WASHINGTON — Two days after backing Israel's plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip but keep key West Bank settlements, President Bush won a measure of support Friday for the controversial move from visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Braving derision back home, Blair declared that the proposal offered opportunities for progress toward peace in the Mideast.
"I think we should seize them," Blair said, flanking Bush at the White House.
British backing was an important diplomatic victory for Bush, who in a fundamental shift threw his support to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" plan. But unlike Bush, Blair was silent on some of the most contentious elements of the plan -- such as Sharon's intention to maintain the West Bank settlements and refuse Palestinian refugees the right to return to Israel.
And it was increasingly clear within Britain that Blair's support for Bush on Israel, as on Iraq, would come at a political cost.
Blair sought to emphasize Friday that the Bush move, although appearing to shut Palestinians out of the process, would not foreclose the "road map" peace plan, which calls for mutual concessions and final negotiations.
"What have people been asking for years? They've been asking for Israelis to withdraw from the occupied territories," Blair said. "This is not the final end of it.... This is not a unilateral attempt to impose a settlement."
The British prime minister urged the so-called quartet that had sponsored the road map -- the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- to be ready to help the Palestinians build their capabilities as an independent state, including in the area of security.
At the same time, Blair appeared more measured in his enthusiasm than Bush, who called the Sharon plan a "fantastic opportunity." Blair said some of the strong negative reactions to the U.S. and Israeli moves -- particularly among Arab states -- were "expected and natural."
But even before Blair arrived in Washington, politicians and other observers in Britain said Bush's move had embarrassed the prime minister, who had pushed Bush to launch the road map in return for British support on the war in Iraq.
"George Bush has just unplugged the road map from its life support apparatus," former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote in the Independent newspaper. He "could not have delivered a worse snub to Tony Blair on the eve of their meeting."
