WASHINGTON: Brushing aside the disagreements that have long thwarted past efforts to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians, US President George W. Bush views the Middle East conflict as part of his “war on terrorism.”

A transcript of a one-hour chat Bush held with reporters last week aboard Air Force One, flying from Jordan to Qatar after his Middle East summits, shows the president referred to “terror” or its derivatives 45 times.

But the text — a window on Bush’s thinking as he faces the daunting task of Middle East peacemaking — makes no mention of the disputes that have divided Arabs and Jews for decades, including the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory or Jewish settlements in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

Nor did he talk about the status of Jerusalem — holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews — or the right of return sought by millions of Palestinian refugees.

Arabs want the United States to mediate a final settlement of the territorial conflict, in the belief that the occupation itself is at the root of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israeli civilians.

But Bush put the emphasis firmly on the violence, saying the “war on terrorism” he launched after the attacks on the United States in September 2001 must also target the Palestinian militants who attack Israelis.

“We’ve got people on the hunt trying to find them (Al Qaeda), one at a time. It’s that same effort that will take place in the Palestinian territories, but it requires the desire by all leaders to want to fight it,” he said.

Palestinians and other Arabs, he said, were willing to join the war because they had seen the effects of violence in their own countries. Bush was apparently referring to recent bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

Bush portrayed the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, as a needy ally in the US-led war. “We’ve now got a partner in peace, Prime Minister Abbas, who wants the tools necessary to chase them (militants) down,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bush said, sees Abbas’s role in much the same light. “He wants an equal partner. He wants a partner in the battle on terror — not somebody who will say they’re going to fight terror and then turn a blind eye to terror.”—Reuters