| Submit your comments on this article |
| Middle East |
| Bush: Conditions not ripe for Mideast summit |
| 2002-06-11 |
| President Bush suggested after meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the White House Monday that conditions were not yet ripe to convene a Middle East summit "because nobody has confidence in the emerging Palestinian Good idea. Don't be quick to give them what they want. Keep asking yourself, "Why do we have to be understanding of them?" Nevertheless, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said a conference is expected to be called this summer, though its contours still needed to be worked out. Fleischer said the president believes that reform of the Palestinian Authority and peace moves must "go hand in hand." Bush, he said, stressed to Sharon during their meeting the importance providing a political horizon. The conference is the carrot. The IDF is the stick... Bush and Sharon also discussed the possibility of holding a summer conference. Both the president and Secretary of State Colin Powell see the conference "as one piece in a multi-peace process," Fleischer said. Sharon told Bush that the conference should focus on stopping terrorism and violence against Israelis and on Palestinian reform, senior officials in his delegation said. Arab states want a more robust agenda focused on Palestinian statehood. Good idea. First establish the structure of a peaceful civil state and we can all talk. Keep the structure of capos and button men, and we'll find something better to occupy our time. Senior Israeli officials inisted that Arafat — and what to do about him — barely came up in the conversation. The US opposes expelling Arafat but senior Israeli officials stressed yesterday that the Palestinian leader is "not immune" to Israeli action. Israel has so far refrained from striking at him directly. Since they don't have to talk about it anymore, it's probably settled. The U.S. may be opposed to dumping him for its own reasons, but probably won't stand in the way of the Israelis doing it. Even the State Department Whimp Brigade must realize that if Yasser is just about as bad as a "leader" can get, the devil you don't know has to be better, even if only marginally so. Bush, Fleischer said, still has to mull over the conflicting views expressed by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Sharon. Mubarak has insisted a final peace deal be negotiated along the 1967 armistice lines. Sharon rejects that border as a starting point for talks. The dispute was not raised during the White House meeting, the senior Israeli officials said. Sharon probably sees the 1967 borders as an eventual end point, but not without the civil Palestinian state next door. He'd be stoopid to give them something without getting something in return, despite both the Israeli and U.S. Whimp Brigades' love of concessions in the hope of getting a nice word. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 I doubt if any Israeli government is going to give the old city of Jerusalem back, in toto, to any Arab state. Swapping neighborhoods may mean that some West Bank land remains in Israeli hands as well. |
| Posted by: Tom Roberts 2002-06-11 09:35:26 |