Posted on 04/21/2004 9:22:00 PM PDT by yonif
Senior diplomatic officials said Wednesday the US is "watering down" assurances US President George W. Bush gave Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, less then a week after the two met in Washington.
The officials pointed to recent comments made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell as examples.
From Sharon's point of view, two of the most significant aspects of the Bush assurances were the sentence in the president's letter saying the US feels it "seems clear" that a fair solution to the Palestinian refugee issue should be found through a Palestinian state "rather than in Israel," and that "in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949."
The very next sentence in the letter, however, talks of the need for this to be mutually agreed upon: "It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities."
Israeli diplomatic officials said that as a result of pressure on Washington from the Arab world and Europe, Powell in recent days has played down Bush's ideas about the shape of the final status deal, and rather highlighted that any changes must be agreed upon by both sides.
"If this is the tone before the Likud referendum, what can we expect afterward," one senior official said.
Among Powell's recent statements about the Bush assurances, the officials pointed to comments he made to reporters in Washington on Tuesday that Bush's position on the diplomatic process "is unchanged," and that he is "committed to the proposition that all final settlement issues have to be resolved between the two parties."
Powell also said, during an appearance with Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher, that "people will see over time that the United States is committed to the welfare, benefit, and the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the Arab nations, and especially the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the Palestinian people."
During a press conference Tuesday with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Powell said, "The president said nothing about what settlements should remain. The president said that we are taking note of the fact that the settlements are coming out of Gaza, four are coming out of the West Bank in the north. It's the beginning of a process."
"Every previous negotiation recognized that, as a result of population changes and other changes on the ground, adjustments would be appropriate and necessary in due course to find a solution. And the parties have to mutually agree to these adjustments. It all rests on the agreement of the two parties, and that's what the president has said."
US officials have tried to put Jerusalem at ease about these statements, saying these types of comments are necessary to calm down the Arab world and the US's European allies concerned that the US has dramatically shifted its Mideast policy.
One senior diplomatic official said this type of "marketing" was expected, but that Jerusalem is concerned that if the watering down continues apace, Bush's assurances will be robbed of any real significance.
Diplomatic officials said the American position is that Bush purposely built a degree of ambiguity into his letter, so that each side could find in it what they want to see.
On the one hand Bush said it is unrealistic that Israel will be asked to return to the 1949 armistice lines, or that Palestinian refugees would be repatriated to Israel, yet on the other hand he said these are final status issues that will have to be negotiated by the sides.
Since last Wednesday, according to Israeli officials, the US decision on what to emphasize has depended very much on the audience being addressed.
Anyone who thinks it is "realistic" is living beyond the looking glass. Bush is just stating the obvious. Naughty him.
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