WASHINGTON/GAZA CITY, 25 June — US President George W. Bush yesterday called on Israel to take “concrete steps” toward Middle East peace by halting settlements and withdrawing troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “as we make progress toward security” via Palestinian reforms.
“As we make progress toward security, Israeli forces need to withdraw fully to positions they held prior to Sept. 28, 2000. And consistent with the recommendations of the Mitchell committee, Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop,” he said in a speech.
However, in a harsh rebuke to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Bush said the United States supported creating a provisional Palestinian state but only if there is a “new and different Palestinian leadership.” “Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders not compromised by terror,” Bush said as he set out his Middle East peace policy.
He set stern conditions, saying the Palestinians must find a new leader, create democratic institutions, and establish new security arrangements with Israel. “When the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions, and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state,” Bush said in a statement delayed several times because of continuing violence in the region.
Arafat and the Palestinian leadership welcomed the Middle East peace strategy outlined by Bush and called for talks on implementing the blueprint. But a statement issued in the name of Arafat and his administration made no mention of Bush’s call for new Palestinian leaders to further the peace process. “President Arafat and the Palestinian leadership welcome the ideas expressed by President George W. Bush,” the statement said, adding they were a “serious” effort to end the Middle East conflict. It said Arafat and his aides “hope to discuss details of these ideas to successfully implement them through direct meetings between the Palestinians and the Americans.”
But chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told CNN that Bush’s call for a new Palestinian leadership is unacceptable. “I cannot find President Bush’s statement acceptable,” said Erekat minutes after Bush made the call in a highly anticipated speech on his vision for Middle East peace. “President Arafat is the leader of the Palestinian people. He is the president of the Palestinian people,” Erekat said. Arafat has signed a decree for the organization of new presidential elections at the start of next year, Erekat said.
Bush called on Israel to halt settlement activity in the occupied territories and to release frozen Palestinian revenues. Bush said Israelis and Palestinians must ultimately address the core issues that divided them if there is to be a real peace, resolving all claims and ending the conflict between them.
Bush said a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement could be reached within three years. “With intensive effort by all of us, agreement could be reached within three years from now,” Bush said as he outlined his long-awaiting strategy for creating a Palestinian state with provisional borders, contingent on sweeping political and security reforms by the Palestinians to enhance Israel’s security.
Earlier in the day, Palestinian police and security officers put the spiritual leader of the Islamic movement Hamas under house arrest at his home in Gaza City, Palestinian security sources told reporters. A senior Palestinian police officer said the security forces had surrounded the house of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in the western part of Gaza City, placing him under house arrest.
Sheikh Yassin rejected orders by Arafat putting him under house arrest, as his supporters clashed with Palestinian police outside his Gaza City home. “I was not officially informed ... and even if they do inform me (of the house arrest) I will reject it,” Yassin told reporters at his house. “I will pursue a normal life and I will go out,” he said.
As Palestinian police deployed around Yassin’s home, taking up positions on street corners some 40 meters from his house, they clashed with supporters of the 66-year-old wheelchair-bound Yassin, Hamas and police sources said. Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya told reporters that Palestinian police officers had also arrested more than 10 Hamas members in Gaza.
The hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said later in the day Israel was preparing “a massive operation” against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, military radio said. “We are preparing a massive military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a taste of which you got this morning,” Sharon told members of his extreme right-wing Likud party.
Earlier yesterday, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at a Palestinian car in the southern Gaza Strip, killing six Palestinians, two of whom were Hamas officials. Palestinian officials said they were “targeted killings.” Israeli forces also stepped up their operation against Palestinian fighters yesterday, retaking Arafat’s home base of Ramallah. Heavily-armed Israeli troops backed by dozens of armored cars, tanks as well as helicopter gunships moved into Ramallah for the third time this month, imposing a curfew and sealing off Arafat’s already-battered compound.
Palestinian security sources said between 50 and 60 tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles rolled into Ramallah before dawn, with at least two helicopter gunships in support. The Israelis imposed a curfew on Ramallah, Al-Amari refugee camp and the neighboring town of El-Bireh.Palestinian security sources said the Israeli Army arrested 22 Palestinians, almost all policemen, at a makeshift police station in Ramallah.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Israel yesterday that it would be “dangerous and a mistake” to sideline Arafat from the Middle East peace process. While also calling on the Palestinian leadership to do all in its power to put an end to suicide attacks on the Jewish state, Putin said in a nationally televised press conference that Israel should continue speaking directly to Arafat.
“It would be dangerous and a mistake to remove (Arafat) from the political arena because in our view that would lead to the radicalization of Palestinian society,” Putin told a press conference in the Kremlin.
