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Bush Tells Sharon He Will Not "Force Peace"
WASHINGTON, March 20 (News Agencies) - U.S. President George W. Bush stuck by his largely hands-off approach to Middle East policy Tuesday, telling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon he "will not try to force peace" on Israel and the Palestinians.
"We'll do everything we can to help calm nerves, to encourage there to be dialogue," said the U.S. leader, who since taking office January 20th has broken with predecessor Bill Clinton's intensely personal approach to the region.
"I told him our nation will not try to force peace, that we'll facilitate peace and that we will work with those responsible for peace," he said in a brief joint appearance after the two leaders met for the first time since taking office.
Sharon insisted that Bush endorsed his adamant position that peace talks with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat were impossible until the latter acts to end six months of violence.
The U.S. leader publicly kept mum on the subject.
"The first thing and the most important one is to bring security to the citizens of Israel," Sharon said. "Once we reach security, and it will be calm in the Middle East, I believe that we'll start our negotiations to reach a peace agreement."
Sharon later told some reporters that he had urged the president not to invite Arafat because such a meeting "would be proof that terrorism pays." Bush did not respond, according to Israeli officials.
A senior U.S. administration official denied that Sharon had sought to dissuade Bush from welcoming Arafat and insisted that while Washington called on the Arab leader help end the six-month uprising, doing so was not a condition for a visit by Arafat.
Bush, meanwhile, declined to say whether he would meet with Arafat, promising only that, "one of the things that I will do is use whatever persuasive powers I have to create an environment in which peace can flourish."
The U.S. leader has also invited Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah to discuss issues related to the Middle East.
A U.S. official also said Bush urged Israel to "restore normal economic life" and ease pressures on Palestinians, thousands of whom cannot work since Israel closed its borders with the West Bank and Gaza when violence flared up last September.
Meanwhile, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher assailed Israel's plan to build an additional 3,000 homes in a controversial Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem known to the Arabs as Jebel Abu Ghneim.
"We don't think that continued construction activity like this contributes to peace or stability," he told reporters.
Sharon, for his part, stood by earlier comments laying the blame for regional volatility squarely on Arafat's shoulders.
"I don't think that I have to add about a fact that everyone knows, what are the steps of terror and who is behind the steps," said Sharon, who took office March 7th.
Violence smoldered in the occupied territories ahead of the meeting, as a Jewish settler shot a Palestinian boy and an Israeli was injured in a drive-by shooting.
Two Palestinian youths were also injured when Israeli troops fired on demonstrators in an Arab village near Bethlehem who were protesting because the army closed the area following the killing of a settler the day before.
Sharon later met with U.S. congressional leaders, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Jewish lawmakers. He met Monday with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Bush said nothing to contradict a campaign pledge to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, though he emphasized that the city's status "will be ultimately determined by the interested parties."
Powell infuriated the Arab world March 8th when he told a congressional committee Bush was committed to moving Washington's "embassy to the capital of Israel, which is Jerusalem."
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