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August 1, 2003/Av 3 5763, Vol. 55, No. 49
Sharon competes for Bush's attention
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
After President Bush's late July meetings with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, one thing is clear: Ariel Sharon no longer will have things all his own way in Washington.
Bush pointedly expressed admiration and respect for Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian Authority prime minister, whom he called "a leader of vision and courage and determination."
Still, Sharon was able to deflect American pressure on Israel over the security fence it is building along the border with the West Bank, and to underline Israel's insistence that the Palestinians must crack down on terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The fact that Bush was effusive in his praise of Abbas - despite Abbas' refusal to dismantle terrorist groups - worries the Israelis.
In his meetings with Bush and the White House national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, Sharon made it clear that unless the Palestinians dismantle terrorist groups - as they are obliged to do in the first phase of the "road map" peace plan - Israel will not move on to the second phase.
And, Sharon added, he doubts that the Palestinians will act without considerable American pressure.
So far, such pressure has not been forthcoming. Israeli analysts believe Bush went easy on Abbas because, having invested so much in Middle East peacemaking, he wants to show the Pal-estinians that America is an "honest broker" that can deliver a fair deal.
Ironically, Abbas' weakness on the Palestinian street is proving to be his strength: Against the backdrop of that weakness, he has been able press for American support and Israeli gestures of compromise.
Nowhere has the new American "even-handedness" been more apparent than on the issue of the security fence. After his meeting with Abbas, Bush even adopted Palestinian terminology, calling the fence a "wall."
Sharon came to his meeting with Bush armed with aerial photographs showing that only 10 percent of the security barrier actually is a wall, in areas where snipers in Palestinian cities along the West Bank border could fire at drivers on a major Israeli highway.
The rest of the barrier consists of an electronic fence, barbed wire obstacles and patrol roads, like the security fences along Israel's borders with Lebanon and Jordan.
Sharon has said that the fence is not meant to have any political significance, and in the future it could be moved depending on where the final borders are drawn.
The American inter-vention on the fence may not have stopped its construction, but it certainly ended any notion Sharon might have entertained of building a second fence along the Jordan Valley to protect Jewish settlements there.
The fear of being left with a minuscule Palestine, enclosed by fences on all sides, was one reason Abbas sought an American-led peace process.
For Sharon, though, it's not the fence or its route that is likely to undermine the peace process. It is the Palestinians' failure to disband terrorist groups.
In the meeting, he showed Bush Israeli intelligence assessments that Hamas and Islamic Jihad intend to launch a new wave of terror attacks when their cease-fire expires in late September.
Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.
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