On a landmark visit to the West Bank, George Bush, the
US president, has said that any future Palestinian
state must be a continuous territory without
checkpoints.
But, despite optimistic comments that there could be a
deal on a Palestinian state by the end of the year, an
off-the-cuff remark about checkpoints threatens to
overshadow the trip.
"You'll be happy to know, my whole motorcade of a mere
45 cars was able to make it through without being
stopped," Bush said after being asked about the
30-minute journey from Jerusalem and Ramallah.
"I'm not so exactly sure that's what happens to the
average person."
Bush was forced to travel by car to meet Mahmoud
Abbas, the Palestinian president, in the West Bank
after his helicopter was grounded by bad weather.
The journey took him through an Israeli security
checkpoint and within sight of the separation barrier.
Bush said that he could understand why Palestinians
were "frustrated" by the checkpoints, but they were
necessary to "create a sense of security for Israel".
Pain and humiliation
Al Jazeera's David Chater in west Jerusalem said that
the remarks were extraordinary given the pain and
humiliation that is caused at the checkpoints.
"What has to happen in order for there to be a
peaceful settlement of a long-standing dispute is ...
outlines of a state clearly defined."
"I remember once in Hawara, one of the checkpoints
outside Nablus, and I was doing the story of a family
who lost their main loved one ... he was a cancer
patient and he was told to get out of his car and walk
across the checkpoint, and that killed him," he said.
"That's the experience that most Palestinians have of
these humiliating checkpoints ... it was very much in
bad taste and was a joke that will not have gone down
well with anyone in Gaza or the occupied West Bank."
The US president met Abbas at the Palestinian
Authority's headquarters on the second day of his
Middle East tour aimed at bolstering peace talks.
Bush said he believed that the Palestinians would sign
a treaty with Israel to establish their own state
before he leaves office in about one year.
"And I believe it's possible - not only possible, I
believe it's going to happen - that there be a signed
peace treaty by the time I leave office [in January
2009]," he said.
'Contiguous territory'
The US president said that any future Palestinian
state must be a "contiguous territory" rather than a
patchwork of Palestinian-controlled areas divided by
Israeli checkpoints and Jewish settlements.
"Swiss cheese isn't going to work when it comes to the
territory of a state."
Abbas urged Bush to press Israel to halt Jewish
settlements and ease security restrictions in the
occupied West Bank that Palestinians say cripple their
society and economy.
Bush also urged Israel, which frequently mounts raids
into the West Bank, not to take action that undermines
Abbas's security forces.
"There needs to be a fair amount of work to modernise
the [Palestinian] security forces... my message to
Israelis is that they ought to help, not hinder
[them]," he said.
On the issue of the Gaza Strip, which has been
entirely under the control of the Hamas movement since
June last year, Bush said: "There is a competing
vision in Gaza."
He said the people of Gaza need to choose between
Hamas, which has "delivered nothing but misery", and
"those who have negotiated a peace settlement".
But in another comment likely to draw Palestinian ire,
Bush said that the two parties should leave behind
unimplemented UN resolutions, such as those calling
for the removal of Israeli settlements and a right of
return for Palestinian refugees.
"The UN deal didn't work in the past... this is an
opportunity to move forward and negotiate a new deal,"
he said.
'Totally disconnected'
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst,
said that there was a sense that Bush was making an
effort with the peace process.
"He really wants to leave a legacy of a peace-maker
between the Israelis and the Palestinians," he said.
"On the other hand his discourse in the press
conference shows that he has either been poorly
briefed or he is totally disconnected from the
Palestinian-Israeli reality,"" he said.
After meeting Abbas in Ramallah, Bush flew by
helicopter to Bethlehem to visit the Church of the
Nativity, built over the traditional birthplace of
Jesus.
There the president, a devout Christian, spoke of his
hope for a divine gift of freedom for all people and
an end to the walls and checkpoints that ring the
Palestinian town.
However, Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland said that
residents felt "that their whole city has been put
under curfew, effectively for a visit that's for them
devoid of meaning".
The Palestinian minister of tourism said she had tried
unsuccessfully to persuade the US president to take a
walking tour of Bethlehem - where the Israeli
separation wall almost encircles the town, choking off
its economy - in order to understand the situation
there.
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