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Last update - 21:14 25/06/2009
Ex-U.S. official: Bush agreed to Israel settlement construction
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel News, Elliott Abrams 

A key Bush administration official is disputing the Obama administration's contention that there were no understandings between President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the issue of continued West Bank settlement construction.

In an op-ed piece which appeared in Thursday's editions of The Wall Street Journal, Elliott Abrams, who served under Bush in the National Security Council and who held a series of discussions with the Israeli leadership, said that Bush and Sharon did strike a deal which constituted U.S. acquiescence to continued construction in Israeli settlement blocs that Jerusalem intended to keep under any final status accord.

Abrams said the Bush administration agreed to Israel's request to allow for natural growth construction in exchange for Sharon's explicit support for Palestinian statehood as well as his pledge not to establish new settlements or to expropriate additional land in the West Bank toward that end.
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"On settlements we also agreed on principles that would permit some continuing growth," Abrams wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "Mr. Sharon stated these clearly in a major policy speech in December 2003."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed reports that the Bush administration had an understanding under which Israel could keep expanding settlements on the West Bank.

Dov Weisglass, Sharon's former chief of staff, wrote in an op-ed piece published earlier this month in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that the Bush administration had secretly agreed to expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank within their existing boundaries.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Clinton sought to undercut Weisglass' argument, saying there was no acknowledgment of any such agreement in the official negotiating record between Israel and the Bush administration.

"For reasons that remain unclear, the Obama administration has decided to abandon the understandings about settlements reached by the previous administration with the Israeli government," Abrams wrote.

"It is true that there was no U.S.-Israel 'memorandum of understanding,' which is presumably what Mrs. Clinton means when she suggests that the 'official record of the administration' contains none," Abrams wrote. "But she would do well to consult documents like the Weissglas letter, or the notes of the Aqaba meeting [in which Sharon expressed support for Palestinian statehood], before suggesting that there was no meeting of the minds.
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  1.   violation of Geneva 02:33  |  Muskens 26/06/09
  2.   Agreement 02:45  |  Iain 26/06/09
  3.   Try Again! 02:55  |  Cool B 26/06/09
  4.   Jewish settlements in W. Bank = Palestinian settlements in Israel 03:03  |  Damian Lataan 26/06/09
  5.   Understandings from the worst president in history? 03:37  |  jim the mechanic 26/06/09
  6.   A classic "Yeah, but No" political two-step! 03:40  |  Johnboy 26/06/09
  7.   #3 Damain - PROVE it! 04:07  |  CK Tan 26/06/09
  8.   Conflict of interests 04:39  |  abby 26/06/09
  9.   Elliot Abrams 05:06  |  Darrow 26/06/09
  10.   I see that any discussion of Elliott Abrams career is censored 05:17  |  Mark Lincoln 26/06/09
  11.   Palestinin settlements in Israel? 05:39  |  i-care 26/06/09
  12.   Hillary Clinton`s remark 05:41  |  i-Care 26/06/09
  13.   What a joke 06:08  |  Natallie Durson 26/06/09
  14.   observation 05:44  |  potobac 27/06/09
  15.   settlements 23:59  |  bob wilson 27/06/09
  16.   settlements 00:01  |  bob wilson 28/06/09
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