Bush, Mubarak Vow to Redouble Efforts for Peace

WASHINGTON —  Expressing “great alarm” at the level of hostilities engulfing Israelis and Palestinians, President Bush said Tuesday that the United States and Egypt have pledged to redouble their peacemaking efforts.

Bush’s comments came after he met at the White House with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. At a news conference, both leaders also expressed support for a recent Saudi Arabian proposal advocating full recognition of Israel by Arab states in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from Arab territories seized during the 1967 Middle East War.

Bush called the Saudi initiative, which is not a formal peace plan, a very positive development, saying that ending the violence would depend on a “vision of peace.” The president also lauded Mubarak’s offer to invite Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat for talks at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik.

“I appreciate any efforts, any ideas that will lay out a vision for a peaceful resolution,” Bush said. “And so I appreciate the efforts of both leaders [Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Mubarak], and I applaud those efforts of those willing to explore opportunity.”

The United States has been touting the Saudi idea in advance of Vice President Dick Cheney’s extensive tour through the Middle East, which begins next week, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

“We’re talking it up with people to say, here’s a major Arab country that’s saying at a time of great violence that the goal is resolution and peace with Israel. That’s very important, even if this vision doesn’t solve the obstacles, even if it doesn’t avoid the potholes,” said the official, who did not want to be named.

Cheney’s mission had been expected to focus on U.S. intentions concerning Iraq, but the cycle of violence has put the Arab-Israeli conflict, once again, at the top of the agenda.

The Saudi idea appeared to receive a boost in the Arab world Tuesday after talks in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, between Abdullah and President Bashar Assad of Syria. Syria has often played the spoiler in peace efforts, and it is widely expected to be the last of Israel’s neighbors to make a formal peace.

The state-controlled news agencies in both Arab countries reported full agreement between the two leaders. “Their views were identical on all issues and ideas,” according to a statement by Syria’s presidential palace.

Arab consensus behind the Saudi idea, which is an updated form of a proposal put forward by Saudi King Fahd in 1982, is considered critical to converting it from an idea to a more tangible offer backed by all Arab states. Its prospects are expected to be the subject of an Arab League summit in Lebanon at the end of the month.

Despite the glimmers of light provided by the Saudi initiative, however, Bush underscored the hard reality when he emphasized Tuesday that no peace is possible until there is a maximum effort to stop the escalating hostilities.

Bush said that process can’t begin until Palestinian attacks against Israeli targets end. Similar appeals to Arafat have been an almost daily refrain for weeks out of both the White House and the State Department.

The Egyptian leader, in turn, called on Israel to end punitive measures toward Palestinians. “The closure of roads, the siege of towns and villages, the demolition of houses, the collective punishment that make progress more difficult should stop,” he said. “Nothing can be achieved through violence or resolved by force.”

Mubarak came to Washington to appeal for more active U.S. intervention to stop the rapidly escalating violence between Palestinians and Israelis--even if both sides resist, he said in a major address shortly before the White House talks.

“They should sit, whether they like it or not. We have to find a solution. They have to break the vicious circle and sit and exchange views with the help of the United States and Egypt and other countries,” the Egyptian leader said Tuesday in a luncheon address to the Council on Foreign Relations.

But reflecting the deepening frustration here, neither U.S. nor Egyptian officials expressed any confidence that the bloodshed would end any time soon. In fact, the talks between Bush and Mubarak underscored the virtual diplomatic paralysis that surrounds Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.

Bush said Tuesday that the United States is prepared to send special envoy Anthony C. Zinni back to the region, but not until there was a cease-fire and something to talk about. Zinni returned to the U.S. in early January.