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WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged today to bolster Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, as Israel sought to tighten the screws on Hamas Islamists who control Gaza.
Bush and Olmert reaffirmed their commitment to the vision of a Palestinian state, but offered no concrete plan to achieve a negotiated deal with Abbas while his new emergency Cabinet rules only the West Bank and Gaza remains in Hamas' hands.
"He is the president of all the Palestinians," Bush said of Abbas, with Olmert at his side in the Oval Office. "He has spoken out for moderation. He is a voice that is a reasonable voice amongst the extremists in your neighbourhood."
Western powers have rallied behind Abbas with promises of renewed aid, hoping to contain damage from Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week and parlay it into revived peace moves between Palestinian moderates and Israel.
The object is to further isolate Hamas, branded a terrorist organisation by the United States, Israel and the European Union. But, to date, that policy has only emboldened the militant group in its challenge to Abbas.
Meeting to coordinate strategy, Olmert and Bush threw their support behind Abbas, who has dismissed the Hamas-led government and formed a Cabinet of Fatah loyalists in the West Bank as a counterweight to the Islamists' control of Gaza.
"Our hope is that President Abbas and Prime Minister (Salam) Fayyad ... will be strengthened to the point where they can lead the Palestinians in a different direction," Bush said before the closed-door White House meeting with Olmert.
The United States and EU pledged on Monday to lift an economic and diplomatic embargo imposed on the Palestinian Authority in March 2006 after Hamas won elections and rejected calls to recognise Israel and renounce violence.
As an initial gesture, Olmert has promised to release Palestinian tax revenues withheld since Hamas came to power. He said after the White House talks he would ask his Cabinet at its next meeting on Sunday to approve freeing up the funds.
The Israeli leader said he wanted to make "every possible effort" to cooperate with Abbas, but he stopped short of bowing to the Palestinian president's push for full-scale peace talks, and Bush showed no sign of pressuring him to do so.
In Jerusalem, senior Israeli and Western officials said Israel plans to choke off all but humanitarian and basic supplies to Gaza. One Israeli official described the impoverished coastal strip as a "terrorist-controlled entity."
Israel evacuated Palestinians wounded in Gaza fighting at a border crossing on Tuesday where dozens have been trapped for days since Hamas routed Fatah forces in the coastal strip.
Israeli authorities also permitted truckloads of food and medical equipment sent by international aid groups to enter Gaza, Israeli radio stations reported.
Israel plans to bar Palestinian tax funds transferred to Abbas from reaching Gaza to run Hamas-led agencies and pay workers, two senior Israeli officials said.
The Bush administration has signalled it sees a "West Bank first" policy -- doing its utmost to bolster Abbas and to nurture Israeli contacts with him -- as the best way to salvage something from Hamas' military victory in Gaza.
Some analysts suggest this strategy masks the failure of the Bush administration's Middle East policy and could backfire by further radicalising the Gaza Strip.
Bush did not answer a reporter's question about whether the Palestinian territorial split had dealt a blow to prospects of creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel before the end of his term in January 2009.
Palestinians claim both the West Bank, where Israel maintains Jewish settlements on occupied land plus a network of military checkpoints, and Gaza for their future state.
Abbas wants Bush to urge Israel, Washington's close ally, to make concessions and begin peace talks to show his people he can make progress toward their dream of independence.
It remains unclear, however, whether Bush, Olmert and Abbas, all weakened by domestic and international forces, have the political capital to advance the peace process.
Majdi al-Khalidi, an adviser in Abbas' office, told Western diplomats the emergency government could remain for a period of two months and then become a caretaker administration that could try to lay the ground for new elections.
Israeli officials say up to US$400 million in Palestinian tax revenues will be transferred to Abbas' government in stages.
Olmert, briefing reporters travelling with him, said he wanted to ensure the funds would not get into Hamas' hands and a mechanism would be established for their orderly transfer.
- REUTERS
