RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY, 8 January 2008 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he would ask US President George W. Bush, who visits the Middle East this week, to curb Israel’s West Bank settlements for the sake of peace.
Bush has called the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land an impediment and said he would discuss it with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during his trip to the region, which begins tomorrow.
Olmert last week ordered a de facto halt to new Israeli projects in the West Bank but disputes remain over Jewish homes to be built in East Jerusalem, another territory captured by Israel during the war in 1967.
Abbas made clear that Israel’s measures fell short of the clean sweep that Palestinians demand for diplomacy to work. “We wish for him (Bush) first to ask the Israelis to stop the settlement building and guarantee once more the ending of the occupation that happened in 1967,” said Abbas in Bethlehem.
The remarks cut to the heart of a decades-old conflict which Bush, having formally launched talks between Olmert and Abbas at a US-sponsored conference in November, hopes to bring closer to resolution before he leaves office next year.
Olmert and some of his closest confidants have indicated a willingness to give up swathes of the West Bank and mainly Arab areas of Jerusalem under an accord that would allow Israel to hold onto major settlement blocs. Israel calls Jerusalem its eternal capital, a status not recognized by anybody. But Olmert has conditioned any handovers on Abbas first proving his mettle against Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.
Both Olmert and Abbas are hobbled at home. The Israeli prime minister is beholden to right-wing coalition partners which want to keep hold of land seen as a Jewish birthright. Bereft of Gaza and with Israeli forces and settlers having the run of the West Bank, Abbas has a credibility problem among many Palestinians. Olmert, in his meeting with Bush, is expected to pledge to scrap West Bank outposts erected by settlers without approval.
A US-led peace road map from 2003 obligates Israel to remove the outposts and halt all settlement activity as a first step. It also requires the Palestinians to dismantle groups behind most of the fighting against Israel.
While Olmert and Abbas have set the goal of trying to reach a statehood agreement next year, Bush, in an Israeli television interview aired yesterday, left vague what that might entail.
“There will be an agreement on what a (Palestinian) state would look like, in my judgment,” he told Channel Two, adding that he thought Olmert and Abbas should try to resolve their differences under his auspices.
“(It’s) not that I’m a great, you know, heroic figure, but they know me and they’re comfortable with me and I’m a known quantity, and therefore the question is will they decide to make the effort necessary to get the deal done while I’m president?”
— With input from agencies
