Bush, Sharon to Meet as Tension Brews

Throughout their shared time in office, President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have been ideological soul mates, each man reaping political windfalls with key voting blocs at home for their cooperation.

But as Bush and Sharon meet at the president’s ranch today, the potential for discord between the two friends and fellow ranchers looms larger than ever. And for both men, the political crosscurrents are increasingly complicated as each faces growing pressure from right-leaning supporters who worry that Israel is giving up too much, too fast to the Palestinians.

The differences have grown apparent in recent days. Bush and other U.S. officials have criticized Israel’s talk of expanding its largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, but Israelis have claimed the right to forge ahead. As Bush flew home Friday from Rome after attending the funeral of Pope John Paul II, he said he would express his objections to Sharon and remind him of Israel’s “obligations” under the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the “road map.”

As Bush and Sharon meet to discuss the plan for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian dispute and Israel’s planned pullout from the Gaza Strip, no one is predicting a public falling-out at the Texas summit.

But Bush could find himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to push the Israeli leader in directions he may be reluctant to go. And Sharon, who faces heated criticism from the Israeli right over his Gaza plan, may find it hard to give ground on an issue that some in his Likud Party believe is crucial to Israel’s security.

Bush and Sharon are expected to discuss a wide range of issues, including security and terrorism, but diplomats say the question of what Israel can and cannot do in its West Bank settlements is proving the most vexing.

In particular, Israel wants to expand the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim. That would ease pressure on Sharon from Israeli conservatives, but the plan has angered Palestinians.

The expansion apparently would violate the road map, and Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior U.S. officials have said so.

Many analysts and activists say the tension stems in part from the deliberate vagueness of the road map. Its ambiguity helped persuade both sides to sign on, even as some of the most sensitive topics, such as settlements and the future of Jerusalem, remained unresolved. But now, as the road map proceeds, the wide latitude of interpretation must be narrowed, diplomats and experts said.

With both Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas facing political pressure for concessions they’ve already made, making the compromises needed to resolve the remaining differences will be difficult.

Bush, whose vision of a more democratic Arab world rides in part on making his Middle East peace plan work, seems to have little choice but to press both Sharon and Abbas.

“He’ll have to nudge Sharon to start the process of closing these gaps,” said Edward S. Walker Jr., former U.S. assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs and a onetime ambassador to Israel. He now heads the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

The new dynamic brings particular pitfalls for Bush, an observant Christian who has capitalized on his alliance with Sharon to woo Orthodox and politically conservative Jews while mobilizing U.S. evangelicals who feel a biblical connection with Israel. His Republican Party is continuing to court religious Jews and Christians ahead of congressional elections next year and as part of a broader strategy to build a long-term GOP majority.

But some of the same conservative Jews and Christians who helped spur Bush’s reelection last year are increasingly skeptical of what the Bush-Sharon partnership is reaping for Israel -- most notably the Sharon-designed pullout of Gaza that the president has embraced.

The result is that the rapport between Bush and a group of new Republican voters could be strained, say activists who frequently advise the White House.

“The irony is the Orthodox community is the most skeptical of Sharon’s plan, whereas the liberal segments of the Jewish community that did not support President Bush are more supportive,” said Nathan J. Diament, policy director for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. “While the entire community wants the president of the United States to be entirely supportive of an Israeli prime minister, there are many in the community who wish the prime minister wanted something different.”

The strain in Bush’s base will be evident today in Crawford, just a few miles from his ranch, when a group of Baptist preachers and Orthodox rabbis holds a rally to protest the road map and the Gaza withdrawal. Some plan to wear bright orange shirts and hats with the message, “Israel belongs to the Jews.”

“I love President Bush, I voted for him twice. But I have no idea why he’s doing this,” said the Rev. Jim Vineyard, pastor of the 3,500-member Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City and a rally organizer.

“I wish I could be with President Bush for 15 minutes,” Vineyard added, “to stand with him with a Bible and tell him that when he stands before the judgment seat of Christ, he will have to give an answer to the Lord Jesus Christ why he gave the little land of Israel to the Arabs.”

Israelis and U.S. Jews who back the Maale Adumim expansion point to assurances Bush gave Sharon in a letter nearly a year ago that “new realities on the ground” -- a reference to Jewish population centers established in the West Bank since Israel captured it in the 1967 Middle East War -- would be taken into account during talks.

The sensitivity of the issue is apparent from the carefully worded statements by U.S. officials. Rice in an interview last month said the expansion was “at odds” with U.S. policy. Bush in a Cabinet meeting last week said there should be “no expansion.” And aboard Air Force One on Friday, the president said he expected Sharon to “adhere to those road map obligations.”

The statements prompted leaders of the Orthodox union to directly question the administration’s point man on Israel-Palestinian matters, Elliot Abrams, during a regular closed-door briefing last week. Abrams reiterated the “new realities” promise.

For Sharon too, the domestic stakes are high. By asserting Israel’s right to expand Maale Adumim, Sharon is underscoring his stated goal of giving up Gaza while consolidating Israel’s grip on major settlements in the West Bank, an area of greater importance to most Israelis, analysts said. Both territories were annexed in the 1967 war.

Sharon has often cited Bush’s letter from last April as an American endorsement for Israel’s stance that it should hold on to major West Bank Jewish population centers in any peace pact with the Palestinians. He says the assurances in the Bush letter are proof that Israel has made an important gain by planning to exit Gaza.

American backing has played a role in past debates in Israel. Sharon’s visit to Washington last year was timed to provide a boost weeks before his conservative Likud Party was to hold an internal referendum on the Gaza withdrawal.

In pushing for the Maale Adumim expansion now, Sharon is defining his next moves, experts said.

“He’s saying, ‘I’m not compromising Israel’s security. I’m going to disengage [from Gaza], but I’m going to be very careful about the next step and will demand certain conditions on the ground,’ ” said Eytan Gilboa, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “There is a lot of domestic politics going on here.”

Because construction of new units at Maale Adumim is not imminent, most experts believe that the two leaders may try to finesse their differences at the summit, possibly by agreeing to disagree on the issue. That could give Sharon added credibility among his critics on the right in Israel and allow Bush a chance to show the Palestinians that he can stand up to Sharon and be trusted as a broker.

“Each side wants a successful summit, so they will look for a way around it,” predicted David Makovsky, a specialist on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the conservative Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

On a growing number of other differences linked to the road map, however, Makovsky and other experts agreed that the luxury of time no longer existed. Movement, and compromise, is needed immediately, they said, to avoid a dangerous increase in tensions.

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Wallsten reported from Crawford and Marshall from Washington. Times staff writer Ken Ellingwood in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

U.S. statements

Over the last year, the Bush administration has emphasized various aspects of its position on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Here are some key statements:

* Letter from President Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, April 14, 2004:

“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders.... In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.”

* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a March 24 interview:

“We have said to the Israelis that they have obligations under the road map, they have obligations not to increase settlement activity.”

* Bush, in an April 5 Cabinet meeting:

“Our position is very clear

that the road map is important, and the road map calls for no expansion of the settlements. I’m optimistic we can achieve

a peace in the Holy Land. I’m optimistic because I firmly believe that Ariel Sharon wants to have a peaceful partner, wants there to be a democracy in the Palestinian territories, and I believe [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas wants the same thing.”

* Bush, aboard Air Force One on Friday:

“What I say publicly, I say privately. And that is, the road map has clear obligations on settlements, and that we expect the prime minister to adhere to those road map obligations. And the road map has got obligations for the Palestinians.... I think now is the time to focus the world’s attention on what is possible.”

Los Angeles Times