Bush Snubs Blair’s Plea For Monitors In Palestine

The plea was at the heart of talks between the two sides at the highest level over the past few months with London urging Washington to play an active role in the Middle East to alley the growing “Islamic” hatred towards the West, said the paper.

But defiant wartime Bush was not even ready to think it over, it quoted a Whitehall official as saying.

The Times said the reaction came to the resentment of Blair who gambled on his political career by staunchly supporting U.S. policies in return for its backing of the moribund Middle East peace process.

The foreign office and intelligence officials have succeeded in getting Palestinian security services under one umbrella in the West Bank to revive the Palestinian-Israeli security coordination.

But they were keen on taking a step further in the Gaza Strip by convincing Washington to approve the dispatch of U.S.-led hundreds-strong security force to head off any repercussions due to a planned Israeli pullout of the Strip.

Israel fears the conflict with the Palestinians would take an international dimension if such a force was deployed.

American concerns that a possible power vacuum in the Strip could be filled by Hamas played into the hands of London , which has been pressing Washington to accept the proposal, but to no avail due to Israeli pressure.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has done everything in his power to scupper British attempts to have a European role in the occupied territories, hinting this could damage Bush’s reelection campaign.

He has been rather trying to drum up American support for his unilateral disengagement plan.

Annexation

Although Bush has finally agreed to schedule a meeting with Sharon on April14 , he refused to cross the lines set by the American foreign policy about an Israeli request to approve annexation of Gush Etzion and Ma’aleh Adumim settlement blocs east and south of Al-Quds (occupied Jerusalem ) and Ariel in the northwest of the West Bank .

Sources in the Bush administration said it would be difficult to endorse the Israeli request, reported the Israeli Haaretz daily Sunday, March28 .

Israel Radio quoted the sources as saying the proposal was ill-timed especially that Bush was trying to calm the Arab world in the aftermath of Israeli’s assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last week.

The 66 -year-old wheelchair-bound Yassin was assassinated along with eight others in an Israeli missile strike on his way home after performing the dawn prayers.

According to the sources, Bush would be more willing to support Sharon ‘s disengagement plan, arguing it could rekindle the peacemaking.

The official announcement of the Bush-Sharon meeting date came at the conclusion of talks last week between Israeli delegates Dov Weisglass and Giora Eiland and U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and National Security Council representatives Steven Hadley and Elliot Abrams are to arrive in Israel on Wednesday to finalize arrangements for Sharon ‘s trip.

They will also visit Egypt and Jordan to prepare upcoming visits of their leaders to Washington .

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would fly to Washington two days before Sharon while Jordanian King Abdullah II was due on April21 .