Mohammed Alkhereiji, Arab News Staff

AQABA, Jordan, 5 June 2003 — US President George W. Bush yesterday won peace pledges from the Israeli prime minister and his Palestinian counterpart, and ordered his top two foreign policy advisers to make his Middle East peace plan “a matter of the highest priority.”

At a three-way summit at this Red Sea port, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to dismantle illegal settlements in Palestinian areas, while the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, promised to exert “full efforts” to end “the militarization” of the intifada.

Both steps were sought by President Bush as he brought the two sides together in a bid to advance Middle East peace.

However, key questions remained over whether Abbas would be able to make good on his vows to persuade militants to stop attacking Israelis.

“We will never be ready to lay down arms until the liberation of the last centimeter of the land of Palestine,” Hamas official Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantissi said. Islamic Jihad, another group sworn to Israel’s destruction, followed suit.

Jewish settlers denounced the summit as a “humiliating... surrender to Palestinian terror”, and at least 10,000 massed for a protest rally in Jerusalem. The settlers gathered for the first of what their leaders said would be a series of mass protests and acts of civil disobedience to vent their sense of betrayal at Sharon’s hands.

The Palestinians have also raised doubts about Sharon’s commitment to a two-state solution by taking the politically risky move of dismantling settlements, whose establishment he has long championed.

“We will immediately begin to remove unauthorized outposts,” Sharon said. Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas declared: “We do not ignore the suffering of the Jews throughout history. It is time to bring all this suffering to an end.”

Joining Abbas and Sharon at a podium, Bush praised the Israeli leader’s willingness to dismantle the settlements and lauded Abbas for promising “his full efforts to end the intifada.”

Israelis set up dozens of unauthorized outposts after the intifada began in September 2000, most of them in the West Bank and most created since Sharon took office a year ago.

Bush promised training and support for a “new, restructured Palestinian security service,” and said he would place longtime diplomat John Wolf at the head of a US mission on the ground to help the parties and monitor progress.

Wolf was expected to head a seven to 10 person “monitoring” team. Officials have stressed that he should not be seen as a US special envoy like those in past years who have sought to broker peace negotiations between the two sides.

Abbas promised to “act vigorously” against incitement and hatred against Israel, including using Palestinian security forces. And in his statement to cameras, Sharon said: “I want to reiterate that Israel is a society governed by the rule of law. Thus we will begin immediately to evacuate unauthorized outposts.”

Sharon was referring to mainly sparsely populated hilltop settlements established without Israeli government permission in the West Bank after March 2001, when Sharon came to power, and which the road map mandates must be scrapped.

He did not say how many outposts — there are an estimated 60 — would be uprooted, a move that will anger far-right members of his ruling coalition.