Bush backs Israeli withdrawal

Israel can keep some settlements while pulling out of the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinians should not be resettled in Israel, Bush says.

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday recognized Israel's right to retain some West Bank settlements as part of any peace accord with the Palestinians as he formally endorsed a plan of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

In a major shift in U.S. policy that was already angering many Arabs on Wednesday night, Bush said that Israel should not have to return to its pre-1967 borders and that Palestinians and their descendants who lost their land in Israel in 1948 should eventually be settled in a Palestinian state, not back in Israel. The president's pronouncement effectively ruled out any "right of return" by Palestinians.

"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949," Bush said in a joint news conference with Sharon in the Cross Hall of the White House.

Sharon, who beamed at Bush's side throughout their 24-minute appearance, said his plan - which Bush praised as "historic" and "courageous" - would create "a new and better reality" for the state of Israel.

Sharon offered several concessions in a letter to Bush.

The Israeli leader said he would limit the growth of Jewish settlements and remove all unauthorized outposts on the West Bank. And, as Bush demanded, the Israeli leader said a security fence Israel is building to deter Palestinian attacks is "temporary rather than permanent."

Also, Sharon renewed his commitment to the so-called road map for peacemaking backed by the United States but said the Palestinian Authority had failed to stop terror and to reform its security service.

Bush did not specifically mention, as Sharon wanted, that Israel should retain five West Bank settlements that have been growing for decades and now hold some 55,000 people. The New York Times quoted unnamed administration officials as saying Bush left his language vague to avoid angering Palestinians even more than expected.

Opposition to settlements has been official U.S. policy for more than 20 years, even as the Israeli population in Gaza and the West Bank steadily increased. By erecting tens of thousands of roofs on formerly Arab land, Israelis sought to create the reality that Bush said he is now simply acknowledging.

As a gesture to the Palestinian side, Bush reiterated in a letter Wednesday to Sharon that any security barrier being built by Israel must be "temporary" and that its route should take into account its impact on Palestinians. U.S. officials said this meant that the United States expected Israel to build only those parts of the barrier that are close to its pre-1967 borders, and not on routes that jut into the West Bank, walling off Palestinians from one another.

In another concession to the Palestinians, Bush said that any future Palestinian state should be "viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent." The New York Times, quoting unnamed administration officials, reported that that meant a future Palestinian state could not be shrunken or truncated by the lines that some officials in Sharon's government say should be the final boundaries.

Past U.S. presidents have operated on the assumption there could be some changes in Israel's borders. But Bush went much further by backing retention of some settlements and resettling Palestinian refugees in a Palestinian state, not Israel.

Palestinian leaders have argued that tens of thousands of Palestinians are from families evicted by Israel upon creation of the Jewish state in 1947-48 and have a right to return to Israel. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, rejected a peace proposal by former President Bill Clinton that would have turned over virtually all of the West Bank to the Palestinians because it did not include that right.

Palestinians reacted with fury. In anticipation of Bush's endorsement of Sharon's plan, both Arafat and Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, issued denunciations declaring the plan put any future peace agreement in peril.

"The Palestinian leadership warns of the dangers of reaching such an accord, because it means clearly the complete end of the peace process," Arafat said in a statement.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said of Bush's statement: "This is like someone giving a part of Texas' land to China."

"If Israel wants to make peace, it must talk to the Palestinian leadership," Erekat said.

Administration officials sought to play down the negative comments as an instant Palestinian reaction to media reports rather than to the reality in front of them.

The New York Times quoted unnamed administration officials as holding out the hope that Sharon had embarked on a process of withdrawal that would be rejected by Sharon's far-right coalition partners, which would force him to bring the left-of-center Labor Party into the government and create a political climate the Palestinians might consider more hospitable.

Israeli officials said withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza could begin in nine months to a year. They said the timing of the withdrawal will be determined by Sharon's ability to win approval in the cabinet and the Israeli Parliament. Some 200,000 Likud members are to vote on the plan May 2.

It was Sharon who developed the idea in the 1970s of populating Gaza and the West Bank with Israeli settlers to improve his nation's security, but his aides say he is now eager to break with his legacy. Sharon announced his withdrawal plan in December, and aides say he sees it as the only way to guarantee Israel's security.

- Information from the New York Times, Associated Press and Washington Post was used in this report.

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