Bush has "new hope" for the future "now that Arafat is dead"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20041112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_blair



Bush claims he's never stopped working on the U.S.-backed plan for peace — the so-called road map, which calls for a new Palestinian state in 2005. "The vision is two states, a Palestinian state and Israel, living side-by-side in peace. I think we've got a chance to do that," the president said this week.

The issue has taken a back seat to Iraq. But two new developments have given the Bush administration new hope for progress: Israel's decision to withdraw 8,200 settlers from Gaza and 600 from four West Bank settlements beginning next summer, and prospects for new Palestinian leadership now that Arafat is dead. Bush had refused to work with Arafat, and the White House is hopeful that his successor can control violent groups and negotiate with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is loathe to start talks amid violence.

Blair is concerned about what happens in the post-Arafat era, said Julianne Smith, deputy director of the international security program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The worst-case scenario is that we just continue to have this muddle-through approach, focus strictly on Iraq and maintain the policy that the road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad," she said of foreign policy experts who believe that a democratic Iraq will foster peace throughout the Middle East. "Blair wants to change that. He wants to say let's go back the Middle East peace process in terms of combatting terrorism."



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