in Jerusalem, where the Palestinians intended
to establish the capital of their state. He assured Bush that election
of a Palestinian legislature in January would establish one law to
govern the area.
But Abbas leveled direct demands on Israel. He said Palestinians must be
able to cross from Gaza, which they took over after Israel’s withdrawal
last month, and the West Bank. Roadblocks must be removed, settlement
construction halted and construction of a security wall suspended, Abbas
said. The roadblocks, imposed by Israel in response to deadly terror
attacks, “unfortunately turned the lives of Palestinians into hardship,
suffering, humiliation,” Abbas said, calling them “a very sensitive
issue”. With Bush’s support, the Palestinians are a step closer to what
Abbas spoke of last May in the White House Rose Garden, when he said
Palestinians were “in dire need of freedom” from Israeli control.
Since then — thanks largely to an initiative by Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon — Israel has relinquished Gaza after a 38-year occupation,
and has dismantled four West Bank settlements. But almost all the 1.4
million Palestinians who live in Gaza are desperately poor. Abbas is
seeking help from Israel to get November’s harvest to outside markets,
and also would like to focus attention on Palestinian demands for
full-scale Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
“Abbas is someone who is in a difficult situation,” Ziad J. Asali,
president of the private American Task Force on Palestine, said in an
interview. “But he is looking to dispel the accusation that he is weak,
and to show that he has a good understanding and analysis of his
circumstances”. He also wants to form a partnership with the United
States in resolving such issues as the Palestinian economy, Hamas and
lawlessness, Asali said.
Abbas is counting on legislative elections in January to advance
Palestinian self-rule. But the travel curbs are raising suspicions that
Israel might disrupt the balloting in its zeal to throttle Hamas, whose
participation in the Palestinian elections has Abbas’ approval. In
advance of Abbas’ arrival, American diplomats registered with
Palestinian officials a U.S. request that candidates in next January’s
election be required to renounce violence as a means of easing tensions
with Israel, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.
Abbas may face similar requests to screen out extremist candidates when
he meets with House and Senate leaders after seeing the president. Abbas
also was to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney. US President George W.
Bush pressured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday to do
more to fight terrorism to advance a peace process he said may not
create a Palestinian state for years.
Speaking at a joint Rose Garden news conference after talks with Abbas,
Bush said the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank
had created new opportunities and responsibilities for the Palestinians.
“The way forward must begin by confronting the threat that armed gangs
pose to a genuinely democratic Palestine,” Bush said. “In the short
term, the Palestinian Authority must ... earn the confidence of its
neighbors by rejecting and fighting terrorism”.
But in a recognition of the difficulties involved, Bush for the first
time suggested that a Palestinian state may not be created until he is
out of office. He has more than three years remaining in his term. Last
year, Bush set a four-year goal of achieving Palestinian statehood. “I’d
like to see two states. And if it happens before I get out of office,
I’ll be there to witness the ceremony. And if doesn’t, we will work hard
to lay that foundation so that the process becomes irreversible,” Bush
said.
However, Bush said he was more confident today about the possibility of
the state of Palestine emerging than when he first took office. Abbas
defended himself, saying he was working on the security problem laid
bare by the killing of three West Bank settlers on Sunday in an attack
claimed by an offshoot of the Palestinian Fatah movement. Israel killed
a senior militant the same day, froze security contacts with the
Palestinians and reimposed some West Bank roadblocks it had lifted.
“We have taken active steps in imposing the rule of law and public order
and ban armed demonstrations,” he said. He said Israel needed to do more
to foster an atmosphere of peace by returning to the requirements of the
“road map,” or U.S.-backed peace plan. Israel withdrew unilaterally from
tiny coastal Gaza last month. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said the
move would strengthen Israel’s case for retaining what are much larger
settlements in the West Bank, stripping Palestinians of land they
consider crucial to a future viable state.
The dominant view in Washington is that Israel took a significant step
when it ended 38 years of military rule in Gaza, and there is now a
chance to revive the road map. Periodic flare-ups of violence have
threatened an 8-month-old ceasefire and hindered peace steps to be
weighed by Abbas and Bush at their talks. |
