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Bush in Israel as scandal clouds peace hopes
2008-05-14
U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in the Middle East on Wednesday to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday and try to energize peace efforts complicated by a corruption scandal that could topple Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres, Bush said Washington "would continue to work toward a vision of where people who are just and reasonable and want a chance to live at peace with Israel have that opportunity." He said that, at the same time, the United States would "speak clearly about those forces of terror who murder innocent people to achieve their political objectives, and how the world must stand against them." Bush faces serious doubt that he can secure a deal between Israel and the Palestinians before leaving office in January. In the latest setback, Olmert has been hit by calls to resign over suspicions that he took bribes from a wealthy U.S. businessman. Although he has denied wrongdoing, he has pledged to resign if indicted. Bush will not visit the Palestinian territories during his three-day visit to mark the 60th anniversary of Israel's foundation but planned to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Egypt on Saturday. Palestinians are marking their "Nakba," or "catastrophe" this week. The Nakba refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948. Bush planned to meet Olmert later in the day for talks expected to include discussion of Iran's nuclear program, which Israel views as a threat to its existence. Tehran says it wants nuclear technology only to generate electricity. In remarks coinciding with Bush's Middle East visit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel was "dying" and that people in the region would destroy it, given the chance. POINTS OF AGREEMENT Olmert, fighting for his political survival, said on Tuesday he and Abbas had reached understandings and points of agreement on some issues. Palestinian officials were skeptical, however, and one said the two sides had a long way to go. With the clock ticking on his administration, Bush, on his second visit to Israel this year, is trying to salvage a foreign policy legacy encompassing more than the unpopular war in Iraq. He will be mindful of another crisis brewing in Lebanon, where a power struggle between the pro-Western government in Beirut and Iranian-backed Hezbollah could deal a further blow to U.S. efforts to stabilize the Middle East. With Bush seated at his side in the garden of the Israeli presidential residence, Peres said: "Hezbollah is simply destroying Lebanon." Peres accused the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of "postponing the establishment of a Palestinian state" through its opposition to U.S.-brokered peace efforts and confrontations with Israel. Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader, said in the Gaza Strip: "There is no welcome for Bush in the Holy Land. There is no welcome for hypocrite presidents who are defiling our land." Olmert and Abbas agreed at a U.S.-hosted conference in November to try to reach a peace deal, including an agreement on Palestinian statehood, this year. Talks have faltered over Israeli settlement expansion plans in the occupied West Bank and violence in and around the Gaza Strip. Egyptian mediators hope to halt that violence in U.S.-backed talks on a truce between Israel and Hamas. (Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Rebecca Harrison; edited by Andrew Dobbie)
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