Bush gives Arab leaders a task list
Outlines steps to achieve peace in Middle East
SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt - After a showy celebration of America's close ties with Israel, President Bush presented Arab leaders with a lengthy to-do list yesterday, telling them that if Middle East peace is to become a reality, they must expand their economies, offer equal opportunity to women, and embrace democracy.
"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," Bush said in an address to the World Economic Forum here, adding, "The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices and treat their people with the dignity and respect they deserve."
The speech, given to an audience of diplomats, world leaders, policymakers, and business executives in this Red Sea resort town, came at the end of a five-day Middle East tour that also took Bush to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The tone of the address, meant as a bookend to a speech the president gave last week to Israeli lawmakers, seemed to acknowledge what the administration sees as some of the obstacles its diplomacy faces in pushing a peace agreement in the last months of Bush's presidency.
The White House had billed the Middle East trip as a mix of symbolism and substance, and it said Bush would use his time in the region to shore up the faltering Arab-Israeli peace talks.
But the president's three-day stay in Jerusalem, which included tours of the ancient fortress Masada, a private viewing of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a host of laudatory exchanges between Bush and Israeli leaders, drew sharp criticism in the Arab world, where he was accused of being insensitive to Palestinian concerns.
In Sharm el Sheik, Bush tried to soften that impression. He held a series of meetings with regional leaders - including those from Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan - at a spectacular villa with stone walkways lined by pink and red bougainvillea, overlooking the sparkling Red Sea.
Emerging from a session with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, on Saturday afternoon, Bush said he had told Abbas that he was "absolutely committed" to a Palestinian state.
"It breaks my heart to see the vast potential of the Palestinian people really wasted," Bush said, with Abbas by his side. "They're good, smart, capable people that, when given a chance, will build a thriving homeland."
Yet Bush's speech yesterday afternoon seemed to chide as much as reassure.
"In our democracy, we would never punish a person for owning a Koran," Bush said at one point, taking aim at those who, he said, assert democracy and Islam are incompatible. "And we would never issue a death sentence to someone for converting to Islam. Democracy does not threaten Islam or any other religion. Democracy is the only system of government that guarantees their protection."
At another point, the president warned that Middle Eastern economies would not thrive unless opportunities were offered to women. "This is a matter of morality and basic math," he said.
And after unsuccessfully trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to increase oil production enough to cause a drop in gasoline prices in the United States, Bush had a message for oil-producing nations, saying that as America and other countries look to alternative forms of energy, the market for Middle East oil will diminish, forcing countries here to diversify their economies.
The speech stood in stark contrast to the one Bush delivered to Israeli lawmakers, although he tried to link the two.
In the first speech, timed to coincide with the 60th birthday of Israel, Bush outlined his vision for what the Middle East would look like on Israel's 120th birthday.
He used some of the same language yesterday, repeating certain passages word for word and telling his audience that his vision "is not a Jewish vision or a Muslim vision, not an American vision or an Arab vision; it is a universal vision." 