US backing for Palestinian state could backfire, warns Israel
<I can't believe this, Palestinians are partying in the streets and we still haven't figured out they are the enemy... -josh>
JERUSALEM, Oct 2 (AFP) -
US President George W. Bush's remarks that his vision for a Middle East settlement had always included a Palestinian state could backfire, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Tuesday.
Zalman Shoval said that since Bush's Middle East peace initiative has been partly prompted by his desire to enlist Muslim and Arab states against Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, Palestinians could wind up thanking the wanted Saudi dissident.
"It could possibly be counter-productive in the long run, as the Palestinians could thank bin Laden for it," he told AFP.
He said it was "probably not wrong" to regard Bush's remarks in Washington earlier Tuesday as part of the US effort to set up a global anti-terrorist coalition and bring moderate Arab and Muslim states on board.
"Quite logically, the Palestinians could say 'Thank you bin Laden,'" for prompting Bush's backing of an independent state.
Bush told reporters that "the idea of a Palestinian state has always been part of a vision, so long as the right to Israel to exist is respected."
The White House added later that Middle East peace should result in Palestinians living "peacefully and securely" in their own state and Israelis doing the same in theirs.
And a Pentagon official announced that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was headed for the Middle East on Tuesday for meetings on the US campaign against terrorism.
Senior US officials, meanwhile, said the September 11 terror strikes on New York and Washington had stalled the administration's plans to unveil a major Middle East peace initiative, including possible support for a Palestinian state.
There had been little evidence of such plans in the region before the attacks rocked the United States, and Palestinian and Arab leaders had said Bush's hands-off policy was tantamount to giving Israel a free hand to stamp out the Palestinian upising, or intifada.
The Arab world sees the intifada as a legitimate right of the Palestinian people to resist Israeli occupation of territory seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
But Shoval said Bush hit the right note in insisting that the first step in the peace process was a total halt to all violence, before moving on the internationally-backed Mitchell plan to find a way back to political negotiations.
"While the whole free world is fighting terrorism, the Palestinian leadership and especially Yasser Arafat must stop using violence and terrorism," Shoval said.
He said the Israeli cabinet could meet Wednesday to assess the situation since the truce signed last week, which was severely undermined at the weekend by violence marking the first anniversary of the uprising.
Eighteen Palestinians have been killed since Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met on September 26 and pledged to do their utmost to make the truce stick.
sg.news.yahoo.com
* * * |
