WASHINGTON: The Bush administration begins a new round of high-level Middle East diplomacy this week at odds with virtually all of its partners in the peace process, including Arab and European allies who are hoping for an evolution in US policy away from the hard lines enunciated in President Bush’s most recent speech on the subject.

Arab leaders, who felt blindsided by Bush’s June 24 call for new Palestinian leadership as a prerequisite to political negotiations, along with his decision not to press Israel to lift harsh military restrictions in Palestinian territories, gathered in Cairo on Friday in advance of a Tuesday meeting in New York between the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and top European and UN diplomats.

Although reluctant to start an overt fight they are unlikely to win, senior Arab officials said they hope to convince the administration that there are physical and political limits to Palestinian reform in the absence of reciprocal Israeli movement.

Their strategy, officials said, is to applaud Bush’s call for Palestinian statehood within three years and to push for a realistic assessment of what is necessary to achieve it. New Palestinian leadership, for example, requires elections. But elections cannot be organized or held, they said, while Palestinians are confined to their homes under military occupation and curfews.

“We want to talk about the mechanisms to move from now to the endgame,” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher. “We want a plan, a schedule, and benchmarks for all sides,” including Israel.

A senior Bush administration official said that the White House “fully recognizes that the restriction on freedom of movement is an impediment to reform in a lot of areas.” In its view, however, there are things that the Palestinians can do in the absence of Israeli withdrawal, including in the financial area.

“At a certain point, in order for things to move forward, the Israelis have to move,” the official agreed. But Israel must be the sole judge of its defence requirements, he said, and “ultimately, Israel makes decision about Israeli actions.”

Little that the administration has said or done in the three weeks since Bush’s speech has assuaged their concerns that he sees the peace process, for the moment at least, as a series of one-sided demands on the Palestinians, European and Arab officials said. While diplomatic efforts should focus on political reform, greater security and economic aid, they believe that the continued Israeli occupation has made progress on all but the economic front difficult.

At this week’s meetings, officials said, Powell will seek support for a step-by-step “action plan” for Palestinian reform, which began in earnest last week with the formation of an international task force that started restructuring the Palestinian Authority’s financial operations.

In addition to Powell, the meeting will include UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, representatives of the Mideast “quartet” established in Madrid last May to facilitate the peace process. The Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers will join them later in the day and then travel to Washington, along with Saudi Arabian Prince Saud Al Faisal for bilateral and group meetings with Powell on Wednesday.

The most controversial part of Bush’s June 24 framework was his call for a change in Palestinian leadership, including the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Although Europeans, the United Nations and Arabs alike questioned how the United States could insist on a democratically-elected Palestinian government while saying in advance that certain outcomes were unacceptable, there appears to be tacit agreement on all sides to set the Arafat issue aside for the moment.

Arafat wrote last week to Powell and other diplomats who will attend the New York meetings, arguing that Palestinians already have made strides in implementing reforms demanded by Bush but are now stymied by the continued presence of Israeli troops in Palestinian areas, according to Palestinian envoy Hassan Abdel Rahman.

At a news conference last week, Bush passed up an opportunity to press the Israelis to pull back from the West Bank, saying occupation was justified until “security improves.” But Edward S. Walker Jr, a former top State Department official for Middle Eastern affairs, said many diplomats believe “there is really no way to get from point A to point B as long as the occupation continues.”

The administration has said it understands and agrees with deep Arab and UN concern about a growing humanitarian crisis in Palestinian areas, where malnutrition among young children and poverty are soaring, according to a recent US assessment, and where Palestinian inability to travel to workplaces has driven unemployment up to 75 per cent in some areas. For this reason, and to allow political reforms to develop, the Arabs argue, pressure is now required on the Israelis to step back from the West Bank occupation.

Although Israel has moved in recent days to ease curfew restrictions and lessen troop presence in some West Bank areas, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made clear no withdrawal is planned.

The Arab leaders have much at stake in altering the US position. The governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt believe that their close consultations with the administration have put them “out on a limb,” in terms of their own domestic politics, as another senior Arab official put it.—Dawn/The LAT/WP News Service.