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4/9/2002 (16:43) |
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Bush still dissatisfied with Israeli pullout
By Randall Mikkelsen
OLD GREENWICH, Conn., April 9 (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday stood by its demand for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian areas as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to fight on after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush.
U.S. President George W. Bush, who first made his demand last Thursday, expects more from Israel than a troop withdrawal from two West Bank cities and wants its forces pulled out of Palestinian areas now, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
'He's still looking for results,' Fleischer told reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush traveled to Connecticut for a speech and Republican fund-raising lunch.
Fleischer spoke shortly after 13 Israeli troops died in an ambush at a refugee camp in Jenin, where at least 100 Palestinians have also died in a week of fierce fighting, and after Sharon issued a statement saying Israel would continue its offensive.
'The president's message remains that both parties, all parties have responsibilities. Israel's are to withdraw and to do so now,' Fleischer said.
'The Arab nations' responsibilities are to exercise statesmanship, create an environment for peace by condemning terrorism, by stopping the funding of terrorists, by stopping the press that engages in hatred against Israel or Jews.'
ISRAEL LAUNCHES MORE RAIDS
Under intense pressure from Bush and with the impending arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Israeli army withdrew from Qalqilya and Tulkarm but defied its closest political ally and main financial benefactor with raids on more Palestinian towns.
The 11-day-old Israeli offensive raged elsewhere in Palestinian-ruled areas, including Jenin and Nablus, and there was no indication of a pullback from other towns and refugee camps seized after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 27 people in an Israeli hotel on March 27.
Bush's demands and his personal intervention after months of less-intense involvement have created what could be the most serious test of his international leadership since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
His full commitment to stopping the Israeli offensive, which has been portrayed by Sharon as a parallel to Bush's own war on terrorism, already had been questioned by many Arab states, which noted that Powell was not sent directly to Israel, but was going to three countries on the way.
Until late on Monday, Sharon had shown no signs of acceding to Bush's demand to disengage. Arab leaders have yet to heed his call to denounce terrorism and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has declined to disavow the suicide bombings in Arabic as Bush has requested.
Powell, due in Jerusalem later this week, said he hoped the withdrawal from Qalqilya and Tulkarm in the central West Bank was the start of the wider disengagement.
'Let us hope that this is not a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but the beginning of a pullback,' Powell said in Morocco at the start of his Middle East mission.
But even Tulkarm and Qalqilya were cut off from the outside world after Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers left. The Israeli Defense Ministry said a blockade around the two cities would be tightened.
LIMITED LEVERAGE
Washington has some leverage in the $3 billion in foreign aid granted to Israel every year. But the leverage is limited by Israel's strong political support in the United States.
Oil prices, which had soared on Monday after Iraq announced a one-month halt in supplies to protest Israel's offensive, fell on news of the partial withdrawal.
But Fleischer said the United States was keeping a variety of options on the table for responding to fluctuating oil prices and Bush told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Tuesday he was prepared to consider a range of options to ease the pain if Iraq's 30-day cutoff of oil exports made the problem of rising prices worse.
04/09/02 16:12 ET
Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited.
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