Even as Israeli and Palestinian leaders talked peace at a Jordan summit, opponents back home vowed to fight on: Hamas militants said Mahmoud Abbas sold out their cause while Jewish settlers rallied against their one-time top patron, Ariel Sharon.
Sharon pledged Wednesday to dismantle illegal outposts in Palestinian areas, while Abbas renounced terrorism against Israel. Both steps were sought by US President George W. Bush as he brought the two sides together in Aqaba, Jordan, in a dramatic bid to advance Middle East peace.
But the opposition back home underscored the political and practical difficulties the two prime ministers face even if they succeed in overcoming their own significant disagreements on how to implement the US-backed "road map" to ending 32 months of violence and establishing a Palestinian state by 2005.
Possible
roadblock
Continuing terror attacks by the Palestinian militants could easily scuttle the entire enterprise. And the settlers, if they refuse to abandon their hilltop outposts and mobilize Sharon's own Likud Party against him, could make it very difficult for the already reluctant premier to move forward.
In Jerusalem, thousands of Jewish settlers and their supporters gathered Wednesday to demonstrate against Sharon in central Zion Square, under a large banner that said, "No to a Palestinian state."
Cabinet minister Effie Eitam, who heads the pro-settlement National Religious Party, mocked claims the Aqaba summit brings hope.
"Hope for whom? For terror? This is the hope of the evil," he told the cheering crowd. "Our hope is to continue living in this land -- which is all ours, which all belongs to us," he said, referring to Israel and the West Bank.
Some of Sharon's longtime nationalist allies -- and many skeptical opponents -- suspect the prime minister is bluffing, counting on the certainty of a Palestinian failure to stop terror attacks.
And most Israelis and Palestinians do agree the road map's fate will be determined by whether Abbas can rein in the militants -- which, with the Palestinian Authority's security services in disarray, may depend primarily on the militants themselves.
A hard sell
In Gaza, sullen Hamas leaders watched television as Abbas pledged to end the "armed intefadeh," renounced "terrorism against the Israelis wherever they might be" and pledged weapons would be carried only "by those in charge of upholding the law and order," alluding to the disarming of militants required by the road map.
Although Israel says it expects arrests and a forceful crackdown, Abbas has made clear he will first try persuasion, and initial reaction to his speech from Hamas leaders in Gaza suggested it would be a hard sell.
"I am astonished, really," said Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a top Hamas official, saying Abbas "surrendered before pressure from the US and Israel" and vowing Hamas "will continue our resistance until achieving our goals" -- which includes the destruction of Israel.
Rantisi told reporters there was no cease-fire in place -- an assertion backed by Israeli security officials' warnings that attacks were still being planned. But he said Hamas was open to discussing one in talks with Abbas.
Optimists noted militants did not disrupt the summit with attacks, as they have during past high-level meetings. A weary Palestinian public, pressure from Arab nations and concern about a future Abbas crackdown might have restrained them.
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