President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are trying to
build pressure on Hamas to accept their conditions for negotiating a Middle East
peace, but there are no indications that the radical Palestinian group will
change its tune.
U.S. President George
W. Bush (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert smile after speaking to
reporters in the East Room of the White House in Washington May 23, 2006.
Bush gave a cautious welcome to Olmert's plan for the West Bank on Tuesday
but said peace would best be served by a negotiated agreement with the
Palestinians. [Reuters] |
During Olmert's Washington visit that ended Wednesday, Bush pushed him to
talk with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas' bitter rival, before
unilaterally setting new national boundaries for Israel.
Olmert agreed, but he warned that "we will not wait indefinitely" before
imposing Israel's own plan.
Both statements were made in hopes of prompting the Palestinian people to
pressure Hamas, the resistance group that dominates the Palestinian government,
to begin bargaining. They were also a signal to Hamas that it risks being left
out of the peacemaking process.
Even so, prospects appear slight that the militant Palestinian group will
yield in order to get to the negotiating table with its enemy.
The more moderate Abbas, locked in a power struggle with Hamas, does not
necessarily have the clout to negotiate peace terms by himself.
For Hamas even to begin bargaining, Israel is insisting that it disavow
violence against Israel and accept the Jewish state's right to exist.
So far, Hamas has refused. Olmert told American Jewish leaders Wednesday that
he was not confident Hamas would change its stance, participants in the meeting
said.
"We are very far from the process of peacemaking," Robert Satloff, the
executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in an
interview.
"We have two parties very far apart on the core reason for their dispute and
the path to resolve it," he said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week that "it's simply not
true" that the Bush administration wants the Hamas-led government to fail.
"We would like nothing better than to have the current Palestinian government
accept the international requirements (for negotiations) so that we could ...
get to a two-state solution," she said in a telecast to the Arab world on
Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite network.
Edward Abington, a former American diplomat who advises Abbas, said, "If
Abbas and Olmert show they can structure a peace agreement, it could pressure
Hamas to change."
Abington, however, said in an interview Wednesday, "It is the Palestinian
opinion that Olmert is not serious about negotiations with Abbas or anyone
else."
Abbas and other Palestinians believe Olmert intends to keep 50 percent of the
West Bank, Abington said. "Obviously, if that is what he has in mind they will
never accept that."
Bush's positive response to Olmert's threatened unilateral approach is
another pressure point on Hamas.
The president's praise for Olmert's "creative thinking" encourages the prime
minister to proceed with his planning, said Edward S. Walker, a former U.S.
ambassador to Israel and Egypt.
"It is a green light, though there is a potential stop sign down the road,"
Walker said in an interview.
