Blair unveils new 'West Bank package'

By HERB KEINON
May 13, 2008 Quartet envoy Tony Blair on Tuesday unveiled a package of steps designed to allow greater movement in the West Bank, and help the Palestinian economy grow in a way in which he said would be consistent with protecting Israeli security.

Blair, speaking a day before the arrival of US President George Bush, said that the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority, after weeks of negotiations, have agreed on the steps which he said could begin to change the reality on the ground.

"For Palestinian statehood to be possible in the eyes of Palestinians there must be hope that occupations will, over time, be lifted," Blair said. "For Palestinian statehood to be possible in the eyes of Israelis, there must be hope, over time, that the security of Israel will be improved and not harmed by the way the Palestinians run their territory."

Blair, at a press conference at his headquarters in the American Colony Hotel, said that the centerpiece of the package is an area in and around Jenin which is greater in land mass than the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinians will be given increased security authority and a number of economic and social projects will begin there.

In addition, Blair said that the Israelis had agreed to remove four checkpoints throughout the West Bank, upgrade seven others, and move one.

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President Bush Meets with Israeli President Peres
Residence of President Shimon Peres
Jerusalem

Video (Windows) /news/releases/2008/05/20080514-2.wm.v.html
Presidential Remarks
Audio

In Focus: Middle East Trip

2:29 P.M. (L)

PRESIDENT PERES: Mr. President, Secretary of State, distinguished delegation, I got permission from the Americans to be -- and Tzipi Livni, our Foreign Minister. I got permission to be all my life an optimist. And you bring with you optimism, so I feel a sort of competition. (Laughter.) But let me say that I know you have elections sometimes, by the end of this year, and maybe there will be a change of administration, a change of guards, I think before you will leave office you will see a change of guards here in the Middle East.

What looks today so gloomy may be the last effort by some very extremist group to remain alive, because it's concentrated, it becomes sharp and clear, particularly in two places. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is simply destroying Lebanon. It's a matter that concerns not only the United States or Israel, it concerns the Arab world. For them, the destruction of Lebanon is the destruction of statehood in many other places. And it's a protest without a message. And the second goes to Gaza, where Hamas is responding to the establishment of a Palestinian state. I think you, and may I say the Secretary of State, invested so much effort to enable the Palestinians to correct the historic mistakes from 1947, because would they then accept an Arab state, we wouldn't have all these troubles. But never the mind, we cannot change the past. Continued: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080514-2.html