JERUSALEM — President Bush said Wednesday that he was trying to "nudge" Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate the outlines of an independent Palestinian state, acknowledging that it has taken the pressure of his first presidential visit to Israel just to get them to the starting line.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, outlining the conundrum the effort poses, told Bush that it would be "very, very hard to reach any peaceful understanding" until rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip are stopped.
Gaza is controlled by the militant Hamas organization, considered a terrorist group by the United States and Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whom Bush is to meet with today in the West Bank, has no control over Gaza or Hamas.
Bush, recognizing the difficulty of a mission he wants to see accomplished before he leaves office in barely a year, said the United States stood ready to help but would not take a hands-on role.
"I'm under no illusions," he said. "It's going to be hard work. I fully understand that there's going to be some painful political compromises. . . . I fully understand that there's going to be some tough negotiations.
"America cannot dictate the terms of what a state will look like."
Bush said he came here to push both sides toward that goal, saying that Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank "ought to go" and that no part of Palestinian lands can be a "safe haven for terrorists."
He said that his visit had prompted Abbas and Olmert to agree Tuesday, on the eve of his arrival, to end weeks of delay in tackling the major issues of the decades-old conflict.
"Am I nudging them forward? Well, my trip was a pretty significant nudge," Bush said.
Bush and Olmert spoke at a news conference in the courtyard of the prime minister's residence after meeting for more than two hours. Bush issued his strongest warning yet to Iran in the wake of the weekend confrontation between five small Iranian vessels and U.S. Navy ships traversing what the administration said was the open international waters of the Strait of Hormuz.
"There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple," Bush told reporters. "And my advice to them is, don't do it."
Taken together, the challenge of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together six weeks after making commitments for new talks during a Nov. 27 peace conference in Annapolis, Md., and what Bush described as Iran's "provocative" behavior, illustrate the difficulty of reducing tensions across the Middle East.
