Clinton Blamed for Mideast Violence

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Thursday blamed aggressive diplomacy by
former President Clinton for the current violence in the Middle East, saying
Clinton pushed Israelis and Palestinians too hard "in an attempt to shoot the
moon and get nothing."

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White House spokesman Ari Fleischer rejected the notion that President Bush's
policies have not worked, noting that the violence began while Clinton was
still in office. And he turned aside the idea of talking with Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat as Clinton did, saying Bush does not want to create false
expectations.

Clinton tried to "push the parties beyond where they were willing to go,"
Fleischer said. "It led to expectations raised to such a high level that it
turned to violence."

During his last months in office, Clinton was heavily engaged in pressing
Arafat and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to strike an accord, but
his intensive diplomacy failed. Fleischer said neither side was ready to agree,
and the intensity and breakneck pace set by Clinton "led to expectations raised
to such a high level that it turned to violence."

"You can make the case that in an attempt to shoot the moon and get nothing,
more violence resulted," Fleischer said. "The parties didn't want to agree to
what the United States was pushing for.

"It is important to be careful in the region, to proceed at a pace that is
achievable and doable, and not to raise people's expectations falsely too
high," Fleischer said. "The failure to reach that level created unmet
expectations."

Israel, the West Bank and Gaza have been wracked by violence for 17 months and
it continued Wednesday, when Israeli troops killed four Arabs in gunbattles
and, separately, a Palestinian worker shot an Israeli factory manager to death.

This week, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia floated an idea for ending the
violence and renewing peace talks. Both Israel and the Palestinians have
expressed interest in the Saudi proposal, though the Israelis reject a main
element — withdrawal from all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

The Saudis suggest that in exchange, the entire Arab world would make peace
with Israel.

Bush also likes the Saudi plan, but continues to press Arafat to rein in
militants with more arrests.

"The most concrete thing the president is looking for (from Arafat) is a 100
percent effort to stop the violence," Fleischer said. "The president wants to
make sure people are detained on a long-term permanent basis, not on a
temporary revolving-door basis."