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Politics

Bush spells out bottom line for peace

Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and the terrorist threat against Israel must end, president says.

By Times Wires
Published January 11, 2008

JERUSALEM - President Bush called for a halt to Israel's military occupation of land the Palestinians claim for a state and an end to the terrorist threat over the Jewish homeland, spelling out the U.S. bottom line Thursday for ending the long and bloody Mideast conflict.

"Now is the time to make difficult choices," Bush said. An agreement will require "painful concessions" by both sides, Bush said, but he predicted one could be reached within a year, putting himself more firmly on the line than ever for an achievement considered unlikely by many experts.

He outlined his position in a five-minute statement to reporters summoned to a room in the King David Hotel, overlooking Jerusalem's Old City.

The White House said Bush would return to the Mideast at least once and possibly more this year, including another stop in Israel for its 60th anniversary celebrations in May.

Bush came away with no breakthroughs or apparent concessions from two days of separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian West Bank. There was no joint meeting of the three leaders, but Olmert and Abbas assured Bush they were serious about reaching an agreement.

Bush's peacemaking checklist, combining existing U.S. policy with a few new elements, was his most detailed summary yet of U.S. expectations for resolving some of the hardest issues in a final peace accord.

Church visit

Because of heavy fog, Bush travelled to Ramallah in the West Bank, to meet Abbas, in a car. He passed through a security checkpoint and drove within sight of the Israeli separation barrier that Palestinians call unacceptable. Noting that his motorcade was able to drive through, Bush noted wryly, "I'm not so exactly sure that's what happens to the average person."

Bush also visited the Church of the Nativity, where he lit a candle. He described the experience as "a moving moment for me. ...For those of us who practice the Christian faith, there's really no more holy site than the place where our Savior was born."

Private meeting

Bush also held a brief private audience on Thursday with the two adult sons of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who lies in a coma in Chaim Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv after suffering a massive stroke more than two years ago. During the get-together at the Jerusalem hotel where he is staying, Bush expressed to Omri and Gilad Sharon his admiration for their father and "asked God's blessing upon him and upon his family," Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, told reporters.

Information from the Associated Press and Cox News Service was used in this report.

Fast facts

Bush lists benchmarks

The U.S. expectations President Bush set out Thursday for negotiations and a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, following two days of separate meetings with leaders on both sides:

-A peace agreement can and should be complete within the year.

-Bargaining must be serious, "starting right now."

-The "point of departure" for talks must be an end to the Israeli "occupation" of Palestinian land seized in the 1967 war.

-An eventual settlement on the borders for Israel and a new Palestinian state must be mutually negotiated.

-The borders would not be exactly those drawn when Israel was formed in 1948-1949, a reference to the expectation that Israel will keep some of the settlements it has built near Jerusalem since.

-A future state, which Bush called Palestine, must be "viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent."

-The world should consider compensating Palestinians and their descendants for the loss of land or homes in present-day Israel, thus closing off the Palestinian claim to a right to return to that property.

-Jerusalem is "a tough issue," Bush said. He offered no prescription for resolving the claims both sides make to administer sites holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims.

[Last modified January 11, 2008, 01:44:38]