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Peace Process

Each wants US to pressure the other


By Ryan Jones
October 19, 2005

Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority are reportedly hoping that Thursday's summit between US President George W. Bush and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas will see the United States turn up the pressure on the other side.

Israel sees its unilateral surrender of 100 percent of the Gaza Strip last month as a major and unprecedented peace gesture, and believes Washington supports its position that it is now the PA's turn to reciprocate by disarming its satellite terror groups.

The Arabs want to use the precedent set by the Gaza pullout, exploiting Bush's stated deep desire to oversee a final peace settlement by the end of his presidency, to extract more Israeli concessions.

An official in the Prime Minister's Office pointed out that in addition to quitting Gaza, Israel had also taken serious risks with its security by making humanitarian gestures to the ?Palestinians? over the Islamic holiday of Ramadan, and that Bush should consider this when taking Abbas to task over his failure to combat terrorism.

Those gestures resulted directly in the murder Sunday of three young Israelis at the hands of Palestinian Arab gunmen.

?Every time we open up and take more liberal steps and try to cater to the human needs of the Palestinian people we pay for it in funerals,? the source told The Jerusalem Post. ?We are willing to go very far in support of [Abbas], but we will not pay for it with the lives of Israelis.? [But, of course, the Sharon government IS paying for it with the lives of Israelis ? Ed.]

If Bush succeeds to convince Abbas on the issue of terror, ?then we can move forward, we can make gestures and assist the Palestinians,? he said.

Abbas, meanwhile, has prepared a list of demands Israel must meet before the Arabs will consider themselves obligated to keep their commitments.

He will tell Bush that Israel must halt all housing construction in the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria; must stop building its ?West Bank? security fence; and must abandon its efforts to arrest terrorists planning and training to murder Jews.

?If the American president wants to achieve peace,? PA Information Minister Nabil Sha'ath said, he must exert increased pressure on Israel regarding these and other issues.

The PA also wants Bush to help accelerate the birth of a Palestinian Arab state on all of the Jews' ancient heartland.

?We want President Bush to meet his promises, an independent State of Palestine, complete freedom to create everlasting peace and to change the Israeli unilateral evacuation to a full withdrawal,? Sha'ath said.

Some earlier reports indicated Bush would back the Israelis? position, and suggest to Abbas that he start the disarmament of terrorists within his own ruling Fatah faction. Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Tanzim ?military wings? have claimed credit for the murder and maiming of thousands of Israeli Jews over the past five years.

But during an impromptu meeting with a PA delegation sent ahead of Abbas last week, Bush suggested the focus of his peace efforts would be pressuring Israel to conform to Arab and Western guidelines for peace.

?Don't worry. I have some political sway with Israel and will use it if need be,? Bloomberg News quoted the president as saying.

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