Bush Predicts Mideast Peace Treaty
By John Waage and Chris Mitchell
CBN News Jerusalem Bureau
January 10, 2008
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - On day two of his three-day visit to Israel, President Bush met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The President's message: choose between a Palestinian state and chaos.
A Less Than Friendly Reception
Hostility to Bush runs high in Ramallah and other West Bank cities. But with Ramallah locked down for security reasons, Abbas received the President with a formal welcome.
Bush told the press that he expects Israel and the Palestinians to sign a peace deal before the end of the year. And he said Abbas knows the peace process is jeopardized only by a violent few.
"He understands that a handful of people want to dash the expectations of the Palestinian people," Bush said.
But Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi believes the Bush visit is more show than anything else.
"Even with the positive spin by the Palestinian Authority and the leadership, I think that deep down the Palestinians feel that this isn't anything substantive or serious," Ashrawi said.
Meanwhile, More Rocket Attacks…
While Bush met with Palestinian leaders, more terrorist rockets rained down from Gaza on the Israeli town of Sderot.
In Wednesday's joint press conference, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that Israel cannot tolerate the ongoing assault.
"There will be no peace unless terror is stopped and terror will have to be stopped everywhere. We made it clear to the Palestinians, they know it, and they understand that Gaza is part of the package," Olmert said.
Gaza gunmen also fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an American school. The school has previously been the target of anti-American demonstrations.
Bush was to raise the rocket issue with Abbas, but there is little Abbas can do to rein in Hamas, the group that controls Gaza and threatens his own authority in the West Bank.
A new survey by former White House pollster Stan Greenberg shows that 60 percent of Americans had little or no knowledge of the rocket attacks from Gaza.
The poll also shows that U.S. support for Israel is at a five-year high. More than 60 percent say the U.S. should support the Jewish state.
At the same time American support for the Palestinians has dropped. But so far that hasn't kept the President from preaching his vision of a Palestinian state.
Watch CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell's report followed by Pat Robertson's interview of Mitchell, which aired live via satellite on The 700 Club.
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