BRUSSELS The European Union insisted on Thursday that there could be no unilateral change in Middle East borders after President George W. Bush said Israel could keep some Arab land captured in 1967. "The European Union will not recognize any change to the pre-1967 borders other than those arrived at by agreement between the parties," the Irish foreign minister, Brian Cowen, said in a statement on behalf of the EU presidency.
Cowen said the current international peace effort - in which the EU is a partner with the United States, Russia and the United Nations - emphasized that any settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "must include an agreed, just, fair and realistic solution to the refugee issue." The Palestinian leadership gathered on Thursday for urgent meetings to decide how to respond. Bush's backing for Israel's retention of some West Bank settlements and his rejection of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to land they lost in Israel, undermined two of the Palestinians' foremost demands.
"We cannot accept any unilateral action from any place in the world," Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, told reporters as he arrived at the compound of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "These issues can be resolved only in the final status negotiations and by a decision by the Palestinian leadership," Qureia said.
The Palestinian press on Thursday accused Bush of adding fuel to the fire of the Middle East conflict by capitulating to the demands of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a White House meeting.
"Bush has given Sharon everything that he wanted but he has certainly not demonstrated the evenhandedness and impartiality that the peace process requires," said an editorial in Al Quds.
Palestinian leaders were sharply critical of the agreement announced on Wednesday, saying that Bush's support for Israeli positions dealt a crippling and perhaps fatal blow to what remains of current Middle East peace efforts.
Qureia and other prominent Palestinians said Bush had gone further than any American president in backing Israel on the most contentious issues - Jewish settlements, future borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
"I believe President Bush declared the death of the peace process today," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former Palestinian information minister.
Abed Rabbo said the Bush administration "wants to determine our future, and the future of the entire Middle East, by writing a prescription for the whole region."
Bush also reaffirmed his support for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a future Palestinian state. But Palestinians focused on new positions Bush articulated in support of Israel. The president said Israel should not have to return to borders it held before the 1967 war, suggesting Israel could retain some settlements built on West Bank land.
Bush said Palestinian refugees should be settled in a future Palestinian state, which would undercut their demand to return to their former land that is now part of Israel.
"For the first time, American policy violates the basic conditions for peace," said Hanan Ashrawi, a leading Palestinian legislator and spokeswoman. "This kind of submission to extreme Israeli positions is really incredible."
Palestinians said Bush's remarks on Wednesday will encourage Sharon to continue building settlements in the West Bank which would complicate the creation of a Palestinian state. Another highly sensitive issue for the Palestinians is the status of Palestinian war refugees who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948-49 war that erupted just after Israel's founding. Along with their descendants, the refugees now total some 4 million.
Israel says a flood of refugees would undermine the Jewish character of the state, and has always firmly resisted any large-scale return. Bush sided with the Israelis, saying the refugees should be accommodated in a Palestinian state. (Reuters, NYT, AFP, AP)