“I made it clear, I thought the fence was a problem,” Bush

CRAWFORD, Texas, August 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. President Bush said he still sees the Israeli-built separation wall in the West Bank “a problem”, but did not say whether he would pressure the Jewish state on the barrier by imposing financial sanctions.

"I made it clear, I thought the fence was a problem. And so we're talking with them,” Bush told reporters at his ranch here on Wednesday, August 6.

“We're talking to Israel about all aspects of the fence, …  we will continue to work on this issue, as well as other issues,” Bush said, flanked by Secretary of State Colin Powell who was paying him a visit.

"I do believe we're making progress," the president was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.

But Bush made no mention whether he was prepared to put pressures on Israel on the wall by reducing some of the $9 billion that the U.S. Congress approved last spring in loan guarantees for the Israelis.

The State Department said Tuesday, August 5, that construction of the controversial wall may result in U.S. financial sanctions.

A proposal under discussion would withhold U.S. loan guarantees to the amount Israel spends on sections of the wall built in Palestinian territory east of the 1967 Green Line division between Israel and the West Bank.

But a White House spokesman emphasized however that no decision had been taken.

Pro-Israeli lawmakers have attacked any proposal that would reduce the loan guarantees, which are intended for housing and commercial projects, Reuters reported.

When Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas visited the White House on July 23, Bush said that the wall was a “problem” and that he had been talking with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Bush dropped the term four days later, however, when Sharon was in Washington. The U.S. president said he hoped the barrier would become obsolete in the long term if peace could be achieved, as Sharon insisted its construction would continue.

The fence loosely follows the 1967 Green Line division between Israel and the West Bank, but it dips deep into occupied Palestinian territory at several points under the pretext of protecting settlements.

It also leaves several Palestinian villages cut off from the rest of the West Bank.

The Palestinians accuse Israel of using the new “Berlin Wall” to unilaterally determine the borders of a future Palestinian state and of wanting to "ethnically cleanse" the West Bank with a de facto annexation of its most fertile regions.

Bush was adamant Wednesday that the Middle East peace process was making progress following a series of meetings between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and others with the U.S. president.

"The key for a peace to happen is for both parties to assume their necessary obligations and responsibilities, to create the conditions so that people have confidence that people know their lives will be safe and that prosperity can break out."