Livni and Peres hold unscheduled meeting with President Bush at UN conference

President Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday met with outgoing US President George W. Bush on the sidelines of a UN interfaith conference that the three leaders were attending. At the end of Bush's address to the conference, he requested to meet with Peres and Livni in an unscheduled meeting. Details of the meeting were not released to the press. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Livni told President Bush that Israel thanked him for his efforts to restart the peace process, while standing strong to the threats of terrorism and extremism.

Responding to US involvement in the peace process, Foreign Minister Livni said yesterday that Israel does not need any dramatic intervention in the peace process. Livni said that the parameters between the two sides had been set and Israel and the Palestinians needed to take the process forward. Middle East Quartet Envoy Tony Blair, in an interview with the Guardian today, agrees with the Livni approach of letting the two parties work together in solving their problems. Blair said that the Israelis and the Palestinians must continue with their work on the ground without too much external interference. Blair did suggest, however, that more power be shifted from foreign leaders to international envoys that are committed full time to the conflict and are more educated on the matters involved.

Bush's Middle East policy was shaped by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but towards the end of his second term he began to engage heavily in the Israeli-Palestinian process with the Annapolis summit and continuous visits by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. President-elect Barack Obama said that once he takes over as president he plans to focus his regional policies on Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obama said that a lack of resolution to the conflict provides excuses for Jihad extremists to carry out their activities.

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