WASHINGTON, Feb 28: The White House on Thursday blamed former president Bill Clinton’s last-ditch push for Middle East peace in late 2000 for the bloody unrest that has wracked the region since then, saying unmet expectations there “turned to violence.”

“An attempt to push the parties beyond where they were willing to go,” spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters, “led to expectations that were raised to such a high level that it turned into violence” when those hopes were dashed.

Clinton, who left office in January 2001, spent much of his last months in office pressing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to reach peace deal, efforts that collapsed after a failed summit at Camp David in July 2000.

Fleischer said the former US leader’s drive led to the cycle of violence that erupted two months later because “the parties did not want to agree to what the United States was pushing for.”

“It is important to be careful in the region, to proceed at a pace that is achievable and doable, and not to raise people’s expectations falsely so high by trying to reach something that the parties cannot agree to themselves,” he said. “Failure to reach that level created unmet expectations in the region and that resulted in violence.”

Later, a senior administration official sought to backpedal from Fleischer’s criticisms, saying: “Ultimately it’s the fault of the parties for failing to reach agreement.”—AFP