Tensions remain high as Bush arrives in Middle East
George Bush began his first presidential visit to Israel and the West Bank today to try to build momentum in the peace process after recent peace talks between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
"We see a new opportunity for peace here in the holy land and for freedom across the region," the US president said shortly after touching down in Tel Aviv to a red carpet reception attended by the entire Israeli cabinet.
"I come with high hopes, and the role of the United States will be to foster a vision of peace. The role of the Israeli leadership and the Palestinian leadership is going to do the hard work necessary to define a vision."
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said the bond between Israel and the US was "unshakeable" and Washington was his country's "strongest and most trusted ally".
Shimon Peres, the president of Israel, told Bush: "The next 12 months will be a moment of truth".
As Bush began his visit, violence again erupted in Gaza. Israeli troops killed a suspected Palestinian fighter and injured six others after firing a missile at militants in northern Gaza.
Islamic Jihad said its men had been launching a rocket when they were hit by the missile.
The strike did not stop a barrage of rockets falling on southern Israel, injuring one resident of the town of Sderot.
In Gaza, a string of protests were held against Bush's visit. "We call on President Bush in his visit to adopt an equal standard, and not to continue the biased policy in favour of the occupation government," a senior Fatah leader, Zakariya al-Agha, told the marchers.
Many observers are pessimistic about the prospects for a breakthrough during the trip, which will be followed by Bush visiting a host of Arab countries including, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
There has been little progress in the peace process, which aims to create a Palestinian state by the end of this year, since the Annapolis conference in November.
One of the few West Bank cities to witness genuine security improvements is Nablus, where for the past three months Palestinian police and security forces have imposed a crackdown. The operation came after the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, sacked the Hamas government and appointed his own administration in the West Bank last summer.
Abbas, who will meet Bush for talks, will be keen to promote the new order in Nablus as a sign of his commitment to peace talks.
Officers at checkpoints now conduct regular searches, the stolen cars once a pillar of the city's black market economy have virtually disappeared, and the narrow lanes of the old city market are crowded with shoppers and empty of the armed gangs who used to hold sway.
Late last week, in the latest in a string of recent raids, Israeli troops mounted a four-day military operation in Nablus, making several arrests, including medical personnel, and clashing frequently with mobs of young men throwing stones. At least 29 Palestinians were injured.
Palestinian officials have been swift to condemn the operation, saying it has undermined their own security work.
Israeli forces have conducted several similar operations in recent weeks, ordering the Palestinian police to keep off the streets overnight while their troops conduct raids and searches.
"The Israeli incursions limit our activities. This embarrasses us in front of our people," said Colonel Ahmad al-Sharqawi, the chief of police in Nablus.
"They are doing this in order to make Mr Bush think the Palestinians are not capable of imposing order and securing their area so that we all go back to square one and they will say there is no partner for peace. But we will continue our work."
Yesterday, 12 militants linked to Abbas's Fatah movement gave themselves up to the Palestinian security forces. The leader of the group, Mahdi abu Ghazaleh, said his house had been destroyed during the latest Israeli raid.
Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, has also been critical, warning of the "tremendous negative impact" of the Israeli raid. His views are widely held among the city's own people, where distrust of the Israeli government remains deeply felt.
"The security used to be very bad in Nablus, but the Palestinian Authority has taken remarkable steps," said Ramez Dweakat, 32, a doctor in the private Nablus Speciality hospital, which treated one of the injured last Friday - a man who is now a quadriplegic and in a deep coma after his spinal cord was severed by what doctors believe were Israeli rubber-coated bullets.
"We believe that Israel doesn't like what Nablus was becoming. They are always ready with excuses to raid our city and destroy our achievements."
Under the new effort at peace talks, launched by the Middle East peace conference held in Annapolis, Israelis and Palestinians are to return to their commitments under the US-led "road map" agreement. For the Palestinians that means acting against the armed militant groups.
However, Israel argues that not enough has been done. The Israeli military defended its latest Nablus incursion, saying the city still contained militant groups and infrastructure.
It said troops found explosive substances, military equipment and "stored materials for rocket manufacturing", although no working rockets were found. On Monday, Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, travelled through the West Bank and up to the main Israeli military checkpoint on the outskirts of Nablus to meet Israeli commanders.
She said Israeli troops would continue their operations, even during negotiations with the Palestinians.
"Israel has no intention of throwing the key to the other side at the end of the process and hoping for the best," she said. "Israel must fight for its security wherever it is necessary - even if it is at the cost of international criticism."
Separately, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, has said the checkpoints and obstacles in the West Bank, which have increased significantly in number over the past two years, would not be removed.
The language of the leaders from the two sides demonstrates just how far apart they remain as Bush visits. The two sides have yet to establish working committees to discuss the details of a final peace agreement and a US mechanism to monitor the talks, promised at Annapolis, has yet to be created.
Olmert has promised his government would begin to remove some of the furthest Jewish settlements in the West Bank - a key part of Israel's commitments under the road map - although past pledges have come to nothing.
In an interview last week, Olmert did make a rare acknowledgement that Israel had not met its commitments to remove so-called "unauthorised outposts" and halt all building activity in all settlements.
Even after Annapolis, the Israeli housing ministry issued tenders to build 300 homes in one East Jerusalem settlement and reports in the Israeli press have said two more settlements are to be built there.
As Olmert meets Bush today he will be hoping to secure commitments from the US president that Israel can continue its raids during negotiations and that demilitarisation would limit the powers of a future Palestinian state. Israel wants to maintain its freedom to fly in Palestinian airspace and to monitor all border crossings into a future Palestinian state.
However, few expect that Bush's visit, which will include meetings with Olmert and Abbas as well as visits to ancient biblical sites and the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem, will accelerate peace talks.
Some argue that Israel is on the back foot, not least because of its failure to halt the building of settlements. "The situation is that Israel is basically on the defensive," said Galia Golan, a professor at Israel's Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Inter-Disciplinary Centre in Herzliya.
She said the failure of Olmert and Abbas to hold serious peace talks since Annapolis would embarrass Bush and the US administration.
"Now there is a situation where the Palestinians can and are claiming they are doing their part with significant steps with regard to the first phase of the road map ... while at the same time Israel has not done anything," she said.
guardian
