Bush Declares 'Battle' for Mideast

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Declaring a "battle" for the "future of the Middle East" between extremists and peacemakers, President Bush is kicking off what he said he hopes will be a final round of negotiations leading to the creation of a Palestinian Arab state carved from the land Israel won in the 1967 Six-Day War.

In a speech yesterday at the U.S. Naval Academy before the assembled foreign ministers of more than 30 nations, Mr. Bush said, "The time is right because a battle is under way for the future of the Middle East, and we must not cede victory to the extremists."

The initiative is being met with skepticism by foreign affairs veterans on both sides of the national debate. In the Wall Street Journal, historian Bernard Lewis, who has advised the Bush administration, wrote that the negotiations are "foredoomed" unless the Arab leadership either destroys Israel or renounces the goal of destroying Israel — two outcomes he judged "equally unlikely."

The president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a longtime enthusiast of Arab-Israeli negotiations and a former Bush administration official, Richard Haass, wrote, "The problem is that the conflict is not even close to being ripe for resolution. Ignoring this reality will lead to failure, if not catastrophe."

Syria's foreign minister, who sent his deputy here, yesterday met with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Iran's ambassador in Damascus to clarify the decision to attend the parley over the objections of Iran's president and supreme leader.

In the coming days, the State Department will name an interlocutor committed to "monitor and judge," in Mr. Bush's phrase, the implementation of the first phase of what has become known as the "road map," a plan first laid out in 2003 aimed at creating a Palestinian Arab state by 2005 by focusing at first on confidence building measures such as the dismantlement of settlements and the arrest of terrorists.

One name being floated for the position is a retired general, James Jones, the head of a congressionally appointed panel that blasted the Iraqi military and national police for terrorist infiltration and recommended its overhaul. Congressional Democrats cited the report in September during the debate over the credibility of the optimistic assessment of the commander of multinational forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus.

The road map's prior sequence — promising final status negotiations for the end of terror — no longer applies. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Palestinian Arab president, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed to begin the negotiations over the final borders of the Palestinian Arab state, the future of Jerusalem and the status of refugees who fled Israel in its 1948 war for independence once every other week for the next year regardless of progress on the road map's first phase. Israel before had eschewed such negotiations, which were the hallmark of the failed Camp David summit in 2000 sponsored by President Clinton, until the Palestinian Arabs halted their support for terrorism.

Mr. Olmert yesterday struck a new tone and said it was "inevitable" that territory his country won in 1967 would be relinquished for a Palestinian Arab state.

"I have no doubt that the reality created in our region in 1967 will change significantly. While this will be an extremely difficult process for many of us, it is nevertheless inevitable," Mr. Olmert said.

Mr. Abbas yesterday pledged a commitment to ending terror, but he was also frank that his security services — vanquished in June by the Iranian-supported Hamas — needed to be rebuilt with international aid. On December 12 major industrialized nations will meet in Paris for a donors conference to rebuild Palestinian Arab institutions on the West Bank and Gaza.

Mr. Bush said that in light of the rise of extremism in the region, it was more vital than ever to press for a final settlement to the conflict now. For the Israelis in particular, he said, "They must show the world that they are ready to begin to bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement. This settlement will establish Palestine as a Palestinian homeland, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people." He called on Israel to remove illegal settlement outposts and end the expansion of settlements. For the Palestinian Arabs, Mr. Bush said a Palestinian leadership must remove the "infrastructure of terror" and govern justly.

Mr. Olmert's embrace of the new negotiations is an evolution for the politician that won his first national election as a member of a new political party known as Kadima. Kadima comprised politicians who had come from both the right leaning Likud and left leaning Labor and who endorsed a strategy whereby Israel unilaterally withdrew from the West Bank as it had from Gaza, retaining the territory it wished to keep and leaving the Palestinian Arabs with what was left over.

Mr. Olmert made certain to say that the new round of talks with his Palestinian Arab counterpart would be based on prior agreements and understandings, including the April 14, 2004, letter from Mr. Bush to Prime Minister Sharon. In that letter America acknowledged that some Israeli settlements in the West Bank would remain a part of Israel's final borders. Israel has expanded a ring of settlement blocks around its capital of Jerusalem while beginning to dismantle others that have cropped up in Palestinian Arab population centers.

The understanding that the final borders for Israel would not exactly resemble its pre-1967 borders was first broached in the Oslo negotiations in the 1990s as land swaps. Israel would keep some West Bank land in exchange for relinquishing Palestinian population centers on the east bank of the Jordan River. An agreement in Taba, Egypt, in 2000 also endorsed the land swap principle.

Saudi Arabia and the Arab League, though, have said they would only support a peace deal based on Israel's return of all the land it won in 1967, a demand that would effectively re-divide the city of Jerusalem and cede Jewish holy sites, such as the Western Wall and Temple Mount, to an Arab state. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister yesterday said after the conference that his country was pressing Israel to enter negotiations with Lebanon and Syria to resolve the remaining territorial disputes the Arabs have with Israel.

The joint declaration between Messrs. Abbas and Olmert released yesterday makes no mention of the 2004 letter from Mr. Bush to Mr. Sharon. It does however say that America will "monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States."

The talks in Annapolis may be academic. Hamas now effectively controls Gaza and has waged a low intensity war on Mr. Abbas's party, Fatah. In an interview here, Israel's former ambassador to Washington, Daniel Ayalon, said it remained to be seen whether Israel had any kind of peace partner. "Israel gave up really big concessions by agreeing to talk about key concessions before the Palestinians implemented anything. The implementation of any agreement should not take place before Palestinians prove they are trustworthy partner," he said.

Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, the towns bordering that territory have faced a barrage of rocket fire. Until recently major Israeli politicians from both the right and left have said no territory in the West Bank, with its borders abutting Jerusalem, Ben Gurion Airport and the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, should be ceded to the Palestinian Arabs until the state could defend against the prospect of the rockets.