President Bush Claims That He Is Gods Messenger: 

`Road map is a life saver for us,' PM Abbas tells Hamas

According to Abbas, - Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida 
and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which 
I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.
If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I
will have to focus on them."  

By Arnon Regular

06/26/03: (Harretz) Selected minutes acquired by Haaretz from one of 
last week's cease-fire negotiations between Palestinian Prime Minister 
Mahmoud Abbas and faction leaders from the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and 
the Popular and Democratic Fronts, reveal some of the factors at play 
behind the scenes in the effort to achieve a hudna.  

Abbas opened the session after hearing scathing criticism from faction 
leaders for his Aqaba speech in which he defined their activities as 
"terrorism." He began with a broad review of his two meetings with 
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Aqaba summit.  

"After seven days we did not reach agreement in Cairo on either the 
hudna or the united leadership. These points were later discussed in 
contacts in Gaza and in my view, the two points are the ones that 
should be on the table."  

Abbas said: "The descriptions of what happened at Sharm el Sheikh 
and in Aqaba are vague in parts and in some parts are inventions,
so this is an opportunity to talk about what happened since the PA 
accepted the road map on December 20," he said. "Despite our 
reservations we decided not to make them an obstacle, believing
that the road map was a life saver for a tiger whose head was caught
in the neck of the bottle."  

Abbas said "we were told that [President George ] Bush is committed 
to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state beside the state 
of Israel, so based on our saying that we are ready to try that 
experiment, that is what was determined."  

He explained to the faction leaders that with regard to the first phase
of the road map, there was an agreement with the Americans that "the 
Palestinians would speak publicly about their commitments according 
to the map and then the Israelis would do the same thing." From there, 
he moved on to describe what happened at the summits. He said that 
Bush told the Arab leaders that he is fully committed to a solution 
based on his vision speech from June 24, 2002 and is ready to move 
forward "if there is help on your part."  

"The Arabs supported him and I said we are ready to fulfill our 
commitments as they appear in the map," said Abbas. He said the 
discussion of the start of the implementation of the map dealt
with Gaza, where he said that Palestinian Authority institutions
"are 75 percent destroyed, while in the West Bank they are 100
percent destroyed."  

He emphasized that at that stage he made clear to the participants at 
the Sharm summit that "we need time and capabilities to stand on our 
feet. And I explained that I had already spoken with Ariel Sharon about 
reaching a hudna between all the Palestinian factions." According to 
Abbas, "Bush exploded with anger and said `there can be no deals with 
terror groups.' We told him that they are part of our people and we 
cannot deal with them in any other way. We cannot begin with repression,
under no circumstances, and I made clear to Bush that Sharon already
agreed with that."

He said that he presented Bush with the deliberations about the
hudna that he had with Sharon in Jerusalem after he was appointed
prime minister. He explained to Bush that the dialogue between the 
Palestinian factions that began in Cairo and continued in Gaza were
on the verge of completion. He said that Bush said "a case-fire is
not the whole story" - Bush meant that a hudna is only the start of
the process of disarming the groups.  

Abbas outlined the political contacts during the Aqaba summit and 
said he added the prisoner issue at the three-way session with Bush 
and Sharon. "I told them the prisons are the election district for a
campaign of calm in the Palestinian territories." He said Bush then
turned to Sharon "with the following words, `look what you can profit
from this, that holding onto the prisoners only creates tension.'"  

Abbas said: "We were asked what we need if Israel withdraws and
we said `that there not be raids, chases, assassinations or house 
demolitions, because that kind of activity will destroy everything.'"  

Abbas tried to placate the faction leaders by telling them that 
Palestinian Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan had raised the exact 
same issues with John Wolf, the American monitor of the road map.
He tried to explain that in the wake of the failed attempt on Abdel
Aziz Rantisi's life, the PA was now insisting on an end to the
assassinations.
 
He went on to explain his speech in Aqaba. "We did not speak of our 
rights but only of our commitments. Bush was impressed by that and 
mentioned the prisoners and settlements in his speech." On the matter 
of the right of return, Abbas said "that right appears in all the
previous initiatives, and is not under discussion now. Bush asked,
if that's the case, why mention the settlements now, and I told him
the settlements are happening now. The Israelis use the excuse of
natural growth and I told them that according to U.S. statistics,
33 percent of settlements are empty. We said the growth should happen
westward, and not on our territory."  

Abbas said that at Aqaba, Bush promised to speak with Sharon about 
the siege on Arafat. He said nobody can speak to or pressure Sharon 
except the Americans.  

According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me
to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me
to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve
the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if
not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."  

(c) Copyright 2003 Harretz

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Source: Information Clearinghouse ....
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3939.htm


Cheers, Steve..

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