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Bush's goal is to win commitments from both sides to implement the international roadmap to peace, notably at the meeting in Aqaba, Jordan, on Wednesday when the US president will meet with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, Ariel Sharon and Mahmud Abbas.
It is to be the first meeting between Bush and Abbas, who was appointed in March under huge US and Israeli pressure for veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to be sidelined.
It will also be the first US-Israeli-Palestinian gathering since one in October 2000 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Both Israel and Washington refuse to deal with Arafat, whom they have accused of corruption and links to militant groups.
On Tuesday, Bush is also to meet at Sharm el-Sheikh with moderate Arab leaders and ask them to push for the success of the roadmap.
Drawn up by top officials from the United States, United Nations, Russia and the European Union, the roadmap lays out steps to end ongoing violence, revive political talks and create a Palestinian state next to a secure Israel by 2005.
The roadmap was handed to the sides on April 30, but no steps were taken to implement it amid a wave of deadly Palestinian suicide bombings inside Israel and as the Jewish state continued its hunt for militants in the Palestinian territories.
But the much-anticipated peace plan received a boost on May 25 when Sharon's government, the most right-wing in Israel's history, gave its qualified acceptance, opening the way for Bush's visit to the region.
The roadmap is the most serious attempt so far to end violence that has left more than 3,200 people dead, close to 2,500 of them Palestinian and 750 of them Israeli, since the intifada, the Palestinian uprising, erupted in September 2000.
However, Bush's administration has set modest goals for the president's first hands-on attempt to solve the crisis which has brought only grief to far more experienced statesmen.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday that Washington would consider the Aqaba summit a success if it could get the two sides to commit themselves to the roadmap and the steps outlined in it.
This includes "cracking down on terror, ending violence, making life easier for the Palestinian people by starting to pull back from some of the closures that are there," Powell said.
"The work ahead will require difficult decisions and leadership, but there is no other choice," Bush said Saturday. "No leader of conscience can accept more months and years of humiliation and killing and mourning."
Bush warned, however, that "for peace to prevail, terrorism must end.
"All concerned must shake off the old arguments and the old ways and act in the cause of peace. And I will do all I can to help the parties reach an agreement and to see that agreement is enforced."
For even if Washington clinches a commitment from both parties, whether they implement the steps on the ground is an open question.
Bush and Sharon have already made it clear that progress can only be made once the Palestinians halt their attacks.
But like all the plans that preceded it, the roadmap will be at the mercy of the militant groups.
Abbas said Friday he would clinch a ceasefire from such groups within two or three weeks. His cabinet the next day even said it expected an answer on the proposed truce within the coming days.
But Washington and Israel have stressed that even if Palestinian factions accept a ceasefire, the effects must be seen on the ground and radical groups like the Islamic Hamas movement must be disarmed.
But Sharon will also face challenges, notably the requirement to immediately dismantle all Jewish settlement outposts established in the occupied territories since March 2001 and freeze all settlement expansion.
The two extreme right wing parties in his coalition are against any moves to halt settlement expansion. On Wednesday they plan to hold a massive demonstration in Jerusalem to hit the point home.
Whether the ageing general, who has already rejected halting "natural growth" of settlements, is willing is also in question.
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