Bush-Olmert talks to bolster Palestine moderates

Washington, June 19: US President George W Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meet today to coordinate strategy to shore up Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's embattled new government and isolate his Hamas rivals.

Western powers have rallied behind Abbas with promises of renewed aid, hoping to contain damage from Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week and parlay it into revived peace moves between Palestinian moderates and Israel.

Bush could also press Olmert for further conciliatory moves toward Abbas, who dismissed the Hamas-led government and formed an emergency cabinet of Fatah loyalists in the West Bank as a counterweight to the Islamists' control of Gaza.

The United States and European Union pledged yesterday to lift an economic and diplomatic embargo imposed on the Palestinians after Hamas's election victory last year.

Washington, Israel and the EU regard Hamas as a terrorist group.

Fatah backs a negotiated peace with the Jewish state.

''It is the duty of the international community to support those Palestinians who wish to build a better life and a future of peace,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in announcing the resumption of direct US aid.

Olmert has said he will release to Abbas's new government tax revenues withheld since Hamas came to power refusing to renounce violence and recognise Israel's right to exist.

But Abbas wants Bush to urge Israel, Washington's close ally, to begin peace talks as soon as possible to show his people he can make progress toward their dream of statehood.

'West Bank First'

The Bush administration has signaled it sees a ''West Bank first'' policy -- doing its utmost to bolster Abbas and to nurture Israeli contacts with him -- as the best way to salvage something from Hamas's military victory in Gaza.

But some analysts suggest this strategy only masks the failure of the Bush administration's Middle East policy and could backfire by further radicalising the Gaza Strip.

They say Bush's oft-repeated vision of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel now seems even more remote with the split between a Fatah-led West Bank and a Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been something of a back-burner issue for the Bush administration over the past year with its attention distracted by the unpopular Iraq war.

Events in Gaza have forced it back onto the agenda as Bush prepares for White House talks with Olmert, but questions remain whether Washington is ready for serious re-engagement.

Olmert is even less popular at home than Bush. His approval ratings have sunk to single digits amid criticism of his handling of last year's Lebanon war, while Bush's numbers are stuck in the low to mid-30 per cent range.

Grasping for an opportunity for progress with the Palestinians as promised in his 2006 election platform, Olmert said in New York that Israel is willing to ''take perhaps more risks'' in cooperating with Abbas's fledgling government.

But some Israeli officials have misgivings about Abbas.

They see him as an indecisive leader too willing to compromise with Hamas. And they fear the opportunity for peacemaking could be missed unless moderate Arab countries join in sidelining Hamas, which is backed by Syria and Iran.

For their part, many Palestinians distrust Olmert for his stated goal of keeping some large Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and are skeptical whether Washington can act as an even-handed broker for Middle East peace.

Reuters

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