United States President Bush starts tomorrow an important and historic visit to the Middle East region; he starts his tour in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Security circles on the Palestinian and Israeli sides took tight security measures along with a large number of American security personnel who arrived a few days ago to set up the necessary security and protection measures to protect and guard the President during the visit. The Palestinian security sources said around 4,000 security personnel will participate in the security measures during the visit of President Bush to the Muqata to meet with President Abbas. The Israeli sources said around one third of the total police force will participate in providing security protection in the streets of West Jerusalem, including snipers, in addition to dogs trained to discover explosives, and the American security services that arrived in the region.

On the political front, President Abbas said he believes the visit of President Bush to the Palestinian territories on Thursday as important and historic. Nabil Abu Rdeineh, the official spokesperson for the Palestinian Presidency, said President Abu Mazen believes that the visit of Bush to the Palestinian lands is important and historic and will lead to pushing the peace process forward for the sake of a region that can live in security and peace. He added: We expect a US commitment to continue pushing the peace process forward towards reaching an agreement in 2008 and force the Israeli side to freeze the settlement activities and to stress on the need to end the occupation that started in 1967.

Saeb Erekat said President Abbas will receive President Bush in Ramallah on Thursday, and that President Bush will visit the city of Bethlehem.

Nimer Hammad, the political adviser to President Abbas, said: we hope the visit would lead to overcoming the major obstacle facing peace which is the settlements.

Ali Jarbawi, Political Science Professor at Birzeit University, said the visit of President Bush will not bring about any results regarding settlements. The positions are clear because President Bush supports the Israeli conditions on the political settlement which are No to withdrawal to 1967 borders and No to the return of Palestinian refugees, and Yes to dividing Jerusalem into Arab and Jewish quarters. Nothing will change after the visit of Bush; Israel said it will remove some settlement outposts and halt construction in some sites nothing more. The visit will only contribute to activating the political process for some time only after it lost its momentum since Annapolis.

In Damascus, the Syrian newspapers condemned the visit of US President Bush this week to the Middle East; Tishreen Newspaper said President Bush preceded his visit with hostile statements against more than one Islamic and Arab country which he classified as not moderate. The newspaper said the statements of Bush are full of gunpowder and blood framed with sectarianism and civil wars and dreams to further divide the region. The newspaper concluded: Bush outlined the aim of his visit when he said it is to encourage peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the encouragement was clear but not towards peace but towards pushing Israel to kill and destroy more in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The second aim of his visit which he didn’t explicitly say is to acquit Israel from all the aggression it is committing and point all attention on Iran as the threat to the security of the region.

Al-Ba'th newspaper said the Israeli occupation troops couldn't find a better way to receive Bush but through continuing with terrorism and systemic aggression against Gaza Strip.

Published at Al Quds NewsPaper on January 8, 2008