Bush Plans New Year Visit to Middle East

The US president is to embark on a week-long tour of the Middle East from January 8 to nudge Israelis and Palestinians towards an end to their decades-long conflict and to bolster an Arab coalition against Iran.

It is the first time in seven years as president that George Bush will visit Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

Plans are already well under way in Israel and the Arab countries for elaborate security measures given the level of hostility towards Bush in the Middle East over the Iraq war.

While the presence of Bush in the region will help focus attention on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, his trip comes against a bleak background.

The international community pledged billions in aid to the West Bank over the next three years in Paris this week but it comes against a background of continued tension, with Israeli forces recently attacking targets inside Gaza in response to rocket attacks.

The trip is partly a follow up to a Middle East peace conference at the US naval base, Annapolis, last month, that ended with vague promises to try to resolve the conflict by the end of 2008.

The White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, announcing the trip schedule, said: "Part of it is to continue to keep the discussions going, to show the commitment and to remind the world that this is a moment that has presented itself, and it's time for everyone to seize the opportunity to make sure that the Palestinians and the Israelis are supported.

But Perino said that she did not at present anticipate "detailed discussions about a concession on one side or the other". Nor is Bush planning to host joint talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

He will not meet any representatives of Hamas, which controls Gaza. "Hamas is a terrorist organization. He is not going to be talking with them," Perino said, though Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, like Hamas, has also used suicide bombers against Israel.

After Israel and the West Bank, Bush is to visit Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the only country on the list he has visited before. He hosted a meeting of regional leaders at Sharm al-Sheikh in 2003.

President Bashar Assad of Syria, in an interview with the Austrian paper Die Presse today, expressed skepticism about the chances of a successful trip, given that Bush is in his final year of office.

Assad, whose country has been technically at war with Israel since 1967, expressed cautious optimism about the trip but added: "It is perhaps too late to talk about peace in the last year of this US administration. It will be preoccupied with elections."

Syria attended the Annapolis conference but is regarded by the Bush administration as a hostile state that supports terrorism.

The Israeli government has established a task force to prepare for Bush's visit. At least 8,000 police officers will provide security for the visit. The main highway from Ben Gurion airport to Jerusalem is to be temporarily blocked off on the day of his arrival, with traffic diverted elsewhere.

Bush, who visited Israel in 1998 as governor of Texas, avoided visiting America's closest ally until now, in part because he did not want to be drawn into attempting to negotiate a Middle East peace deal.

At the outset of his presidency, he expressed scorn for what he saw as the wasted efforts in the region of his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

Bush will find a receptive audience in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states over his concerns about Iran's increasing dominance in the region. Bush insists that Iran remains a potential threat to world peace in spite of a US intelligence analysis that it had stopped a nuclear weapons program in 2003.

After publication of the intelligence report, Bush said that US policy towards Iran remained unchanged. Iran continues to pursue the ability to produce highly-enriched uranium, which the US and the European Union suspect is aimed at the country securing a nuclear weapon capability.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, in particular, are seeking US guarantees of support against Iran's expanding influence in the region.