Bush to urge Sharon to ease pressure on Palestinians
From John King
CNN Washington
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush will press Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to deliver on previous commitments to take steps to ease the economic and humanitarian suffering of the Palestinian people, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The two leaders meet Wednesday in the Oval Office, and Bush will make the case that Palestinians pushing for reform need to see proof their efforts will bring better living conditions.
The administration has delivered several direct messages of late making clear its displeasure about Israeli military sieges at the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah, and Bush is likely to repeat that position in the face-to-face meeting, U.S. officials said.
One White House frustration is that the recent sieges have reinvigorated support for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat just as he was facing internal pressure to accept reforms -- including some calls for him to yield considerable day-to-day authority over Palestinian affairs.
Sharon has characterized the Israeli actions as a necessary response to terrorist attacks on Israel.
The Israeli leader also has made clear that, unlike the Persian Gulf war in 1991, Israel would be unlikely to show restraint and decide not to retaliate if Iraq launched missiles against Israel during any military showdown in the region.
White House officials were reluctant to talk about that issue in advance of the meeting, saying they viewed the issue as premature because Bush has not yet decided whether military force will be used in the latest confrontation with Iraq.
But senior officials said Iraq would be a subject of the conversations. They said the administration would prefer that Israel not talk publicly about the possibility of retaliating against Iraq, because such talk makes the Bush administration's diplomacy in the Arab world all the more difficult.
