Neo-Con DeLay Calls himself "an Israeli at heart"

Speaking a day after President Bush met at the White House with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, Mr. DeLay said that Mr. Bush "made clear that the prospects of peace are the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority," which must "fight terror and dismantle terrorist capabilities."

Mr. Bush also urged Mr. Sharon to ease restrictions on Palestinians and to restrain Israel's own actions. Yet Mr. DeLay, while declaring that Palestinians "have been oppressed and abused," said that the culprit — and "their enemy" — was Yasir Arafat, not Israel.

"Israel is not the problem," he said. "Israel is the solution."

An evangelical Christian, Mr. DeLay is a leader in Washington of the Christian Zionist movement, a bloc of conservative Republicans whose strong support for the Jewish state is based on their interpretation of the Bible. Before leaving Washington for his trip to the region, Mr. DeLay was sharply critical of the international peace plan known as the road map, which envisions a Palestinian state alongside Israel in three years.

Mr. Bush says he is committed to the plan, but Mr. DeLay said last week in an interview with The New York Times, "I can't imagine this president supporting a state of terrorists." He added, "You'd have to change almost an entire generation's culture."

Today, Mr. DeLay did not address the peace plan in detail. He said that he did not know if the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, would prove to be "the man to finally rid his people of the terrorist elements among them." But, in an apparent reference to the plan, he said, "peace is worth giving him the chance."

He dismissed a three-month suspension in attacks announced by the main Palestinian factions, saying that "murderers who take 90-day vacations are still murderers." If Palestinians continued letting violent men "speak for them," he said, then "they will remain terrorized under the boot-heel of evil."

Some right-wing Israeli politicians, including members of Mr. Sharon's government, have been strengthening ties to Mr. DeLay and other conservative Christians. His message dovetailed with their contention that only a Palestinian crackdown on violent groups, not Israeli concessions like restraining its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, can advance the cause of peace. Mr. DeLay did not refer to any Israeli obligations under the peace plan or to the possibility of a territorial compromise.

Mr. DeLay was invited today not to address the full parliament in its hall — an extremely rare honor for a foreign leader — but to give a lecture in the Parliament building for those legislators who wished to attend.

Uzi Landau, a minister who attended today's speech, said that he heard a "different emphasis" from Mr. DeLay than from Mr. Bush. Mr. DeLay, he said, put greater stress on the need "for a Palestinian government to uproot terror."

Mr. DeLay spoke hours before Israeli and Palestinian security leaders were to meet for further talks on the peace plan. The Palestinian security minister, Mohammed Dahlan, is pressing Israel to withdraw its forces from more Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank, permitting Palestinian security to resume policing those areas.

Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli defense minister, was expected to offer a withdrawal from Jericho and Qalqiliya. Palestinians call that offer miserly, noting that there is no Israeli army presence in Jericho, and that Qalqiliya is entirely surrounded by an Israeli wall, ditches, and roadblocks.

After a series of Palestinian suicide bombings last year, Israel seized West Bank cities and towns that it had ceded to Palestinian control as part of the Oslo peace process.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company.