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Bush meets Sharon, shuns call to sever ties with Arafat
( 2002-02-08 10:26 ) (7 )

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday won a fresh condemnation of Palestinian attacks from President George W. Bush but failed to convince him to sever ties with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

In a joint Oval Office appearance with Sharon, Bush repeatedly shrugged off questions about Sharon's call to "boycott" Arafat, insisting that his demands that the Palestinian leader do more to battle terrorism "can't be more clear."

"I assured the prime minister that we would continue to keep pressure on Mr. Arafat to convince him that he must take serious, concrete, real steps to reduce terrorist activities in the Middle East," said the US President.

Sharon, making his fourth visit to US since Bush took office a year ago, accused Arafat "an obstacle to peace" and called for more pressure to be brought to bear to yield an "alternative" Palestinian Authority leadership.

"Arafat has chosen a strategy of terror and formed a coalition of terror. Therefore, we believe that pressure should be put upon Arafat in order, it may be I hope, to have an alternative leadership in the future," said Sharon.

Bush said he was "deeply concerned about the plight of the average Palestinian."

Bush noted that his fiscal year 2003 budget includes US$300 million, meant to go through non-governmental organizations, "to help Palestinians be able to realize a better life."

"I worry about stories and pictures I see of people going hungry, and children not being educated, and deep concerns etched on the faces of moms and dads who happen to be Palestinian," said the president.

While the US leader rebuffed Sharon's push to seek a different interlocutor from the Palestinian Authority, Bush also made clear that he felt deeply disappointed when Israeli forces stopped a ship laden with arms apparently bound for Palestinian militants.

"Obviously, we were, at first, surprised and then extremely disappointed when the Karine A showed up loaded with weapons, weapons that could have only been intended for one thing, which was to terrorize," said the president.

Asked whether they discussed Iran and Iraq -- which he has grouped with North Korea in an "axis of evil" that may face US action -- Bush said he and Sharon had a "very frank and open discussion" about nations in the region.

And he explained that Vice President Dick Cheney's mid-March mission to Israel and eight Middle Eastern Arab nations aimed to give those countries "a sense of the determination" Washington feels about stamping out terrorism.

"The vice president, I think, is going to be very effective at convincing our friends we mean business, and we would hope that they would do everything in their power to shut off money, to deny haven, and to join this grand coalition dedicated to one thing:"freedom and peace," said Bush.

Cheney will stop in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar in his first trip to the region as vice president, according to US officials.

Cheney's trip comes amid fevered speculation that Bush could select Iraq as the next target of that campaign, which ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan for sheltering the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Osama bin Laden.

The White House meeting came a day after a Palestinian attack left three Israelis dead.

Israel vowed Thursday to hit back, and in a swift act of revenge, Israeli helicopter gunships fired one rocket on a Palestinian Authority intelligence office Thursday evening in the West Bank town of Nablus, but missed its target, witnesses and security sources said.