Summits split Israeli media

This week's Middle East summits aimed at achieving peace in the region have split leading commentators in the Israeli media.

While some welcome the summits as offering an opportunity for peace, others forecast a backlash against the plan to rein in the growth of Jewish settlements.

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The unique setting in Aqaba, and its importance, presents its participants with a challenge: to breathe new spirit into the hearts of the two peoples who are fed up with the killing and violence but have yet to figure out how to break free of the shackles that bind them to the conflict.

Ha'aretz

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Go for it, George [Bush], all the way. Don't let slip this extraordinary opportunity that we here, together with the Palestinians, have tragically missed over and over again.

Commentator Gideon Samet in Ha'aretz

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Like bankers facing a customer who needs to provide guarantees for his business plan, the leaders of five Arab nations met US President George W Bush yesterday in Sharm el-Sheikh. Yes, they give their blessing to the roadmap but they stick to the decisions of the Arab League from a year ago in Beirut: they'll fight terror and won't finance it, but the definition of a terrorist will continue to divide the US and the Arab states.

Commentator Zvi Barel in Ha'aretz

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A big miracle is necessary for today's [Aqaba] summit to succeed. On the agenda are issues likely to decide people's life and death - on the Israeli as well as the Palestinian side.

Yediot Aharonot

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President Bush enters this scorched territory with crude steps. He enters as a victor: after Iraq, Arab leaders are swearing allegiance to him. There is no Quartet. The UN and the EU evaporated. Sharon obeys him. The Palestinians obey him. If there is a chance for peace, it will be Pax Americana.

Commentator Zvi Barel in Yediot Aharonot

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In Aqaba, you [Sharon] will meet today a US president who only two years ago did not dream of dipping his toes in the Middle Eastern swamp. Today, he is in it up to his neck. he is determined to drag us out of it. Give him a chance.

Commentator Dan Shilon in Ma'ariv

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President Bush arrives in Aqaba from Sharm el-Sheikh where he showed determination, but also became aware of his limits. The Arab leaders' readiness to meet publicly the supreme commander of the US occupation army in Iraq testifies to the US' new power in the region. Against this, Bush's failure to spur the leaders to normalise relations with Israel proves that the new king in the neighbourhood is not omnipotent.

Commentator Hemi Shalev in Ma'ariv

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This is the first time that there is a framework for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, a settlement supported (not to say imposed on the sides, mainly the Israeli) by one international voice, mainly American. If this is not "the forced settlement" many talked about since the end of the Six Days' War, it is certainly very similar to it.

Commentator Amnon Dankner in Ma'ariv

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The war against the settlements has started. This time it is serious. The Jewish settlers in Yesha [the West Bank and Gaza Strip] are not ready to remain silent. Today's demonstration in Jerusalem signals the opening of Yesha's Jewish settlers' struggle against Sharon's withdrawal policy.

Commentator Moshe Ishon in Hatzofe

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Ariel Sharon will be remembered ignominiously, despite the fact that he initiated and built many settlements in Yesha [the West Bank and Gaza Strip] because in the end he will destroy them, even at the cost of a civil war.

Commentator Hagay Huberman in Hatzofe

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By compelling Israel to make concessions inimical to its security, Bush is gambling not only with the future of the Land of Israel but also with that of the Republican Party itself... It is therefore imperative that Republican Christians and Jews alike speak up now, loudly and unequivocally, against the roadmap.

Commentator Michael Freund in Jerusalem Post

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If yesterday's summit in Sharm el-Sheikh is any measure, President George W Bush's efforts to create a New Middle East are stalled... If Bush wants to get anywhere with this, he must stop avoiding and accommodating Arab intransigence... he must call on the Arab world to end the conflict it began, not in 1967, but in 1947, when it rejected the UN partition of this land into "Arab" and "Jewish" states.

Jerusalem Post

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There is no intention of dealing with most of the outposts before the Palestinians prove they are making an effort to uproot terror. Israel will certainly not evacuate these outposts, even if the Americans think we should do it. There are various categories of illegal outposts, and most of them are in the process of getting permits.

Security source quoted by Israel radio

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