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09/20/2005:

"Kurtzer: Bush Backs Israel’s Annexation of Larger Colonies"

Obviously encouraged by the outgoing US ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer’s statement that President Bush would back keeping larger West Bank colonial Jewish settlements under Israeli control in a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians, Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon reiterated in Washington on Sunday that the major colony blocs “are going to be a part of Israel” and “contiguous with Israel,” including Jerusalem’s Ma’ale Adumim.

“In the context of a final status agreement, the United States will support the retention by Israel of areas with a high concentration of Israeli population,” Kurtzer said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

“The policy is exactly what the president (George W. Bush) said,” Kurtzer said in the prerecorded interview to Israel Radio.

Kurtzer, who completed his term Friday, cited an April 2004 letter from Bush to Ariel Sharon, setting out the US position on settlements.

“In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949,” Bush wrote in the letter handed to Sharon during a visit to Washington on April 14 last year.

Bush’s letter, which also pledged that the United States will not support the Palestinian refugees’ “right of return” and said that a return to the prewar borders of 1949 was unlikely, was dubbed by Palestinian officials as a “New Balfor Declaration.”

When asked by The Jerusalem Post before leaving: “In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, Prime Minister Sharon referred to President George Bush's letter of commitments from April 2004 as nothing less than an agreement. What is the status of this letter. Is it binding on the president that will come after Bush?” Kurtzer replied:

“Congress supported the letter in a resolution, but it was no concretized in law. But it carries great weight, not only because it is a commitment of the US, but it is in writing by the president. It is part of a package where the prime minister provided a letter to the president, the president provided a letter to the prime minister, and there were other attachments.”
palestine-pmc.com

Here's the story re: Kurtzer the NY Times did NOT publish yesterday.