Bush ramps up ME peace push
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—US President George W. Bush hosts Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas this week, ramping up Middle East peace efforts before returning to the region next month.
Bush, who traveled there in January, is heading back to attend ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the modern state of Israel as well as push the parties towards a peace deal he wants before his term ends in January 2009.
Palestinian sources say the US president will meet Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at an Egypt-hosted summit in May. White House aides say a world economic forum, not joint peace talks, are on the agenda in Egypt. US officials also say they are watching US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s ongoing trip to the Middle East. In the meantime, Bush hosts King Abdullah on Wednesday for talks on how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and efforts to deal with the political crisis in Lebanon, according to a White House statement.
One day later, Bush welcomes Abbas to the White House as part of US efforts “to work with both the Palestinians and the Israelis, as well as other countries in the region, in realizing a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel,” a Bush spokesman says. The meetings are part of a sustained US diplomatic campaign to try to revive the flagging peace process, after a US-sponsored November conference in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israel and the Palestinians agreed to restart talks but have made little progress since.
US officials privately have been playing down expectations for Bush’s May trip, saying they don’t expect a formal joint peace summit and that the visit chiefly aims to recognize modern Israel’s six decades of existence.
The talks also come as the White House has been criticizing a trip to the region by former US president Jimmy Carter, who reported that the Islamist Hamas movement that controls Gaza might agree to conditionally recognize Israel’s right to live in peace. “We take it with a grain of salt,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “And we have to look at public comments, and we also have to look at actions. And actions speak louder than words.” Carter made the comments following two meetings in Damascus with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal that angered Israel and the United States, which consider Hamas a terrorist organization and shun contacts with the group.
Perino also repeated the Bush administration’s opposition to Carter’s meeting with Hamas last week, and pointed to the movement’s continued use of violence in the region. “I think you have to look at the public comments of Hamas, and beyond that, look at the behavior,” she said. Carter said Hamas could recognize Israel if a peace deal is reached and approved by a Palestinian vote, but hours after he spoke, Meshaal told a press conference in Damascus that Hamas would not recognize the Jewish state.
Meshaal also said Hamas would insist on the right of some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. Carter’s talks with Hamas threw a spotlight on one of the biggest headaches for the Bush administration — the group has controlled Gaza since forcing out Abbas loyalists in June, cleaving the Palestinian territories. The United States says any Palestinian state must comprise Gaza and the West Bank, but refuses to talk to Hamas and will not — or is unable to — discuss possible ways to break that diplomatic logjam.