Palestinians react to Bush's Israeli support

The Palestinian leadership today tried to rally world opinion after President George Bush backed the Israeli premier’s move to hang on to territory seized in war.

Bush gave Ariel Sharon unprecedented US support for his plan to hold on to parts of the West Bank, a policy shift that strengthens Sharon politically just weeks ahead of a vote in his Likud Party on a proposed Gaza Strip withdrawal.

The president said it was “unrealistic” to expect Israel to pull back to the borders that existed before the 1967 Mideast war due to large Jewish population centres that have been built on the territory since then.

Bush also ruled out Palestinian refugees returning to Israel after a Palestinian state is created.

Bush’s change to long-standing US policy enraged the Palestinians, who are demanding that all West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements be dismantled so a Palestinian state can be established on the land.

Yasser Arafat said today Palestinian refugees will never give up their right to return to former homes in Israel.

In a televised speech from his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, he did not mention Bush or Sharon.

But he said the Palestinians would never give up their ”right of return” to lost properties.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes during the 1948 Mideast War.

Arafat also called for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and called for an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said, “We as Palestinians reject that. We cannot accept that. We reject it and we refuse it.”

Malaysia called for an urgent meeting of Islamic countries to discuss the development.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Arafat had urged the country to bring forward its plans for a meeting of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Malaysia is the current chair of the world’s largest Islamic grouping.

Leaders of Palestinian militant groups denounced Bush’s endorsement of the Sharon plan.

Khaled Mashaal, the political leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, said Sharon would use the endorsement as a cover “to launch more aggressions against the Palestinians and more assassination attempts against Palestinian leaders.”

He said Hamas would stick to its “resistance option and never give up its rights.”

He urged Arab leaders to adopt the “resistance option” at their summit in Tunisia next month, and decide on “a serious and practical response to the hostile US stand”.

Maher Taher, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s representative in Damascus, said “Bush has actually and practically ended the peace process and the road map.

"He wants to impose surrender on the Palestinians, liquidate the right of return and hinder the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”

An Israeli official said the pullout plan would be fully implemented by the end of 2005. Sharon has said recently that by April 2005 Israel would be in the midst of pulling out of settlements.