President Bush said Saturday that he is not ready to accept Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s proposal to set a political deadline for establishing a Palestinian state, but he urged Israel and the Palestinians to begin talks immediately that would lead to that goal.
“We’re not ready to lay down a specific calendar, except for the fact we need to get started quickly, soon, so that we can seize the moment,” Bush said after concluding talks with Mubarak at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md.
With Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon due in Washington on Monday for talks with Bush, the president once again expressed his frustration with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, saying that Arafat “must do everything in his power to stop the violence, to stop the attacks on Israel. I mean everything.”
Sharon had made clear there can be no progress toward a Middle East peace as long as Arafat remains in power, but Mubarak took a sharply different attitude Saturday when asked whether the Palestinian leader could be trusted to make the reforms that Bush has insisted upon.
“Look, we should give this man a chance,” Mubarak said. “We are working very hard in cooperation with the United States for the reform in the Palestinian Authority. Such a chance will prove that he is going to deliver or not. If he’s going to deliver, I think everybody will support him. If he’s not going to deliver, the people will tell him that.”
Bush did not reject outright Mubarak’s call for setting a deadline to establish a Palestinian state by 2003. Sharon is sharply opposed to the idea and is expected to reiterate that position in his meeting with Bush.
But any hopes Mubarak had that Bush would soften his criticism of Arafat were postponed. The president said that Arafat was “not the issue. I have constantly said I am disappointed in his leadership. I think he has let the Palestinian people down. Therefore, my focus is on the reforms necessary to help the Palestinians.”
Speaking in Arabic, Mubarak gave a lengthy opening statement accusing Israel of “assassinations” and “illegal confiscations” and calling upon Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders.
Mubarak’s comments in Arabic were markedly more strident than the conciliatory remarks he made in English during interviews with various U.S. media outlets.
As the diplomatic spotlight has shifted to Washington for the visits of Mubarak and Sharon, military activity continued in Israel.
More Gaza, West Bank attacks
Following a Palestinian attack on an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, the Israeli Defense Forces moved troops into three Palestinian areas.
Israeli troops entered the city of Hebron on Saturday afternoon, about 10 miles from Karmei Tsur, where two settlers–an off-duty solder and his pregnant wife–were killed earlier in the day when two Palestinian gunmen sprayed trailers with bullets.
Another Israeli soldier was killed, as was one of the attackers. The second gunman escaped.
The Israeli military also moved into the Palestinian villages of Halhoul and Beit Ummar, both about a mile from Karmei Tsur.
Later, three gunmen opened fire on homes on the outskirts of the Yizhak settlement in the northern West Bank. Four Israelis were injured, two seriously, military officials said. Soldiers shot and killed at least two gunmen, officials said.
In the Gaza Strip, three Palestinians were killed in two attempted attacks on Israelis. One was an armed man who was detected swimming toward a Jewish settlement in the Mediterranean, the Israeli army said.
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Also Saturday, an explosion went off along the fence between Gaza and Israel, and troops found the bodies of two Palestinians, the army said.
The weekend of violence sets the stage for Sharon’s visit with Bush on Monday, when he is expected to counsel the opposite of Mubarak, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials. There can be no progress toward peace so long as Arafat remains in power, Sharon is expected to say, and the Egyptian proposal to declare a Palestinian state early next year would be a serious mistake.
Sharon doubts Arafat
Israeli officials say Sharon’s fundamental opposition to the Egyptian approach is based on his conviction that Arafat is incapable of bringing about meaningful change in his government and is either unable or unwilling to end terrorist attacks in Israel.
After the suicide bombing Wednesday that killed 17 Israelis aboard a commuter bus, Israeli tanks and troops hammered Arafat’s West Bank headquarters in Ramallah so extensively that most of the complex was reduced to rubble. Israeli forces also moved into Jenin on Friday and imposed a curfew.
Palestinians see the recent Israeli military incursions into their territory as a systematic attack on the infrastructure and the legitimacy of Arafat’s government, part of a campaign to portray the president and his government as powerless and irrelevant.
The Israeli government says the army raids into Palestinian communities of the West Bank are designed to disrupt terrorist cells and to send a message to Arafat that Israel has no tolerance for such acts.
Israel has said repeatedly that it has no intention of killing Arafat, but frequently has suggested it may expel him.
Mubarak is the latest Middle East leader to visit Bush pushing the establishment of a Palestinian state that eventually could include all the territory Israel captured during the 1967 War. He and some Arab leaders have joined calls from the U.S. and Europe for Arafat to clean up his Palestinian Authority and impose democratic reforms on his one-man rule. But the Israelis say the world is waiting for something that will never happen.
“I think the Israeli government is not holding its breath about Yasser Arafat turning over a new leaf and starting over again,” said Dore Gold, an adviser to the Sharon government. “As long as Arafat is controlling the Palestinian Authority it is hard to imagine how we are going to get out of the present morass.”
To a lesser extent, the United States, European allies and even some Palestinians harbor doubts about whether Arafat is truly committed to reform.
“In the president’s eyes, Yasser Arafat has never played a role of someone who can be trusted and who is effective,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Thursday.
Support for Arafat among Palestinians is far from unconditional.
“I think the increase of criticism of the president is a good thing,” said Ghassan Khatib, a political analyst with the Jerusalem Media Center, a Palestinian research institute. “We would be worried if there was no criticism.”
Palestinians pressure Arafat
Khatib said it is important to see the Palestinian attitude toward Arafat as complex.
“I think that the Palestinian public think this guy should remain the leader, but they are pressuring him to change.”
Khatib said that Palestinians see Arafat as a poor administrator but a leader who does a good job representing their political aspirations.
“As far as his politics are concerned, he has no problem with the Palestinian public. And the only alternative to his politics is Hamas,” Khatib said, referring to the radical Palestinian group. Khatib echoed the comments of other Palestinians when he said Sharon’s policies are designed to eliminate the present generation of Palestinian leaders.
“He wants to get rid of this Palestinian leadership,” Khatib said. “He [Sharon] wants a younger leadership and he wants to get Yasser Arafat to go into exile in Egypt or Tunisia.
“I think that on this visit he wants to get the green light from Washington to take his next step, or steps.”
Said Gold, the Sharon government adviser: “I think the prime minister has said in the past that he is genuinely interested in advancing the peace process, but he needs a real partner.” Arafat had promised reform and an end to violence for years and never delivered, he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, a Labor Party member of Sharon’s coalition government, indicated the prime minister would urge even greater pressure on Arafat.
“I think [Sharon] will insist on [Palestinian] reforms and that the entire international community must press the leader of the Palestinians to put things in order,” Peres told Army Radio on Friday when asked about the prime minister’s message to Bush.