Re-Launching Of Bush Plan On Palestine By Shah Abdul Hannan

News agencies have reported that US President George W Bush's plan to relaunch the Middle East peace process with an international conference was greeted yesterday with scepticism on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide as yet another initiative doomed to failure. While welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas it was rejected by Hamas.

Elected officials welcomed the move, but Israeli and Palestinian commentators were wary of the initiative, the latest in a series of international efforts to solve the decades-old conflict. "The call by Bush could or could not be a transformation, as we are used to hearing talk of initiatives, proposals of conferences that most of the time achieve nothing," wrote the main Palestinian daily Al-Quds. "We have yet to see if this time is different or if it is a scenario that we have already seen," it said. Israeli observers were even harsher. "The old-new presidential vision which was outlined yesterday will end just like its predecessors," wrote the Maariv tabloid, Israel's second-largest daily. "Forceful declarations, high hopes, a grandiose plan and in the end it all comes to nothing but shattered hopes and despair." The top-selling Yediot Aharonot said a comparison of Bush's speech on Monday and the first major one he gave on the conflict five years ago showed that "peace in the Middle East is like the horizon -- the nearer you get, the further away it is."

We feel nothing can come out of Bush initiative whose policy is totally tilted towards Israel. These moves are just gimmicks, played out off and on. As it appears the Palestinian problem and the pains of Palestinian people will continue. Neither Bush nor Blair, the new quartet representative on Palestine can solve the problem .The UN could solve the problem by imposing on Israel that there will be two states in Palestine without any adjustment of 1967 border, the adjustment of border issue made a part of the UN resolution passed in 1967 is the sticking issue. The US forced this language and there was none in the veto-welding members of the security council to stop it.

A new UN resolution changing this adjustment clause ( because this could not be implemented in the past due to unreasonable demands of Israel) could be the beginning of the solution but this is unlikely as the UN has become a rubber stamp of the US

Shah Abdul Hannan is a retired secretary of the government of Bangladesh.I am presently a Director of Diganta Media Corporation, the publisher of Daily Naya Diganta, a major Bangla dailyof Dhaka. This group will start a TV channel in August and also publishes daily Asia Post.

Naya Diganta is available in web (www.dailynayadiganta.com) but Asia Post is still not available in the web.