Bush prepares for Palestinian announcement, new Mideast mission for Powell

Associated Press / SFGate

[RCW2001]

BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer
Monday, June 24, 2002
©2002 Associated Press

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/06/24/national1416EDT0646.DTL

(06-24) 11:16 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

President Bush prepared Monday to go ahead with a blueprint for a Palestinian state and to send Secretary of State Colin Powell to try to sell the plan to Israel and the Arabs amid growing discord between the two sides.

The timing for the long-anticipated announcement remained uncertain. Bush leaves Tuesday for a meeting in Canada with leaders of the world's other major industrialized democracies.

Pressed by reporters on his way to Port Elizabeth, N.J., for a speech on homeland security, Bush said Monday: "You'll hear when I'm ready."

With Israel and some Arabs dubious about the presidential plan for a provisional state, contingent on sweeping democratic reforms within the Palestinian Authority, diplomatic sources said Bush was not swayed from going ahead.

In the meantime, the administration renewed its support for Israel's self-defense, even as Israeli tanks encircled Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's badly damaged headquarters in Ramallah, on the West Bank, and Israel went on the offensive against the Hamas militants in Gaza.

"Israel has a right to defend itself," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. He also repeated the standard admonition that "everybody has to be aware of the consequences of their actions."

In a precursor of the Gaza action, rockets from Israeli helicopters killed six Palestinians, four identified as activists of Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for a recent suicide bombing and is branded a terror group by the State Department. Boucher reiterated the long-standing U.S. position against such targeted killings.

The spokesman said there were no plans for Powell to go the region. But he also said, "We are prepared to implement whatever the president decides to do."

Within the Bush administration, there were reservations about announcing the plan for Palestinian statehood. Some senior officials questioned going ahead while Israel was smarting from terror attacks and had its forces on the offensive on the West Bank and in Gaza. Others were skeptical that Palestinian leader Arafat is capable of harnessing the Palestinian militants who brought the region to a boil with suicide bombings.

On April 4, Bush became the first president to endorse statehood for the Palestinians. Yet he has shunned Arafat and has questioned his leadership and his motives repeatedly.

The result is a proposal for a start-up state, without borders, with progress toward normal statehood conditioned each step on the way to democratic reform.

The limited nature of statehood irked some Palestinians and other Arabs.

"A state is a state, and you cannot be provisionally pregnant, and you cannot have a provisional state," Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Arafat's Cabinet, said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

The hardest issues -- such as final borders, the control of Jerusalem and the return of refugees -- would be left to negotiations between Israel and the provisional state.

In the lead-up to the announcement, Bush had to choose between the Palestinian request for a year's limit on negotiations or Israel's for no deadline.

---

On the Net: State Department's Near East desk: www.state.gov/p/nea/

Major events in Israeli-Arab history: www.mideastweb.org/history.htm

©2002 Associated Press  

[goldstategop]

The President's plan is DOA and Colon Bowell will have no chance of getting any one to sign on. Its all to make the President look like he's doing something on the Middle East. That being said it won't advance peace there one iota.

[LarryM]

If Bush capitulates to terrorism by announcing support for a "Palestinian" state, no matter what the spin, I wash my hands of him.

[cardinal4]

The very Idea of awarding the murderers with land after years of unspeakable violence against the Israelis is, for want of a better word, apalling.

I sincerely hope the speech goes something like this; "It would be hypocritical of the US to try and negotiate with the PA terrorists, in light of the fact we went to war in Afghanistan after 9/11. The Israelis have suffered for years and have been restrained for too long. Therefore, Im enacting Executive Order 2005 which states the US does not want a PA state because they murdering terrorists, and further advises all parties that the US will back Israel 100%."

[RCW2001]

May I suggest...

;)

[lavaroise]

Is he actualy worshiping the self-worshiping Palestinian state? you know, to ratify incorporation of a state within the US, it would take congress, not the President. Yet this President pretends he can bypass this process and impose his views on statebuilding for foreigners. I understand foreign policy is his, but foreign nation building should not be his. It should be a well balanced process.

We cannot let Clintonites decide for us and the world quotas on founding evil self-worshiping socialist terrorist states.

[aimhigh]

The number one best selling book in Arab countries now is Mein Kamfp, by Hitler. If Bush proceeds, I expect a large earthquake, and a major economic downturn.

[dennisw]

"A state is a state, and you cannot be provisionally pregnant, and you cannot have a provisional state," Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Arafat's Cabinet, said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

Yep, Pallies want a "state" that they control the borders of so they can bring in all the weaponry they've been craving for years. Their model is Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and all the other MusloManic nations that are armed to the teeth despite being impoverished 3rd world pest holes.

[mikeIII]

Their model is Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and all the other MusloManic nations that are armed to the teeth despite being impoverished 3rd world pest holes.

Pakistan has demonstrated that nuclear weapons are highly effective in threats and blackmail. It has been rapidly advancing long range delivery systems. It's not such a far-fetched idea that sooner than later we'll have an Islamist state with a few crude nukes capable of reaching our cities.

If China didn't have the few nukes pointed at, and barely able to reach, our cities, we wouldn't be so indulgent with this country nor would it be ranked as a "world power". That fact is not lost on the Islamic states.