Israel instantly spurned the appeal by its closest ally, insisting work would not stop on the West Bank barrier it says is needed to stop suicide bombers and other militants from attacking the Jewish state.
“Israel should freeze settlement construction, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people and not prejudice final negotiations with the placement of walls and fences,” Bush said in a keynote speech on a state visit to Britain.
The president had in the past called the fence a “problem”, but a US official said the unusually tougher tone was occasioned by the swearing-in of a Palestinian cabinet last week.
The official said Israel had to be reminded that like the Palestinians, it had obligations to peacemaking.
Palestinians accuse Israel of building the fence to try to secure its hold on land it has occupied since the 1967 war. Some 220,000 Israelis live in settlements since built in the West Bank, home to about 2.3 million Palestinians.
Asked about Bush’s remarks, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel’s Army Radio from Vienna: “We have reached a clear and unequivocal decision to build this fence, to prevent the extremists from attacking us.
“We are doing everything we can to put up this fence that will prevent infiltrations,” he said.
The fence, which comprises concrete walls, ditches, trenches, roads, razor wire and electric fences, veers for much of its length well into the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Palestinians describe it as a new “Berlin Wall” that reflects an attempt to create a political border.
So far only about a quarter of the envisaged length of 680kms has been built.
Bush also said Palestinians should adopt peaceful means in their dealings with Israel, and urged Arab states to end anti-Israeli incitement in their media and cut off funding for terrorism.
Saeb Erekat, Palestinian minister for negotiations, said: “The important thing in President Bush’s speech is that he called upon the Israeli government to stop building the apartheid wall because it pre-empts the negotiations.
“We call upon President Bush to make the Israeli government stop building the wall immediately.”
Bush’s remarks may also have served to please his partner in the invasion of Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who before the invasion tried to sell Britons on backing Bush as a way of influencing US-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
European officials consistently complain that Bush has been far less engaged in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict than was his predecessor, Bill Clinton, and accuse Bush of favouring Israel over the Palestinians to the detriment of peacemaking.
Bush had a message also for Europe, saying: “Leaders in Europe should withdraw all favour and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause.
“And Europe’s leaders, and all leaders, should strongly oppose anti-Semitism, which poisons public debates over the future of the Middle East,” he said.
IRAN’S N-PLAN: About the ongoing controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, Mr Bush said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must “hold” Tehran to its non-proliferation commitments.
“America believes the IAEA must be true to its purpose and hold Iran to its obligations,” the US president said.
His comments, though brief, marked a new US broadside in a growing transatlantic battle over Iran’s nuclear programme, which Washington alleges Tehran is using as a cover for secretly developing atomic weapons.
The IAEA meets in Vienna on Thursday to consider charges levelled by Washington that Tehran is in non-compliance of nuclear safeguards.
The United States wants the IAEA to take tough diplomatic moves against Iran, but is stiffly opposed by key European states — including Britain, as well as France and Germany — who say Washington is going too far.
Washington wants to cite Iran for non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), including secretly making small amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium, while the European big three think this could force Iran to pull back from working with the IAEA.
A non-compliance ruling would bring the issue before the UN Security Council, which could then possibly impose sanctions on Iran, a move Tehran has warned would cause an international crisis.—Reuters