Bush has tough words for all on Mideast visit

JERUSALEM — President Bush, on the first visit here of his administration, demanded Wednesday that Israelis shut down unauthorized settler outposts on Palestinian territory, called on Palestinian authorities to take steps to halt rocket attacks against Israel and issued a sharp warning to Iran.

Even as he insisted he had not come to the region to impose the terms of a peace agreement on Israelis and Palestinians, Bush spent part of the first day of an eight-day trip to the Middle East issuing edicts to the parties — or, in his words, nudging them toward an accord that he hopes eventually will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state and lasting Arab-Israeli peace.

"The only way to have lasting peace, the only way for an agreement to mean anything, is for the two parties to come together and make the difficult choices," Bush said at a news conference with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

On Wednesday, Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed one extremist and two civilians, according to Palestinian medics.

The Israeli army said the attacks were needed because Palestinian extremists had bombarded the southern Israeli city of Sderot with rocket and mortar fire. Two houses in Sderot were struck, but there were no injuries.

Bush is on his first extended tour of a region that has figured prominently in the foreign-policy challenges confronting his administration.

Accused of years of disengagement from Mideast peacemaking, Bush is making a last-ditch try for an Israeli-Palestinian accord at a time of continuing violence and deep fractures within Palestinian society.

He is also trying to marshal regional support for a policy of confrontation toward Iran on his trip, which will also take him to Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Bush said he and Olmert discussed Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, and Bush issued his strongest warning yet to Iran in the wake of the weekend confrontation between three small Iranian vessels and U.S. Navy ships traversing what the administration said were the open international waters of the Hormuz Strait.

"There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple," Bush said. "And my advice to them is 'Don't do it.' "

Taken together, the challenge of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together six weeks after they committed themselves to new talks at a peace conference in Annapolis, Md., and what Bush described as Iran's "provocative" behavior illustrate the difficulty of lowering tensions across the Middle East and Persian Gulf region.

Bush visits Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory. But he will not stop in or near the Gaza Strip, the other Palestinian territory which is controlled by Islamic Hamas militants who are not a party to negotiations.

Bush and his advisers have made clear that they do not think it possible to achieve the creation of a Palestinian state — a goal the president set five years ago — during his presidency.

Instead, they are hoping for an agreement on the elements of such a state, including its borders and the status of Jerusalem, with the implementation of an agreement to come during a later administration. U.S. officials say they don't think the Palestinians have the necessary security forces and other institutions to function as a state right now.

Even the more limited goal is a tall order, as Bush acknowledged. He and his advisers suggested Wednesday that his very presence here prompted Olmert and Abbas to direct their negotiating teams this week to get to work on "core issues" such as the future status of Jerusalem.

Information from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.