In a major US policy shift, President Bush yesterday recognised Israel's claim to a significant portion of the West Bank in a final peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Conor O'Clery North America Editor in New York, and David Horovitz in Jerusalem report
With Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon standing beside him after their meeting in the White House, Mr Bush also ruled out the right of return to Israel of Palestinian refugees, one of the most sensitive issues for Palestinians.
Mr Bush's enthusiastic show of support for the Israeli leader is expected to help Mr Sharon persuade his Likud party to vote on May 2nd for his plan to dismantle 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four on the West Bank.
Furious Palestinian leaders said Mr Bush's new positions represented a brutal intervention over issues that ought to be left for negotiation, and risked pitching the region into deeper conflict.
The plan was condemned by Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat as "the complete end of the peace process".
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said in Ramallah that Mr Bush "is the first president who has legitimised the settlements in Palestinian territories." Mr Saeb Erekat, the former chief Palestinian peace negotiator, echoed the protest. "This is like someone giving a part of Texas's land to China."
Yesterday's joint Bush-Sharon appearance was in stark contrast to earlier White House initiatives on the Middle East, when Palestinian leaders were present.
"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centres, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949," Mr Bush said after talks with Mr Sharon in the White House.
Referring to Mr Sharon's action as "historic and courageous", he said it held "great promise for the Palestinian people" to build a modern economy and new institutions and end terror and violence "that impede their aspirations".
Emphasising US commitment to Israel as a Jewish state, Mr Bush said that the solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in any final status agreement, "will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than Israel".
A beaming Mr Sharon thanked Mr Bush for "your support for my plan". In that context, he said, "you handed me a letter that includes very important statements regarding Israel's security and its well-being as a Jewish state."
Mr Bush reiterated his support for the US-EU-Russia-UN "roadmap" to an independent Palestinian state, which does not, however, endorse Mr Sharon's proposal that some Jewish settlements on the West Bank must be permanent and others allowed to remain temporarily. In contrast to the Palestinian reaction, Mr Sharon and his supporters were ecstatic at the new US presidential stance, which also included an explicit commitment to Israel as a "Jewish state" and which endorsed continued Israeli control over border crossings between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, and the West Bank and Jordan.
A source in Mr Sharon's Washington delegation said the Palestinians should be delighted by the prospect of Israeli withdrawing from the entire Gaza Strip, a move which the source said would better "enable the Palestinian Authority to fight terrorism" there.
The Israeli prime minister is hoping that the staunch expressions of support he heard in the White House will help win over opponents of his disengagement plan within his own Likud party and around his cabinet table.
Some of Mr Sharon's domestic opponents acknowledged that President Bush's overwhelming display of solidarity would make it much harder for them to defeat the prime minister in a referendum on the disengagement plan to be held on May 2nd among all 200,000 Likud party members.