Posted on 04/15/2004 8:02:19 AM PDT by Pikamax
Palestinians Urge World to Challenge Bush Policy Thu Apr 15, 2004 10:10 AM ET
By Wafa Amr RAMALLAH (Reuters) - Furious Palestinians tried to rally the world Thursday against President Bush's decision to break with longtime U.S. and international policy to say Israel could keep parts of the West Bank captured in war.
Bush coupled what Israel hailed as a historic statement on Wednesday with an endorsement of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral Gaza pullout plan and a negation of any right of return of Palestinian refugees to what is now Israel.
The U.S. "guarantees" gave Sharon what he wanted to win over Israeli skeptics of his plan to uproot Gaza's 20 settlements and four of 120 in the West Bank while retaining "for eternity" larger enclaves there with the bulk of the 230,000 settlers.
But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized Bush for ignoring the wishes of Palestinians, while the European Union emphasized it would not accept border changes unless they were agreed by both sides.
Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie said he had proposed an emergency meeting of the quartet of the European Union, United States, Russia and United Nations, backers of the "road map" for peace -- stymied by further violence -- and a Palestinian state.
He also called for an emergency summit of Arab countries.
"This is a catastrophe that has to be dealt with," Qurie told Reuters. "What is fixed is that we have rights and we will defend them."
Palestinians said bluntly Bush had killed negotiations. Israeli officials say the Palestinians thwarted talks by failing to stop militants carrying out suicide attacks on Israelis.
Informed of Palestinians' reaction, Sharon was quoted by two well-informed Israeli columnists covering his White House visit as saying: "They have a better understanding of the significance of (Bush's) letter than most Israelis. I said that we were going to deal them a lethal blow, and they were dealt a lethal blow."
Over decades of Republican and Democratic administrations, the United States had officially viewed Israeli settlements implanted since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war as an obstacle to peace.
Washington had also not come out so openly in rejecting the right of refugees to return.
Bush, who like Sharon has made a battle against "terrorism" paramount in road map peacemaking, has now shifted to view at least some of the Jewish enclaves as permanent.
"The fanatical Israeli rulers are wrong and so are those who support them and you know who I mean," said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in his first official reaction.
"Our fate is that we are the defenders of our land and our holy shrines and our rights...and the right of the refugees to return to their homeland."
PLAN FACES PARTY HURDLE
Sharon still has a key hurdle to surmount before any pullback can begin -- a binding May 2 ballot among the 200,000 members of his right-wing Likud party on approving what he dubs a plan of "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians.
Opinion polls in Israel have consistently shown strong support for jettisoning Gaza, a power base for Islamic militant groups sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state. One poll on Thursday found 58 percent Likud support for a Gaza pullout.
Sharon has said Israel would reap security benefits by leaving its Gaza enclaves, small and surrounded by hostile Palestinians, while strengthening its sleek, spacious suburban settlements in the West Bank.
Bush's statements and an exchange of letters with Sharon in the same vein figured to garner him more backing from pro-Israel conservatives and Jewish voters in the U.S. presidential election in November.
But the message could harm U.S. interests in the Arab world, undercutting its efforts to stabilize Iraq.
"It undermines hope for a just and comprehensive peace, inflames feelings of enmity toward America and opens the door toward retaking these rights by force, through all legitimate means of resistance," said Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.
"The region needs serious and sincere efforts to install peace ... not irrational drifting behind Israeli requests," a Syrian official said in Damascus.
In his letter to Sharon, Bush said the steps the Israeli prime minister described in the disengagement plan will make "a real contribution toward peace."
But Annan criticized Bush for ignoring Palestinian wishes in implicitly accepting Israel's claim to some West Bank settlements. The EU also voiced concern.
"The European Union will not recognize any change to the pre-1967 borders other than those arrived at by agreement between the parties," Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said in a statement on behalf of the EU presidency.
A senior Israeli official said Sharon expected the pullback to be completed "sometime in 2005" and hoped many Gaza settlers would choose to put down new roots in the Negev desert and help develop the economically depressed area in southern Israel.
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World urges Palestinians to stop committing terrorist acts
Bush is sending the PA a message - no more make-believe that the Palestinian entity occupying part of greater Israel is any more than a terrorist factory.
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