'Weak' Olmert, Abbas will welcome Bush

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By Stan Goodenough
January 01, 2008

When George W. Bush makes his first visit as president to Israel next week, the American will be hosted by politically weak Israeli and "Palestinian" leaders.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestine Liberation Organization/Palestinian Authority chairman, has lost any ability he may have once had to exercise control over his own people, with inter-Arab violence claiming at least eight "Palestinian" lives in Hamas-Fatah clashes in Gaza Tuesday.

This means that Abbas cannot commit himself to ensuring the maintenance of security Israel is looking for before it will be willing to make more concessions to the PA.

The unpopular Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is also believed to lack the political capital to make good on any promises he might be tempted to make to please Bush.

Analysts in Israel Tuesday were wondering just what the American president will accomplish on his January 9 to 11 visit.

Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, are understood to have pinned a great deal of hope on achieving some tangible progress in the land-for-peace process before the end of the year.

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