Bush Reaffirms Alliance With Israel

US President George W. Bush opened a 48-hour visit to Israel yesterday by reaffirming Washington’s “enduring alliance” with the state. Calling Israel a “true democracy,” Bush told Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem that “I suspect that if you look back 60 years ago ... I doubt people would have been able to foresee the modern Israel.”

“What happened here, could happen everywhere.” Bush is visiting Israel as it is celebrating 60 years since it declared statehood on May 14, 1948. He is to address an international conference marking the state’s 60th anniversary, attended by key world leaders and hosted by Peres as well as Israel’s Knesset (parliament) this afternoon.

In a series of meetings with Israeli leaders before his departure tomorrow, he will also be briefed on the difficult Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which were revived late last year for the first time in seven years.

Unlike during his first visit in January, Bush will not travel to Ramallah. But he will be briefed on the talks by the Palestinian side in meetings with President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on Saturday and Sunday.

“It’s good to be back again,” Bush said at a festive welcoming ceremony at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport earlier yesterday. “We are proud to reaffirm the friendship of our peoples,” he said. Olmert called Israel’s alliance with the US “one of the fundamental pillars of our national security.”

As Israel continued its celebrations Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza began marking the 60th anniversary of the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli War that erupted following Israel’s creation. The war, during which hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees fled their homes in what is now Israel, is known to them as the Nakba — catastrophe in Arabic.

Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops at a number of military checkpoints in the West Bank. Some six people were reported injured at the Qalandia checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, when the troops responded to stone-throwing with rubber bullets and tear gas.

In Gaza, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar told a conference commemorating the Nakba his movement would “never” recognize Israel. “Israel is going to disappear one day and the Palestinian people will remain to fully liberate all their occupied land,” he told a cheering audience.

Palestinians are also angered with Israel’s declarations that it will not stop building in a number of West Bank settlement blocks, which it has vowed to keep under any final peace deal.

The head of the PA negotiating team, Ahmed Qorei, ruled out the possibility that a breakthrough would be achieved by the end of this year. “We are holding serious negotiations (with Israel) on all the crucial issues,” Qorei said. “All the issues are on the table and there are many differences between the two sides.”

Nimer Hammad, political adviser to Abbas, said that without the “strong intervention” of the international community in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, it would be impossible to reach an agreement before the end of the year.” Hammad warned against the “marginalization” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the wake of other events taking place in the Middle East.