PRESIDENT Bush is due to hold talks with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, in Washington today. The main item on the agenda will be the United States' insistence that candidates in the forthcoming Palestinian elections in January should be required to renounce violence and “unlawful or nondemocratic” means to achieve their ends. It is, of course, no coincidence that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, has already made a similar demand and has cancelled a planned meeting with Mr Abbas because he did not get the undertaking he wanted. So actually, and not for the first time, Mr Bush is carrying a message for Mr Sharon. Mahmoud Abbas is in a difficult position. The militant group Hamas intends to field candidates in the January national elections, as it did quite successfully at the recent local elections, but it has refused to do more than observe a cease fire following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, insisting that any further limitation on its militancy must depend on Israel's response at the negotiating table. For his part Mr Abbas believes that to try to disarm Hamas would risk a civil war since the organisation has widespread support among the Palestinian people and that the better course is to encourage its involvement in the democratic process. His problem in persuading Hamas to disarm and become a purely political organisation is increased by the lack of progress in negotiations with Israel since the Gaza withdrawal.
Serious difficulties remain for Palestinians wanting to move in and out of Gaza and for the development of the commerce necessary for their economic viability to take a normal course. However, by far the greatest problem facing Mr Abbas is the hard evidence that Israel is using the delay in negotiations to take yet more Palestinian land and press forward with yet more settlement construction. The amount of occupied land given up in Gaza was approximately 19 square miles yet since the last settler left some 23 square miles of West Bank land has been expropriated; 8'500 settlers left Gaza while 14'000 have moved into the West Bank since the beginning of this year. Mr Abbas should try to make President Bush understand that these illegal and unscrupulous actions are just as much a threat to the peace process as the militancy of Hamas.