Bush leaves it to Olmert to push Mideast peace

JERUSALEM — President Bush gently urged Mideast leaders to "make the hard choices necessary for peace," leaving it to embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to stand before a divided parliament Thursday and forcefully declare that this war-weary nation is ready for a historic agreement with Palestinians.

On a day mourned by Palestinians as the 60th anniversary of their uprooting by Israel's independence, Bush mentioned the Palestinians only once in a 23-minute speech to the Knesset — and then only in the context of what a Palestinian state would look like six decades from now.

Some Israelis and Palestinians were disappointed that Bush failed to use his high-profile appearance to push the two sides to take the concrete steps to achieve his own goal of a peace deal before the end of his presidency.

Most notably, Bush's speech ignited a political uproar on the campaign trail back home.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama lashed back after Bush condemned "the false comfort of appeasement" and said that "some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

The White House insisted the remark was not aimed at Obama and that Bush was repeating standard U.S. policy. But Obama issued a statement accusing Bush of using the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding "to launch a false political attack" against him. Obama has said that as president he would be willing to meet personally with the leaders of such U.S. adversaries as Iran, Syria and Cuba.

Five months after Bush launched the first serious Mideast peace talks in seven years, the effort seems to have run out of steam. Olmert, facing his fifth criminal investigation in two years, is weak and unpopular and his support in parliament is unclear. The Palestinians are weak and divided, as well, and decades-old disputes remain unsettled.

Bush, in his remarks, did not delve into the obstacles but skipped to a rosy scenario 60 years ahead.

"Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world's great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people," Bush forecast. "The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserve — a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror. From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy and tourism and trade."

He did not explain how that would be achieved. Bush predicted Iran and Syria would be peaceful nations and that the Islamic militant groups al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas would be defeated.

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