Palestinian Leaders Reject Bush Comments

[AP / MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer]

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Palestinian leaders said Saturday
there was still hope for creating a Palestinian state by next year
as scheduled if the United States is willing to push for serious
peace talks.
The comments came after President Bush suggested that the
internationally backed "road map" peace plan's call for an
independent Palestinian state in 2005 was unrealistic.
Also Saturday, Israeli Justice Minister Tommy Lapid
threatened to pull his moderate Shinui party out of the government
if Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not find a way to implement his
planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
In an interview published with the Egyptian newspaper
Al-Ahram, Bush said ongoing violence had pushed back the road map's
schedule for Palestinian statehood.
"I think the timetable of 2005 isn't as realistic as it was
two years ago," he said, according to a White House transcript of
the interview released Friday.
Bush's comment angered Palestinian leaders, who insisted a
state could still be formed according to schedule.
"It is realistic and more," Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
told reporters outside his compound in the West Bank city of
Ramallah.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia called on Bush to
reconsider his statement. "We have plenty of time to seriously
negotiate, if the American administration indeed wants serious
negotiations and wants to reach a final agreement," he said.
"There is no longer an opportunity to delay this matter,"
Qureia said. "Wasting time is not in the interest of the peace
process and stability in the region."
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have
stalled amid the continuing violence and both sides' refusals to
fulfill their initial road map obligations. Israel has yet to pull
down scores of unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank,
and the Palestinians have said they will not dismantle militant
groups for fear of sparking a civil war.
On Saturday, the militant Islamic Jihad group condemned the
Palestinian Authority for arresting two of its militants -- a
would-be suicide bomber and his recruiter -- and called on its
members to open fire at Palestinian security officers who come to
arrest them.
In a statement distributed in mosques in the West Bank town
of Jenin, the group accused Palestinian security officials of trying
to curry favor with Israeli intelligence agents for personal gain.
With the road map stalled, Sharon had proposed a unilateral
Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a small part of the West Bank. His
"disengagement" plan was defeated in a nonbinding referendum of
members of his Likud Party.
Hard-liners in Sharon's government said the defeat signaled
the end of the plan, but Lapid demanded Saturday that it be
presented to the Cabinet anyway, with only minimal changes.
The Cabinet was expected to discuss the plan at its weekly
meeting Sunday.
"We are not ready to abandon the program," Lapid told The
Associated Press. "If there is no progress we will have to consider
leaving (the government)."
The withdrawal of Shinui, the second-largest member of
Sharon's coalition, could bring down the government, though the
premier would likely replace it with ultra-Orthodox parties, which
strongly oppose Sharon's proposal.
Sharon himself says he remains committed to his plan to pull
out of all 21 Gaza settlements and four others in the northern West
Bank.
"We must find a way to implement the disengagement plan
because of its importance for the future of Israel," he said Friday.