Liberation, France

In the Middle East, Bush Increases the Pressure Before the End of his Term

From our correspondent in Jerusalem DELPHINE MATTHIEUSSENT

January 12, 2008

France - Liberation - Original Article (French)

Bush has created a surprise. On the occasion of his first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the American president has shown an unexpected firmness. While he is often accused of having neglected the situation and his staff had warned not to expect spectacular advances on the road to peace, Bush did not hesitate to exert strong pressure on the Israeli leaders and the Palestinians.

"Frustrations." the United States are often perceived to serve the cause of Israel blindly.. Bush demanded, in perhaps the strongest terms of his presidency, "the end of Israeli occupation". The creation of a Palestinian state "is long overdue," he said. Showing that he was aware of the hardness of the daily lives of Palestinians, he acknowledged the problems caused by the separation wall and the Israeli checkpoints, and said he understood the "frustration" felt by the Palestinians. Bush also criticized, in an indirect way, the Israeli military enmeshing of the West Bank, urging the Israelis to "facilitate, not hinder, the upgrading of Palestinian security forces."

Pressures on the Palestinians. Bush challenged President Mahmoud Abbas challenged to stop attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip. "You can not expect the Israelis […] to accept a state on their border as a base for terrorist activities" , hammered the American president. Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel and is on the list of terrorist organizations of the United States and the European Union, took control of Palestinian territory in June. Abbas, who refuses to engage in dialogue with the Islamist movement as long as it will not decommission its weapons, has, however, no means of action in Gaza after the defeat of his forces by Islamist militiamen. It limited room for maneuver has been underlined by the declarations of Hamas, who hastened to say Friday, in response to the Bush statement on a possible Israeli peace accord-2008, that they are not committed to it.

Mechanism. Even if these calls to order are welcome to revive the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which stumbled since the Annapolis conference in November, Bush offered no new solution on the key issues of the conflict: the boundary of a future Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, the plight of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants. His proposal, new, of an international mechanism for compensation for Palestinian refugees is accompanied by a … return of refugees to a future Palestinian state and not to Israel. The Palestinians contest this. On the most sensitive issue, the status of Jerusalem, Bush made no specific proposal. His trip has, however, already produced a concrete result: direct negotiations on the key issues of the conflict, which had hitherto been excluded by the Israelis, will be launched next week. The American president promised to return in the spring in the region.

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