U.S. tries to revive Mideast peace talks

President Bush said Monday that his administration would sponsor a fall meeting of Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders to try to revive Middle East peace efforts aimed at the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Bush, seeking to build support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with the militant Hamas movement, said the United States also was prodding other countries, including Arab states, to step up donations to Abbas’ government. He said U.S. contributions this year will total $190 million, most of which has already been committed and announced.

Despite a commitment Bush made five years ago to a Palestinian state, the White House has shied away from the type of intensive brokering efforts that previous administrations engaged in to try to move the process forward. After Hamas, which seeks the destruction of Israel, won a majority of seats in Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006, the U.S. and European Union halted assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

An uneasy Palestinian power-sharing arrangement ended with Hamas’ military takeover of the Gaza Strip last month. Bush, in his White House speech Monday, said Palestinians have a choice between the moderation of Abbas, who controls the West Bank, and the radicalism of Hamas.

‘A moment of clarity’

The takeover of Gaza has created “a moment of clarity for all Palestinians,” Bush said.

He added, “And now comes the moment of choice.”

Administration officials hope that collaboration of Arab states in the peace effort will help bring new diplomatic momentum at a time when most observers are deeply pessimistic about the prospects for peace.

An international meeting that brings together Israel and Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, which has no diplomatic dealings with Israel, would be a rare event and a public relations coup for the United States. It would also give a boost to the weak administration of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Daniel Levy, a former advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

David Welch, the assistant secretary of State for the Middle East, told reporters there was reason for optimism.

“We wouldn’t be launching ourselves on this enterprise if we didn’t feel some confidence that there is a willingness in the region to embrace the path to peace,” Welch said.

But U.S. officials acknowledged that they were only beginning to issue invitations to the fall meeting, at which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would preside. No location has been announced. President Bush called Saudi King Abdullah, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday afternoon, officials said.

Some of the Arab states have a different view of ways to establish Palestinian-Israeli peace. Whereas the United States seeks to isolate Hamas in Gaza, the Saudis and Egyptians, for example, have spoken of the need to try to re-form a “unity” government between Hamas and Fatah, Abbas’ party.

Bush said both the Israelis and Palestinians had obligations if the peace effort is to move forward.

Israel must remove unauthorized outposts in Palestinian territory and halt expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Bush said. He also called on Olmert to continue to release tax revenue it has collected for the Palestinians.

The president said the Palestinians “must arrest terrorists, dismantle their infrastructure and confiscate illegal weapons.”

Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Israeli officials welcomed Bush’s call for a peace conference.

Israel has been averse to multilateral peace conferences in the past, preferring to deal through U.S. mediators or directly with the Palestinian Authority. But Regev said Israel “supports multilateral efforts to strengthen the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.”

Nabil abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Abbas, offered a low-key response to Bush’s comments, saying the important goal was to move toward the “road map,” the U.S.-sponsored process intended to bring peace.

“Convening an international peace conference is part of the road map, and a goal of the peace process,” Abu Rudaineh said. “However, it should lead to the implementation of the road map and the Arab peace initiative as well.”

Aaron David Miller, a U.S. Middle East advisor from 1978 to 2003, said that although some parts of the Bush administration’s approach seemed “logical and understandable,” he was not convinced that the White House would give this the priority necessary at a time when the obstacles are so formidable.

‘Low expectations’

“We should have low expectations about what can be accomplished over the next 18 months,” Miller said.

Levy, now a senior fellow with the New America Foundation, said Bush in his remarks “pushed down softly on the accelerator of a failed Middle East policy.”

Israel has channeled more than $100 million in frozen Palestinian tax funds to Abbas’ government, agreed to grant clemency to 178 wanted militants from Abbas’ Fatah movement and scaled back arrest raids in the West Bank. It has also pledged to free 252 Palestinian terrorist suspects this week, most of them Fatah militants.

Abbas and Olmert met Monday for the second time since the Gaza takeover and pledged to meet again in two weeks.

Palestinian officials often voice frustration that talks between the pair have focused more on confidence-building measures than on the substantive issues of a final peace settlement -- borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and conflicting claims over Jerusalem.

In an interview published Monday, Salam Fayyad, an economist named by Abbas last month to head the Fatah-run government, urged the Israelis to move beyond gestures.

“In order to rebuild the faith of the Palestinian and Israeli publics in the peace process, we must tackle the short-term and long-term simultaneously,” Fayyed told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Olmert, said after the talks that the two men had discussed “how best to reach a two-state solution.”

But she added that Israel “wants to see how the Palestinians govern, how they restore law and order,” before entering substantive peace negotiations.

“Until both sides restore confidence, it’s hard to jump to a different status of talks,” she said.

Paul.Richter@latimes.com

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem and special correspondent Maher Abukhater in the West Bank contributed to this report.