Bush urged to join calls for peace summit

President George Bush was under growing pressure yesterday to make his delayed policy speech on the Middle East before yet more lives are claimed by the conflict.

European Union leaders at the Seville summit yesterday issued a draft declaration which spoke of "an urgent need for political action by the whole international community" and called for a Middle East peace conference.

The US president appears committed to making his speech, which was delayed last week amid an international wave of revulsion and outrage over the killing of 26 Israeli civilians in two Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem.

But there are deep misgivings within his administration – particularly among the conservatives – about being seen to acknowledge the Palestinians' right to statehood in the current circumstances. Mid-term elections loom in the US later this year, and any move that could be construed as rewarding Palestinian violence could prove damaging.

On the other hand, Mr Bush is being warned by many – including the US State Department, and European and Arab nations – that the conflict will deteriorate still further unless there is another concerted attempt at diplomatic intervention.

Britain has been among those pressing for measures that will furnish the Palestinians with the prospects of a "political horizon". Without this, the Europeans fear the violence will worsen, especially as the Palestinians are increasingly imprisoned by fences, barbed wire, red tape and the Israeli army is digging in deeper in an attempt to stop the Palestinian attacks.

Mr Bush's speech is widely expected to propose an interim Palestinian state, leading to permanent statehood. Yet the current Palestinian leadership would be highly wary of accepting this without being sure that it would lead to a state based on the lines of 4 June 1967 (with minor border adjustments) within a specific and guaranteed timetable.

Anything less would be sure to be opposed by the Palestinian militias; continuing violence, especially suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, would swiftly bury it.

Nor is there any sign that the right-wing Israeli government under Ariel Sharon is willing to come close to the Palestinian position.

Mr Sharon has categorically ruled out an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, and says he is against negotiating timetables. He has referred to Palestinian statehood, but there is little evidence that his vision of such an entity bears any resemblance to the nation which the Palestinians consider their right under international law.