PM Sharon and President Bush meet at the White House Tuesday. (Reuters)

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President George W. Bush told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that America would not try to force peace between Israel and the Palestinians. "We'll facilitate peace and ... we will work with those responsible for a peace," Bush said to reporters after meeting with the Prime Minister at the White House on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Sharon promised Bush that Israel would continue easing conditions for the Palestinians but would "punish those responsible for the terror incidents and operations."

When asked whether Bush had

"We will not surprise each other." - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

discussed with him the US policy toward Iraq, Sharon said, "We will not surprise each other."

Sharon hinted that he had suggested to Bush not to invite Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to the White House. "It could be interpreted as a sign that terrorism pays."

The President told reporters, "I haven't made up my plans on whom I'm going to meet with yet."

The issue of Jerusalem was raised in the discussions. Prime Minister Sharon said that he made it clear to Bush that Jerusalem will remain the undivided, eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people. Bush said the city's future should be determined by negotiations, but repeated his campaign promise "to begin the process of moving our embassy to Jerusalem."

Sharon said he raised the issue of Jonathan Pollard, the missing Israeli soldiers and those kidnapped by the Hizbullah, in his discussions with the President.

No negotiations under fire
After his meeting with President Bush, Prime Minister Sharon told reporters that he felt the meeting was successful. Among the issues on which agreement was reached in the discussions, according to Sharon, was the belief that the Palestinians should not achieve political gain as a result of violence.

Israeli delegation sources told reporters afterward that Bush reportedly had told Sharon that he was "100 percent with you", that there should be no negotiations under the pressure of terror.

But according to a Ha'aretz report, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear to the Israeli delegation that the U.S. does not regard an absolute halt to the violence as a precondition for resuming a dialogue with the Palestinians. Powell also reportedly told Sharon that Israel has to "give the Palestinians some hope" by easing the tough conditions of closure and siege.

Ha'aretz correspondent Aluf Benn summed up the meeting between Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush as a successful one. According to Benn, Sharon had achieved his main goal - "rehabilitating himself and erasing the memory of his problematic past relations with the U.S. administration."

Benn says that the Washington trip bought Ariel Sharon time. His policy of "no negotiations under fire" was accepted by the Americans, who are more interested in regional stability than in achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

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