Bush pledges more aid to Palestinians

WASHINGTON -- President Bush pledged more aid for the Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday and called for an autumn meeting of Israel, Palestinians, and their neighbors to help restart peace talks.

Bush said Palestinians faced a stark choice: freedom and progress under Abbas and his Fatah-led government, or "chaos and suffering" and endless violence under Hamas, the radical movement that Bush said had "betrayed the Palestinian people."

"The international community must rise to the moment," Bush said, calling on other countries in the Middle East to help realize the vision of an Israel and a Palestinian state living securely in peace . He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would head the autumn session, but the location was not specified.

It was not immediately clear who would attend the session. Bush urged Israel's Arab neighbors to open talks with Israel and show leadership by "ending the fiction that Israel does not exist, stopping the incitement in their official media and sending Cabinet-level visitors to Israel," words apparently meant for America's closest Arab ally, Saudi Arabia.

At the same time, Bush did not sound as though he was extending an invitation when he mentioned Iran and Syria, calling them "Hamas's foreign sponsors" and accusing them of sowing discord in Lebanon as well. The president urged Arab nations to live up to the past examples of Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, whom he called peacemakers.

The president said the United States would provide more than $190 million in assistance this year for the Palestinians, including humanitarian relief in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. In addition, the United States will give $80 million to the Abbas government to bolster its security services, he said.

Bush called on the Palestinian people to choose "a future of decency and hope, not a future of terror and death." But he pointedly said that Israel has a clear path as well. The president said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert must continue to release tax revenues to the Palestinian emergency government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is not a member of Fatah and was installed in the West Bank after Hamas took over control of Gaza.

The Bush administration's attempts to pressure Israel were illustrated hours before Bush spoke, when Abbas came to Jerusalem for another meeting with Olmert. The sessions between the two men are a direct result of Washington's pressure on both leaders to talk about a "political horizon" for a future Palestinian state.

But with this putative state now split between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in power in Gaza, there is great eagerness in Washington and Israel to make the West Bank a model for the Palestinian future, and the focus for aid and diplomacy.

As for the Hamas-controlled Gaza, the American and Israeli strategy has been to apply a squeeze, preventing normal trade and business relations but allowing imports of food, fuel, and medicine so that the population is not seen to suffer.

In another move to bolster Abbas in his struggle against Hamas, Olmert's office announced yesterday that 250 Palestinian prisoners would be freed this week. None are members of Hamas, and none has "blood on his hands," as an Israeli government spokesman put it, since none has been convicted of killing Israelis.

Bush has talked frequently about his desire for a lasting Middle East peace, and he noted yesterday that he first called for the creation of a Palestinian state five years ago, in a Rose Garden address. He said then that Palestinians should not have to endure poverty and occupations, and Israelis should not have to live in terror and violence.

While seeking to pressure Israel, Bush reiterated his pledge that the United States "will never abandon its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people."