Bush Has Praise for Palestinian Leader

10/20/2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - The last time President Bush had Mahmoud Abbas to the White House he heaped praise on the Palestinian leader as a courageous democratic reformer.

A reprise will be likely Thursday, although the president may also enter a firm plea that Abbas screen out extremists as candidates in January’s legislative elections and dismantle Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups the State Department condemns as engaging in terror against Israel.

But Bush recognizes that decisions to guide the elections are for the Palestinian Authority, and not outsiders, to make, said a senior U.S. official who declined to be identified before the White House meeting.

Bush also will be looking for actions to promote democracy in Palestinian-held areas, the official said.

With Bush’s support, the Palestinians are a step closer to what Abbas spoke of last May in the White House Rose Garden, when he said Palestinians were “in dire need of freedom” from Israeli control.

Since then - thanks largely to an initiative by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - Israel has relinquished Gaza after a 38-year occupation, and has dismantled four West Bank settlements.

But almost all the 1.4 million Palestinians who live in Gaza are desperately poor. Abbas is seeking help from Israel to get November’s harvest to outside markets, and also would like to focus attention on Palestinian demands for full-scale Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Palestinian leader also wants Bush to lean on Israel to drop curbs on Palestinian motorists using West Bank roads. The restrictions were imposed after a recurrence last week of deadly terror attacks on Israelis.

Abbas also would like Bush to call again on Israel to abandon makeshift outposts on the West Bank that are supposed to be dismantled under the blueprint, or roadmap, to peace talks adopted by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia and accepted by Sharon and the Palestinian Authority.

“Abbas is someone who is in a difficult situation,” Ziad J. Asali, president of the private American Task Force on Palestine, said in an interview. “But he is looking to dispel the accusation that he is weak, and to show that he has a good understanding and analysis of his circumstances.”

He also wants to form a partnership with the United States in resolving such issues as the Palestinian economy, Hamas and lawlessness, Asali said.

Abbas is counting on legislative elections in January to advance Palestinian self-rule. But the travel curbs are raising suspicions that Israel might disrupt the balloting in its zeal to throttle Hamas, whose participation in the Palestinian elections has Abbas’ approval.

In advance of Abbas’ arrival, American diplomats registered with Palestinian officials a U.S. request that candidates in next January’s election be required to renounce violence as a means of easing tensions with Israel, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

But Edward Abington, a former U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem who advises the Palestinian leadership, said Abbas prefers bringing Hamas and other militant groups into the political process, where he hopes to bind them to law-and-order legislation.

“As far as running in an election, you cannot cherry-pick between those you like and those you don’t like,” Abington said in an interview. “But once they are in the legislature they will be bound by the decisions and the laws passed by the legislature.”

Abbas may face similar requests to screen out extremist candidates when he meets with House and Senate leaders after seeing the president. Abbas also was to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney.